If you own an iPad and have installed one of several productiveness apps , you might have noticed a new ( and much welcome ) feature : the ability to pass a file from one app to the other . For example , when you pick up a Pages document in your e - ring mail inbox , tapping and holding its image will result in a popover that expect you if you just want to Quick View the file or open it in Pages ( assume , of class , that you have a transcript of the latter set up on your iPad ) .
This is the result of a new feature of speech , called “ Document Support ” that Apple has softly sneaked into version 3.2 of iPhone O , which — at least right now — only runs on the iPad .
Document Support tolerate an app to “ record ” itself as the designated handler for a particular file character . Any app can then use the same functionality to unwrap whether another app can palm a single file and pass the latter on to it .
While the functionality itself is nothing new — any modernistic operating system is capable of doing the same — it does have some meaning implications for a program like iPhone OS , where apps typically hold out in their own “ sandbox ” and can take advantage of few — and very special — ways to talk to each other . papers Support reserve inter - app communication while giving the app that “ possess ” of a filing cabinet complete control over whether it can be transpose elsewhere on your gadget — you may think of it as a filesystem where file are “ pushed ” from one app to the other , rather than “ pulled ” by any app that wants to use them .
The main advantage of Document Support is that it finally allows apps to access datum beyond their own boundary without compromise the safety of the sandpile model in a significant way . Several iPad apps are already taking reward of this lineament , starting with Apple ’s owniWork entourage . Because the functionality is in public uncommitted to all developer , you may expect it to make its way of life into more and more applications : already , apps like ReaddleDocs and GoodReader offer the power to open up documents they substantiate from compatible apps , such as Mail .
What about Quick Look?
The top executive of Document Support currently extends to Quick Look only in a very special fashion . If , for example , you tap on an iWork document in Mail or Safari , a average panel will slew up and lay out a quick view of the written document , with the opportunity to launch the file in the appropriate iWork product .
Unfortunately , the same does n’t bring with non - Apple apps , because the Quick Look functionality is presently a “ private ” API that is not yet useable to developers outside the Cupertino umbrella .
There is , however , secure news on the purview : Apple has announce that Quick Look will be available to all developer in iPhone OS 4.0 , which should be uncommitted to iPad users this fall .
