Collections (YC S12) is remaking the most basic part of the OS: The Finder

MatthewPhillips 13 years ago |

I wish them luck in their endeavor. My impression is another aggregator of proprietary web services isn't a need people have. Perhaps I am wrong. Others have tried this, albeit possibly not with the file manager angle, and it doesn't work out. I fear it is even more difficult today than it used to be as most web services do not want to be aggregated and fight against it. Nevertheless, this is a YC company and I hope they succeed.

rwmj 13 years ago |

I wish you better luck than Eazel:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eazel

Edit: I didn't realize they went public with such a ridiculous business plan. Dot com madness indeed ... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/08/22/hertzfeld_spills_all...

jfb 13 years ago | |

Ah yes. A "portal play".

snort

larrik 13 years ago |

OS X has become "the OS" now?

fusiongyro 13 years ago | |

Is Finder meaningfully different from the Windows Explorer, the BeOS Tracker, GNOME's Nautilus or KDE's Dolphin, or is it actually clear from context that every desktop OS has something like this that does the same work?

Locke1689 13 years ago | | |

The real question is are they replacing Finder, or the file manager?

If file manager, then they may have a Windows version too. If not, this becomes a Mac-focused article.

Terminology matters.

jcc80 13 years ago | | |

Right - they are referencing Finder which makes me think of the Mac OS. But then showing all the other services on their site makes me think this is something closer to what was Greplin (now CueUp).

cadr 13 years ago |

I wouldn't call "the finder" the most basic part of the OS...

samwillis 13 years ago | |

To a developer maybe not but to the average consumer the os is the layer where their files and software are, both of which are displayed through the desktop and the "finder" windows. They don't care and almost allways don't know about the drivers or kernel.

jmathai 13 years ago | | |

I'd argue that many (perhaps, most) people use the browser more often than the file browser to access content they're interested in. Orders of magnitude more, I'd think.

I don't think this app is competing against Finder as much as it is with Chrome/Firefox/Safari.

powershop-co 13 years ago | | |

It's not like there is a shortage of file management programs out there. They're basically creating one more, and layering on a bunch of hype about how they're doing something revolutionary

wingspan 13 years ago |

I am not sure how iOS or Android handles the file system (officially), but I do know that Windows 8 could use a clean, simple, touch-friendly File Explorer replacement.

I don't believe that the growing scheme of ignoring the file system, especially on mobile devices, and in some cases even forcing you to use cloud storage (to share data between apps, for instance) is an effective solution in the short-term.

spo81rty 13 years ago |

The ability to search all the assets on my computer and from common online services is a great idea.

bherms 13 years ago |

What about Alfred or Quicksilver? How is this different and why do you need a round of funding to support it?

jjtheblunt 13 years ago |

That's a really, really OS-ignorant title.

jsnk 13 years ago |

This is a great idea and I can't wait for some innovation in this area. But two requests to founders is that don't make this a social ads crapware.

1. Don't do any Twitter or Facebook shares or likes or bullshit of any sort related to social. I want absolutely no garbage from Twitter or Facebook in my local hard drive.

2. Don't display any ads whatsoever. Price it and ask the user to buy the software. I think Sublime Text 2 does this really well.