Skimming this, I just wanted to reply to this one bit:
> Befuddled users found they couldn’t send Pages 5 files through Gmail. It’s now fixed, as the What’s New in Pages screen proudly claims…
> > ° Updated file format makes it easier to send documents via services like Gmail and Dropbox
> …but how could such an obvious, non-esoteric bug escape Apple’s attention in the first place?
And the answer, if I recall correctly as to what was going on, was that this wasn't a bug with Apple's software at all. It was a consequence of the file format actually being a package, meaning it was really a document. Apple software all worked with documents just fine, and you'll find that if you tried to use Mail.app to send it, it would all Just Work™. The issue is that Gmail and other such services never even considered the idea that a user might want to send a whole folder and did not have any way to support that.
So the "fix" was to change the file format to actually be a compressed archive of the package (I assume it was a zip file, but I don't know how to go back and check). This made it work with all of the stupid software out there that assumed users would only want to transfer individual files.
Sure, perhaps the Pages team could have foreseen this issue. But that doesn't make it a bug in their software, just a case of only prioritizing compatibility with other aspects of Apple's software ecosystem.
Claiming that "this is not a bug" sounds a lot like "you are holding it wrong".
Software that doesn't perform as the user expects is almost always a bug. Yes, these folder-packages have been a problem for years. No, that doesn't mean Apple can just leave the problem as is.
For example, try emailing an app. Doesn't work. You need to zip it first. But why doesn't Mail.app just zip the file when I select it?
Why doesn't Safari automatically zip any package that I select for uploading?
Apple came up with the idea of packages, so they better fix the issues around them. Saying that Google should fix Gmail helps no-one.
Folders yes, packages no. I often email prerelease builds of my app to people. If I forget to zip the app, it arrives broken (but i havent checked yet what exactly breaks)
I just emailed myself an app from one computer to another using Mail.app and it worked perfectly.
The only thing I can think of is that maybe your email provider modifies the message in-flight because it contains an executable. And that's something Mail.app can't possibly work around. Although if manually zipping your app fixes it then I don't know why that would be.
> Befuddled users found they couldn’t send Pages 5 files through Gmail. It’s now fixed, as the What’s New in Pages screen proudly claims…
> > ° Updated file format makes it easier to send documents via services like Gmail and Dropbox
> …but how could such an obvious, non-esoteric bug escape Apple’s attention in the first place?
And the answer, if I recall correctly as to what was going on, was that this wasn't a bug with Apple's software at all. It was a consequence of the file format actually being a package, meaning it was really a document. Apple software all worked with documents just fine, and you'll find that if you tried to use Mail.app to send it, it would all Just Work™. The issue is that Gmail and other such services never even considered the idea that a user might want to send a whole folder and did not have any way to support that.
So the "fix" was to change the file format to actually be a compressed archive of the package (I assume it was a zip file, but I don't know how to go back and check). This made it work with all of the stupid software out there that assumed users would only want to transfer individual files.
Sure, perhaps the Pages team could have foreseen this issue. But that doesn't make it a bug in their software, just a case of only prioritizing compatibility with other aspects of Apple's software ecosystem.