This is an interesting line of reasoning that the Finder or the Folder system of heiracrchy for computers may have seen its days.
Frog Design is getting some attention with their recent notion that recent improvements in Mac OS Tiger may revolutionize the interface that orders files by folders. This nested approach to data storage may be a thing of the past with applications like SpotLight.
The new interface on the Mac OS Tiger release features a little blue magnifying glass in the upper right hand corner. You can click the link and open up a small form field to search your computer, much like you would use Google to search the web.
The folks at Frog consider that hard drives and storage space are beoming such that this new Spotlight interface actually does become a localhost search engine. Unlike a search for folders and files themselves, Spotlight actually looks a textual content including emails, PDFs and image files to find keyword searchese and matches.
The concept is a little extreme. I still prefer having a folder to grab all of my Mp3s and move them around in a few keystrokes. I can’t imagine that this interface would allow for that, but I do see a valuable use with Spotlight and find it more friendly every day.
URL: Tiger Tweaks Could Kill Folders