APFS is broken. Jobs would never have allowed this.

[Teste]

Apple File System, the biggest improvement no one asked for, is broken and is a slap in the face of non Americans.

Filenames do not accept any kind of special character, like the ones commonly used in many non English languages (see here for the why). This has been going on ever since the shift to APFS, and Apple has not bothered to usher a single comment about something that can corrupt thousands and thousands of files for most of the world.

It used to be that Apple had the most restrict ecosystem because they claimed "Apple just works". Well, they continue to have the most restrict ecosystem (night mode, anyone?), and it simply does not work anymore.

Steve Jobs must be rolling in his grave.

 

[Jesla]

*SLAP* *Slap*..... Wow that is fun.... third world problem.

 

[Teste]

*SLAP* *Slap*..... Wow that is fun.... third world problem.

Yep, that kind of bigotry is exactly Apple's attitude. Just because most of the third world countries are the ones using special characters and the USA doesn't use them, it's not a "real" problem.

Both here and in Apple it's disgusting.

 

[JMacHack]

It's still in beta, wait to throw a tantrum when it's released this fall.

 

[zachsdad]

Apple File System, the biggest improvement no one asked for, is broken and is a slap in the face of non Americans.

Filenames do not accept any kind of special character, like the ones commonly used in many non English languages (see here for the why). This has been going on ever since the shift to APFS, and Apple has not bothered to usher a single comment about something that can corrupt thousands and thousands of files for most of the world.

It used to be that Apple had the most restrict ecosystem because they claimed "Apple just works". Well, they continue to have the most restrict ecosystem (night mode, anyone?), and it simply does not work anymore.

Steve Jobs must be rolling in his grave.

[doublepost=1498238101][/doublepost]

We are talking about a file system right?, Not a spoken language? Your hypothesis, is that Apple's new file system somehow affronts non-Americans and then you further represent this as evidence that all Americans are bigots?

Wow... I'll bet there are far more important wrongs to be righted in the world (First, second or third, dont really care) than this trivial personal nuisance you describe.

I am sure that you will remember (or at least be able to search for) whatever you name your files - whether or not they have the "correct" characters in them and if you dont like Apple or other American products, then spend your money elsewhere. Solution is simple, dont use special characters or use a different operatiing system, Apple will find a way to cover the financial loss of your business.

 

[deadshift]

Apple File System, the biggest improvement no one asked for, is broken and is a slap in the face of non Americans.

I cannot judge what I have not seen... but seriously, we've been asking for a fundamentally improved filesystem for ... like 20 years. I'm sure it will have something wrong, but to act like nobody wanted it is to be absurdly naïve.

 

[Moriarty]

I don't get it. It looks like the final version will be okay with special characters?

https://medium.com/@yorkxin/apfs-docker-unicode-6e9893c9385d

 

[Teste]

I cannot judge what I have not seen... but seriously, we've been asking for a fundamentally improved filesystem for ... like 20 years. I'm sure it will have something wrong, but to act like nobody wanted it is to be absurdly naïve.

Ugh. You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?

This isn't about the iPad Files app. It's about the file system Apple has already made available since iOS 10.03, which changes normalization for Unicode characters - and thus breaks any file with special characters.

[doublepost=1498238101][/doublepost]

We are talking about a file system right?, Not a spoken language? Your hypothesis, is that Apple's new file system somehow affronts non-Americans and then you further represent this as evidence that all Americans are bigots?

Not all, only those so dismissive of the rest of the world that they claim the ridiculous "solution" of "just don't use special characters" is a solution at all.

 

[zachsdad]

Ugh. You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?

This isn't about the iPad Files app. It's about the file system Apple has already made available since iOS 10.03, which changes normalization for Unicode characters - and thus breaks any file with special characters.



Not all, only those so dismissive of the rest of the world that they claim the ridiculous "solution" of "just don't use special characters" is a solution at all.

[doublepost=1498263691][/doublepost] Now see, you were able to call me a bigot without even one special character and without even using the word. You sir, are truly talented. I hope that this is the greatest challenge you I will face in your life. Good luck.

 

[AidenShaw]

[doublepost=1498263691][/doublepost]
Now see, you were able to call me a bigot without even one special character and without even using the word. You sir, are truly talented. I hope that this is the greatest challenge you I will face in your life. Good luck.

Seriously - if APFS does not support UNICODE filenames it is a step backwards into the past.

For a time I lived in Genève - should I have to misspell all of my directories and files from that time as "Geneva" or "Geneve"? Should references to Genève Aéroport be lost if they are filenames?

My video and music files have their original names - do I have to misspell them to conform to a 1950's American character set?

I think that the OP is spot on - Steve would never have allowed such a blatant step backwards.

On Windows, if you're writing programs you are almost forced to use UNICODE filenames. While old ANSI APIs are still supported, most of the more useful and more modern filesystem APIs are UNICODE-only.

Is APFS a distant second to NTFS?

 

[zachsdad]

Seriously - if APFS does not support UNICODE filenames it is a step backwards into the past.

hey guys, we can be done here... if you all think that Apples omission of special characters in its early release is a signal of a third world snub by bigoted Americans then so be it... seriously... wow... carry on gentlemen.

 

[AidenShaw]

hey guys, we can be done here... if you all think that Apples omission of special characters in its early release is a signal of a third world snub by bigoted Americans then so be it... seriously... wow... carry on gentlemen.

It depends a hell of a lot on the underlying file system metadata.

If the underlying file system is fully UNICODE compliant, and the "early release" is 7-bit ASCII at the presentation layer - then it's merely a bad decision for the early release.

It's not a simple matter of "omission of special characters" at the presentation layer - it's whether the fundamental meta-data structures in the filesystem use UNICODE or wide characters, and whether the APIs use UNICODE characters. Old-style "American" names use a 7-bit ASCII character set. This was extended to an 8-bit character set that mapped most of the more common additional characters in western European languages. UNICODE uses up to 32-bits per character.

If the metadata structures and APIs are not UNICODE, it's very hard to fix it after shipping.

If you've ever done filesystem programming using UNICODE APIs you'd realize how ridiculous your statements are.

 

[zachsdad]

It depends a hell of a lot on the underlying file system metadata.

If the underlying file system is fully UNICODE compliant, and the "early release" is 7-bit ASCII at the presentation layer - then it's merely a bad decision for the early release.

It's not a simple matter of "omission of special characters" at the presentation layer - it's whether the fundamental meta-data structures in the filesystem use UNICODE or wide characters, and whether the APIs use UNICODE characters. Old-style "American" names use a 7-bit ASCII character set. This was extended to an 8-bit character set that mapped most of the more common additional characters in western European languages. UNICODE uses up to 32-bits per character.

If the metadata structures and APIs are not UNICODE, it's very hard to fix it after shipping.

If you've ever done filesystem programming using UNICODE APIs you'd realize how ridiculous your statements are.

Very good guys... points well made, hopefully Apple will address this before we are thrown into the 7-bit ASCII dark ages... have a great night and thanks for the entertainment...

 

[Analog Kid]

For those not quite following, there are two ways to create e-acute in Unicode. There is the precomposed character, and there is the two character sequence consisting of 'e' followed by the generic 'combining acute'.

APFS treats the file name as a meaningless string of bytes, thus doesn't assume an encoding and therefore doesn't change a file name you specifically assigned. If APFS normalized in the way the article talks about, then the file name you provide to the system will be changed by the file system, which I would find rather disconcerting.

The problem, as far as I can tell, is that the OS and application layers haven't fully implemented the input methods to support the normalization of file names. Of everything mentioned, the biggest problem I see is that the icon view hides files with similar names.

Beyond that, I think this is much ado about nothing and people creating situations in which confusion could be made to happen. There's already plenty of these in HFS+ as the system converts colons and slashes and a slew of other things that can cause the same kinds of confusion if you try hard enough. Not to mention case insensitivity (good riddance!).

And for the statement that the 3 byte form is least accessible from the keyboard? That seems flat out wrong to me.

The US English keyboard for Mac has precomposed e-acute, but can compose it as Option+e followed by e, like so: é

On the French keyboard, you can either enter the precomposed version directly: é
or compose it as Shift-Option-& followed by e: é

The availability of the combining marks through the option key make them more accessible through the keyboard.

I'd suggest holding back your rage when testing beta code. That's why it's beta. Instead, funnel that energy into useful feedback when you find a bug:
http://www.apple.com/feedback

Or, better yet since you're running the beta and thus obviously a developer, through the radar system:
https://developer.apple.com/bug-reporting/

 

[Howl's Castle]

APFS is still a work in progress. I don't think they should have shipped it until it was ready for the prime time.

 

[kanedavid]

APFS is still a work in progress. I don't think they should have shipped it until it was ready for the prime time.

Correct... it's not officially "shipped" as yet until High Sierra is "shipped". Therefore, it's still work in progress so any criticism of Apple should really be left until the file system is shipping in it's finished form.

 

[vkd]

third world problem

Correction: Developing country problem

 

[Tech198]

Apple File System, the biggest improvement no one asked for, is broken and is a slap in the face of non Americans.

Filenames do not accept any kind of special character, like the ones commonly used in many non English languages (see here for the why). This has been going on ever since the shift to APFS, and Apple has not bothered to usher a single comment about something that can corrupt thousands and thousands of files for most of the world.

It used to be that Apple had the most restrict ecosystem because they claimed "Apple just works". Well, they continue to have the most restrict ecosystem (night mode, anyone?), and it simply does not work anymore.

Steve Jobs must be rolling in his grave.

Beta's are still in development. Not real world issue. It's a new file-system.... but everyone wants everything not to have bugs....from the very beginning.

 

[MacGizmo]

The only thing Steve Jobs is rolling in his grave about is when people assume that Steve Jobs would roll over in his grave about their silly-arsed problems and opinions.

 

[Zirel]

Apple File System, the biggest improvement no one asked for, is broken and is a slap in the face of non Americans.

Filenames do not accept any kind of special character, like the ones commonly used in many non English languages (see here for the why). This has been going on ever since the shift to APFS, and Apple has not bothered to usher a single comment about something that can corrupt thousands and thousands of files for most of the world.

It used to be that Apple had the most restrict ecosystem because they claimed "Apple just works". Well, they continue to have the most restrict ecosystem (night mode, anyone?), and it simply does not work anymore.

Steve Jobs must be rolling in his grave.

The article is from April, this is June and it’s still in beta, they still have 3 months or more to fix that.

Ridiculous anti-Apple tantrum of the year.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Apple File System, the biggest improvement no one asked for, is broken and is a slap in the face of non Americans.

*SLAP* *Slap*..... Wow that is fun.... third world problem.

..Still trying to decide which of these two posts is the most ignorant one.

 

[gnasher729]

You don't have a released version of APFS. Nobody has a released version of APFS. So stop complaining until you find problems with a genuine released product.

 

[maflynn]

[MOD NOTE]
Closing this down, as the discussion is going no where at this point, given that beta/unreleased software is not ready for general consumption.