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I began telling them that if they would buy a Mac, I would give them 24/7 tech support without complaint. Initially, they scoffed, but as the Mac became fashionable, I had more and more family members calling to let me know they had switched. Now, most of them are Mac users and the rate of support calls have dropped from several a month to several a year.

These days, tech support calls involve questions of how to do stuff these folks like to do. Because they can now actually use their computers instead of simply restarting them, I’m able to better see how they use them. And the one commonality I’ve seen is that no one knows how to use the file system.

Unfortunately for the average person, the file system is so complex that everything outside of the desktop and the documents folder appears to be a vast labyrinth which most likely hides booby traps and minotaurs.

[..]

In Japanese aesthetics, one of the most striking things is the focus on negative space. The Japanese concepts of “Ma” and “Wabi-sabi” put as much focus on what is omitted as what is added. The result is beautiful art and architecture that invoke a sense of peace and stillness.

Apple is doing something rather daring with their new iPhone OS. They are essentially omitting features that people once took for granted in a typical computer. And one of the biggest things they’ve omitted is the visual file system. Instead, in the iPhone OS, the concept of the file is essentially gone. It’s been replaced by “apps and their stuff.”