Doug’s Rumor Corner: iPhone 2.0 “Safe Directory”
Faithful Macenstein reader Doug is back once again with his trademark “inside info”, this time with some dirt on the iPhone’s (alleged) upcoming “Safe Directory”.
(It should be pointed out that after 7 or so “inside scoops”, we have yet to be contacted by Apple legal about any of Doug’s inside information. Still, they are always fun to read).
iPhone 2.0 “Safe Directory”
A feature that may or may not see the light of day in the iPhone 2.0 software is “Safe Directory”.
Opening up the iPhone’s drive for the saving of files, like the Finder on desktop OS X, was discarded because of the need to make the iPhone’s OS as stable and reliable as possible. But this feature was one of the first to be enabled as a hack solution, and continues to be much in demand.
“Safe Directory” would be an Apple solution. It creates a partition that is protected in similar fashion to File Vault. Get an email with a Word file attached? Of course you can view it, but now you can also choose to save it. By default it goes only in your Safe Directory, you are not presented with the option to move to another directory or to rename the file. Need to download a PDF from Safari? Save it in your Safe Directory. Want to save a photo without having to go thru all that iPhoto syncing? Save it in your Safe Directory.
But here’s where it gets cool. As soon as your iPhone gets within range, a message on your Mac will pop-up, saying “an iPhone that syncs with this Mac would like to transfer files to your Mac. Allow or Do Not Allow? Click Allow and the files are wirelessly copied to your Mac. The first time you do this, a folder in your user folder will be created called From iPhone Safe Directory – it will also appear automatically in your Finder and iTunes sidebars.
Don’t know if its Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, both may be supported.
Reminds me of the Vista commercial… Mac has sent you a greeting, Cancel or Allow?
Reason that accessing the iPhone as a storage device was discarded was that you’d have to eject it before undocking it (a la iPod). This would be a real pain when your iPhone rings when it’s sitting in the dock… so they made it only accessible during those brief syncing phases.