Dealing with an insurance claim and I receive a text from the insurance company:
(Link text has been edited/broken to protect the not-so innocent)
“The estimate for your claim has been approved for Claim # xxxxxx-04. If you would like more information please contact your URANUS CASUALTY INSURANCE CO claim representative. Click on the link to view estimate.
When I hit the link on iPad or iPhone, latest non-beta iOS, a new Safari tab opens with a pop up: “Do you want to download ‘estimate.pdf’? and an underlined blue “download” link. When I touch it the only thing that happens is the previous Safari tab, having nothing to do with this, opens.
The only way to see the file is to open Files and search for it.
Is this a bug or a feature I don’t understand?
As an aside, the only categories possible above using iPad (and a category must be chosen in order to post), are TidBITS Talk or Site Feedback.
Sometimes, clicking on the link may show the PDF or text file directly in Safari (it may not be obvious that’s happending, particularly if the full file name isn’t visible. In that case, you should be able to click on the share icon and select Save to Files.
Other times, clicking on the link may a Javascript that tries to cleverly figure out how to deliver the file to your browser, and trying to download/save what’s presented then can be a real problem – sometimes sending you into a loop as you describe. If you can click on the share icon and see Save to Files, there’s a good chance that’ll work; if not, well good luck (I’d try viewing using a different browser, or Safari on the Mac). Or look for something else that appears in the share icon (strange but true: sometimes Books can work, other times, Notes can work).
Ah, sometimes you wouldn’t want to download, even if you could. I keep seeing email messages like these – although this is the first I’ve seen which actually had warnings on it:
Thanks for this; the thing I don’t understand is why the “traditional” functionality of being able to click (right click, option click, some kind of click…;-) and then be able to choose a location/rename the file is not a thing.
Certainly something to do with the functionality/variety of file systems but it sure seems like a reasonable expectation across MacOS and iOS.
Depending on how the file is “downloaded,” (Safari, Mail, Messages, etc.) You may get a choice of where to save or what to open with (which then might go to that app’s /Files/thatapp or into the mysterious places iOS used to put app files). “Not consistent” is being kind. Maybe w/ Mirroring, users might be able to at least make their own sense of it?
Granted the iOS interface had to be different from macOS in many situations, but often, it seemed like they deliberately “reinvented the wheel.”
