When Federico talked about subfolders on iOS 4 earlier today, he started to hit on an issue with folders in general. Management. We’re entering an era of computing where it’s not so much about where you store files, but about your device taking care of you. I suppose the word I want to use is “containers.” In iOS 4, we have a hidden container for photographs and pictures which the Photos app manages, and we have a hidden container for podcasts and music which the iPod app manages. My ideas of management have been fluctuating lately, and today I’m feeling a little frisky: people shouldn’t have to manage the files and folders on their computer even though they want to.
I even think of the Mac having containers; your Documents folder; your Downloads folder; your Desktop folder; all of these are places where users dump files for basic organization. Some wish to further their organization with subfolders, but when it comes to finally retrieving documents it can be a pain.
Blast realizes that finding files between editing and viewing can be cumbersome – it’s worse when you can’t even remember what you worked on yesterday if you happen to have weird naming conventions. Blast by Apparent sits in your menubar and gives you access to recently used files and applications which helps reduce the need to navigate the filesystem.