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IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

marco.org

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Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#51

Post by politician »

smackfu wrote: post #24
wmf wrote: post #7

Clearly, apps that cache data need to be modified to show the difference between having no data and having no data cached. IMAP clients have dealt with this, for example; they show a message like "the contents of this folder are not available offline". Perhaps Apple could have made cache cleaning opt-in on a per-app basis until iOS 6, though.

The main issue is that iOS is deciding that you don't need something offline without asking you. I don't want my cached email to turn out to have been deleted because I downloaded something else entirely. Many people would prefer the old method, where it would say you were out of space, and you would have to go free up some space.

That's right; the solution is to make it easier to see which apps are using how much space and then provide a "clear" button.

My Nintendo Wii uses a "blocks" concept for this. It works fine, Apple should just copy it.

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#52

Post by ufuk »

psychotik wrote: post #34

Isn't NSApplicationSupportDirectory for stuff that isn't "Documents" and yet needs to be managed as app state (not in 'Caches')? Why not just use that instead? That's what my app does and it seems to be OK with iOS 5.

Well, according to the documentation that folder is backed up to iTunes as well. Actually, it seems, the only folder that skips backups to iTunes in the Library folder is the Caches folder.

The relevant part of the documentation is here: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/FileMa...

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#53

Post by 77ko »

mrcharles wrote: post #27
thehigherlife wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS 5 now lets you see per app space usage. (it's under Settings > General > Usage) I don't see anyway to delete that temp data, however, only the app itself (for non-apple apps).

That's only the data that will be backed up to iCloud though, so it probably doesn't include cache/tmp.

It does

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#54

Post by biturd »

wrs wrote: post #38

It seems fair to say that Instapaper's version of an article can't be "redownloaded" for various reasons (offline, paywall, article removed, etc.) so it would be OK to put it in the Documents folder. The argument against that is that you're now syncing that article with iCloud in addition to Instapaper. But I wonder whether the correct answer is instead to eliminate Instapaper's sync feature, and just let iCloud do i…

I see it being a long while before everyone has iCloud up and running. We installed it last night on a relatively new MBP, to learn it doesn't work without Lion, so now we are upgrading to Lion. It will only work on certain phones, I believe 3GS and above.

Maybe Apple will release iCloud for Snow Leopard, but as it is now, instapaper works all the way down to the terrible version 2 iPhone I have had to resort to using in order to not sign into a new contract waiting on the release of the 4s.

Instapaper would hurt too many current users who are just fine with how things work without the cloud.

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#56

Post by JeffDClark »

masklinn wrote: post #32
JeffDClark wrote: post #13

The whole idea of an app like Instapaper (or any of the other examples presented) is that the "stuff" that is saved for later is all user-generated content. Some articles may even vanish (different location, move behind a paywall, deleted, etc...). In this case those articles would become inaccessible when the OS deletes the cache. It seems that the argument that only the list of metadata is user-generated can apply…

> Some articles may even vanish (different location, move behind a paywall, deleted, etc...). In this case those articles would become inaccessible when the OS deletes the cache. As far as I know, all scraped articles are stored in Instapaper's server and downloaded from there, you don't get them directly from the source page.

I have had articles in my list that have become unavailable. No amount of trying to re-download them works. What you say makes sense but I am unfamiliar with the exact way that it works.

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#57

Post by cschep »

So, people (developers) are going to have to put their stuff in Documents, and instruct users to disable the iCloud sync for their particular app, unless the user really wants to have it eat into their iCloud storage.

Would that work?

Re: IOS 5's "Cleaning" Behavior

#59

Post by mrgrieves »

psychotik wrote: post #34

Isn't NSApplicationSupportDirectory for stuff that isn't "Documents" and yet needs to be managed as app state (not in 'Caches')? Why not just use that instead? That's what my app does and it seems to be OK with iOS 5.

I do the same thing. Apple is unclear about this, however. ApplicationSupport is at /Library/Application Support, and /Library definitely does get backed up to iTunes.

http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#DOCUMENTATION/FileMa...

That said, I think we're in the clear with respect to iCloud backups:

"Devices with an active iCloud account have their app data backed up to iCloud at appropriate times. And for devices that are plugged into a computer, iTunes performs an incremental backup of the app’s data files."

It's ambiguous. But "app data" sounds like documents, whereas "app's data files" sounds like big data files in /Library to me.

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