I am not sure why this is being touted as a "hidden" gem, it was on the feature list and expounded as much as many of the other features in iOS6.<p>It is inexcusable that it wasn't previously possible to upload photos to sites (one of what is now the most common use cases for the internet) without involving a native app. The iOS ecosystem struggles to find a middle ground between native and a competitive/competent browser. This feature was no doubt strongly argued by Apple's PMs for many years, but finally they won out over some other dept's PM team.<p>We should at least be thankful that it wasn't introduced as a Safari-only feature.<p>The idea that there isn't a file system is nothing more than a suspension of disbelief, of course there's a file-system, it's just that there are folder handlers that know how to render the contents, it's actually an idea that can be traced back (possibly further to other sources also) to Microsoft's active directory notion. It morphed over the years and never became what was originally planned but iOS is very similar in how it 'hides' the underlying architecture. Camera Roll is ~/Photos + Pinterst-like dynamic grid a la Masonry.
Yup, <i>input type=file</i> only took them 5 or 6 years to finally implement while Android has had it since 2.0<p>But since ipad1 can never have ios6, you'll have to do alternative methods for any website service you operate for years to come.
You can also upload multiple files:<p><input type="file" multiple><p>And you can also set an access type:<p><input type="file" accept="video/<i>"><p><input type="file" accept="image/</i>">
This is great but sadly you can't resize images in the same version of mobile safari so it limits the usefulness for image uploads. There is a bug that makes large images incorrectly render to a canvas. It seems odd that this wasn't a use case they tested against.
You can upload images...but rotation isn't preserved unless they're coming out of the user's Photo Stream bucket.<p>I think that hidden gem has a couple chips in it.
I spent 20 minutes playing with balloonduck.com at the gym the first time because I thought the ability to upload pics from mobile safari was so great. Then I went on with my life.
You can upload things, yet have nearly nothing resembling a filesystem accessible to users. How's that work? Do you just use your iCloud or Dropbox files?
Perhaps, it's not a hidden gem but a needed pursuit which most of us waited for. I know so many developers who were forced to use third party APIs (picplz etc.) just to have normal web experience on their application.<p>Anyway, this is good news for the web. Hope the browsers on tablets go beyond their 'mobile' paradigm and there is increase both in horsepower and adoption of web standards.