Multitasking

[NSquirrel]

Perhaps I have missed something, but I feel that multitasking is missing an obvious facility.

When I swipe to move to another application (i.e. left or right) I often swipe the wrong way and hit the end stops, which is either an app I think to be the least used or the Home page. So then I have to swipe the other way until I find the required application. (OK. I could do an upward multi-fingered swipe to show all apps, and then move the one I want, but side-swiping is more intuitive to me.) Also I have noticed that the most recently used app is always at the left hand end, nearest the home page. (Hence I think that the order of the apps may be determined by when the apps were last used and hence be dynamic.)

My thoughts are that if you swipe right, say, then you should just go round in a circle through your open apps, and the home page, until you get back to where you started, or have stopped at another app. (Anyone of a certain age may remember something called the Switcher, by Andy Hertzfeld in 1986!, as Apple's first steps into multi-tasking on Macs -probably back in the times of System 4 -or perhaps earlier, which acted like this.)

Any thoughts?

 

[goofy8275]

I agree. I feel that a good multitasking system is something that iOS has always lacked.

 

[s2mikey]

Yeah, sometimes it's not obvious which way to swipe but it works fairly well for me. As for true multi tasking, I wouldn't count on it. The iPad just isn't designed to work as a laptop or desktop would. I also feel splitting the screen between two apps or more just ruins the screen size and now I have two apps showing that both too small to do much with.

But, they could do a better way to cycle through the open apps. Maybe with less swipes and taps or whatever?

 

[NSquirrel]

...I also feel splitting the screen between two apps or more just ruins the screen size...

I haven't seen the split screens apart from a demo somewhere online and I too think that it will be a problem with the screen size. Perhaps with the rumoured larger iPad it will be more appropriate, but not on the standard, let alone the mini.

 

[Ser Aphim]

Bah multitasking isn't really doing what the names says it does.

 

[LannyC]

No, it's not...because true multitasking would reduce the vaunted 10-hour battery life dramatically. It's one of the compromises I'm willing to accept in a tablet.

Still, it could be done better. I would gleefully give up the pull-down notification center, which I find useless, for a pull-down list of running apps. A downward flick is far easier than swiping up with four fingers...then waiting a couple of seconds to see if it worked. We don't need the present fancy scrolling graphical treatment, either, just a list with icons.

 

[NSquirrel]

...I would gleefully give up the pull-down notification center, which I find useless, for a pull-down list of running apps...

Excellent suggestion; perhaps as a selectable option as some users may actually use the notification center.

 

[twerppoet]

With the advent of Today widgets, I'm getting rather attached to my pull down notification center. Especially on the iPhone.

Please find yourselves another sacrificial gesture, thank you very much.

BTW, I dont' use the task switching gestures anymore. I find it easier and more consistent to use the double home button click. I have a few apps where the swipe up gesture for multitask occasionally interfered with what I was trying to do. Drawing apps, mostly.

It takes just a bit more effort than side swiping between apps, but I also know exactly which app I'm getting each time.

 

[Ser Aphim]

Sadly I never found a use for the notification center at all. Nor the multitasking gestures.

 

[zain8500]

Nice sharing thanks.