Well let's broaden this, there is no concept of files on the iPhone, and yes, you DO need them.
Example: try attaching an excel sheet you received from a friend to another email.
Example: the powerful Android "share" mechanism --the sole reason I have several iPads but switched to Android for real work (ie on my phone). Share is not limited to a bunch of "friend-aware" apps, but every app can register themselves as a "handler" for particular data objects (files), e.g. "picture" "pdf document" etc, and when you hit "share" all of these are shown in a list. No more circuitous nonsense where you have to open a file in goodreader or save it to dropbox first, so you can access it with another app, which speeds up things tremendously.
I think it's pretty safe to say that moving data from one app to the next is something everyone needs.
Honestly, "Share" is one of the most brilliant features Android has. Great example of something potentially minor (built-in "social sharing") becoming massively useful through extensibility.
Okay but the concept of files versus the specific application of a file manager are different things. I completely agree that iOS needs to expose file representations better between applications, but I think the very notion of a file manager is still utterly redundant for a large percentage of new smartphone owners.
Example: try attaching an excel sheet you received from a friend to another email.
Example: the powerful Android "share" mechanism --the sole reason I have several iPads but switched to Android for real work (ie on my phone). Share is not limited to a bunch of "friend-aware" apps, but every app can register themselves as a "handler" for particular data objects (files), e.g. "picture" "pdf document" etc, and when you hit "share" all of these are shown in a list. No more circuitous nonsense where you have to open a file in goodreader or save it to dropbox first, so you can access it with another app, which speeds up things tremendously.
I think it's pretty safe to say that moving data from one app to the next is something everyone needs.