My opinion on Apple's use is mixed. In cases like the OS X lock screen, the use is great. It signifies an inability to continue until the device is unlocked while hinting at the content underneath.
Other uses are gratuitous and often the blurring and blending of colors creates weird sensations where what is underneath a window seems more important. I can see something is there, but can't make out the details, make me anxious that I'm missing something happening in the window.
Well the fundamental flaw is that the view presented to the user is rooted in the representation the filesystem implementor chose, the user should effortlessly be able to switch between different views and add additional ones, Apples' "All My Files" together with the ability to filter and save those filters is brilliant and very much in the right direction, although it should support some form of join operation.
One idea would be, that in addition it should be possible to execute computations on the current view of the filesystem and the possible computational primitives are selected by the "type" of the files (essentially find a way to lift a typed version of the unix shell with pipes to the GUI level).
Another idea would be to emphasise versioning and time based information more. For example with the current storage capability it makes little sense for the default save operation when working on a document to be "destructively replace the old one". Obviously as a programming one is aware of that and uses version control systems, but so far I had multiple occasions when working on a collaborative project not involving code, where the versioning was done by appending suffixes to folder names.
I find the Apple OSX finder's half hearted attempts to hide the file system a pain in the arse.
What does work quite well for me is the default approach of Gmail where your emails are in basically one folder with a good and fast search facility (and tagging)
Your post contains no useful information, and thus contributes nothing to the discussion. Ergo, downvotes. The only way to work out what you're talking about is to go through your comments (which I did) and synthesise based on founder bios and a job posting. Even then there is little to no concrete information about empiric.al that I could find in the few minutes I spared for this.
Here's a post that might have worked better, and maybe even could have got you some marketing/interest. I didn't downvote you the first time, but I would be far less likely to downvote this:
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I agree completely. File management is still an unsolved problem and existing solutions are not optimal by any stretch of the imagination. It's really only getting worse as more and more user data moves to various independent and unconnected online services. Even if you manage your local files in a satisfactory manner you can't use the same system everywhere.
I'm actually actually working on a product that should help alleviate that problem. It does $ACTUAL_DETAILS and works by $IMPLEMENTATION. Our site is barebones for now (empiric.al if you want to read more about founders or sign up for information), but we're really excited about what we've built so far and aim to launch next month. Hit me up on $EMAIL if you'd like to discuss it!
Your comment had zero content and no value for anyone other than you.
I'm happy you're excited about your launch, but, unless you're linking a technical, or at least informative, blog post or similar that describes ways you're solving the problem the person you replied talked about, Hacker News isn't the right place to brag.
Fair enough. The user mentioned that no one seems to be rethinking the file system so I just wanted to say that we were, but obviously we don't have the materials ready to link to pre-launch.
Other uses are gratuitous and often the blurring and blending of colors creates weird sensations where what is underneath a window seems more important. I can see something is there, but can't make out the details, make me anxious that I'm missing something happening in the window.