iOS is one of the most popular operating systems, however the users are almost entirely prevented from directly accessing their own files and documents. This artificially makes the devices, partiularly the iPads significantly less capable that they ought to be and this inherently reduces their practical value and utility.

iOS devices should behave as small handheld computers, allowing free and unrestricted manipulation of user's documents using Apple's own Office suite apps or any of the third party tools. Apple should make it easy to copy, move, share and delete files. The current implementation is both unintuitive and very restrictive.

Further isses further arrise from the difficulty of deleting files. It is easy to fill up the relatively small storage device, but it can be very tricky and difficult to free up the space, or indeed to navigate between the content. As a result many users are pushed to purchase new and bigger devices.

Perhaps the most striking example would be taking a folder with a large array of mixed media on an ipad to a meeting. The user would be prevented from instantly accessing different types of files such as photos, presentations and spreadsheets.

The fix would only involve a minor software update and might be based on Finder or Explorer like app, and File Open/Save dialog API implementation.

The functionality is easily accessible in Android (via 3rd party apps on the phones) and is the staple of conventional computing on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux systems. However, Apple currently disalows direct file system access in iOS 8 and prior versions.