
Apple iPad Gets Split-Screen Multitasking in iOS 9 - zhuxuefeng1994
http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/08/apple-ipad-gets-split-screen-multitasking-in-ios-9
======
Someone1234
It is nice to see Apple has finally started taking notice of the competition
(larger phones, multi-tasking, alternative keyboards/swipe, etc). It seems
like Apple stalled in terms of progression there for a few years, maybe after
Jobs everyone was too scared to make any significant changes to the golden
goose.

I will say I haven't seen too much "innovation" from Apple in recent years.
Progression, yes, but innovation no. Apple used to lead the field, and now
they're just another "me too" device seller. The Apple Watch in particular is
highly disappointing compared to what existed before it (e.g. Moto 360), but
for what they lack in innovation they have more than made up for with
advertising dollars and celebrity endorsements.

~~~
untog
_I will say I haven 't seen too much "innovation" from Apple in recent years.
Progression, yes, but innovation no._

Agreed. The iPhone was groundbreaking. The iPad somewhat. Since then they've
done some great work on their laptop line, but that's about it. They were even
late to the game with smartwatches.

Of course, the problem with complaining about things like this is that I have
no idea what I actually want Apple to do, except surprise me.

~~~
Someone1234
I'd say that things like the integrated fingerprint reader (2012) on the home
button was pretty innovative/bleeding edge. It was a bit of a gimmick, but
ultimately they pushed the boundaries of what anyone else had done. Ditto with
Siri (2011), while Windows Vista had basic speech recognition in 2006, Siri
was able to merge the latest speech recognition with the user's data, to give
the user compelling results.

So I don't think Apple needs another iPad/iPhone to be called innovative, it
can be new software features, or little hardware features. I just genuinely
cannot remember the last time I've legitimately been jealous of an Apple
exclusive feature. Maybe Lightning's reversible-ness in 2012? What since then?
That was three years ago.

~~~
Cantremeber
Literally the first smart phone I owned had that.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G)

It was sort of gimmicky (as were a lot of the features of the Atrix) but it
existed on Android first.

Of course it never worked once I switched to cyanogen mod and I never used it
even when it did work.

~~~
s73v3r
The Atrix had a fingerprint sensor, but it didn't really do anything other
than unlock the phone. The sensor on iOS allowed for far deeper integration
into the system. That was innovative.

~~~
themartorana
It seems obvious to me. Perhaps it's hindsight, but Apple's full-stack control
of hardware and software make it obvious.

It's non-obvious on Android/pre-Android because software developers won't care
much about an API for a fraction of an OS's market. Which is why I'd venture
to guess most Android apps still don't take advantage of fingerprint sensors.

------
fpgaminer
I remember watching a video awhile back that noted how Steve Jobs, being keen
on eastern religions, brought Zen principals into his surrounding environment.
In that particular case, they showed how his home was very spartan, eliciting
an expression of focus and elimination of distractions from the task at hand.
The point they were making was that this showed through his products. On the
iPad, you can only do one thing at a time. You have to focus on that one
thing, and are not able to be bothered by distractions such as other
windows/programs.

Of course, having multiple apps open on the earlier iPads would have been
quite challenging anyway, so this was either a happy coincidence or an
excuse/interpretation made after the fact. But the idea was cool none the
less. It made me think about how distracting and unfocused work on a normal
desktop can feel like compared to an iPad. The downside, of course, is that
while this inability to have multiple things open side-by-side is fine for
casual usage and entertainment, it makes a lot of tasks related to creation
and work quite difficult.

So it will be a relief to finally have this feature on iOS. It certainly was a
pain point. But that concept of focusing on a single task without distractions
is still something worth remembering.

~~~
goatforce5
> But that concept of focusing on a single task without distractions is still
> something worth remembering.

Apple has a habit of pooh-poohing any idea that they don't currently support
right up until the moment that they do support that idea.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
Gonna have to side with this. The parent poster is effectively trying to
rationalize what is a technical regression by most interpretations under a
veil of woo and mysticism.

~~~
ethanbond
I'm not sure about this specific scenario (seems to me you're right, it's
technical), but this principle has been actually used before and abandoned
recently. The size of the iPhone 6 is a great example of something Jobs
dismissed under usability notions, despite them certainly having the technical
ability to do it. Now it's done.

Although not sure if Jobs changed his mind, or if this was a "post-Jobs"
decision. Apple's product development timeline would make that seem
unreasonable.

~~~
LiweiZ
Apple Watch offers a new screen to work with. Single-hand operation is still
possible. It does not match the experience before for the moment, but it will
get better. Viewing it as user surrounded by devices, it will offer a clearer
picture.

~~~
bane
You need two hands (or rather two arms and one hand) to operate an Apple
Watch.

~~~
LiweiZ
I think voice control (Siri here) will reduce the need for another hand to get
involved in operation. Actually, we could categorize all the operations. I
guess for most of those high frequency operations, voice control + wrist
triggered display + customized settings would be fine for many users, if they
are working well. I believe Apple has fact-based analysis on this and made
their choice. How that would deliver is another story.

------
founderling
One reason that I do not use my iPad as a productivity device is that I do not
understand the security model. I would need a terminal app with ssh
capabilies. But how do I know if the maker of the app is sending my SSH
credentials to his server or something? Does apple check that? Is the process
how apple prevents this documented somewhere?

At the moment, I only use software that is in the debian repos. At least I
understand the security model of debian to some degree. And it is open and
verifiable to everybody.

I wonder why the Linux distros are so slow to adapt to tablets.

~~~
amyjess
> I wonder why the Linux distros are so slow to adapt to tablets.

Tight hardware integration. Most tablets have locked-down bootloaders that
make it difficult to replace the default OS.

You've also pretty much got to start over when it comes to drivers. Linux used
to have _terrible_ driver support back in the day -- I remember carefully
choosing motherboards and laptops because I wanted a Linux-compatible chipset
-- those days are over on the desktop (except for a few esoteric peripherals),
but it's going to hit hard on mobile. Imagine booting your tablet onto Linux
but not being able to use the GPS or some other piece of connectivity.

And then, you've got to take all your established GUI code and throw it in the
trash and start over. Nothing from the desktop world is going to be usable in
a touch environment. The big desktop environments all have heritage going back
to the late '90s. You can still see some KDE 1 and GNOME 1 layouts used in
their modern KDE Applications and GNOME 3 descendants, and the stuff that was
replaced was replaced one app at a time. Throwing everything out and starting
over is harder than it looks.

But, still, we've got some attempts at this. Look at Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish,
and Plasma Active, for example. In the past, we had Maemo 5, which was
amazing, and it was everything I wanted in a touch-based Linux distro, but the
only company that had pockets deep enough to fund its development turned away
from the platform, and the closest thing it has to a successor (Sailfish) has
been a disappointment. Also, even that required the distro developer be an
established hardware manufacturer: Maemo 5 couldn't have worked if it was just
an OS that could only be installed on third-party devices.

~~~
gtk40
I'm running Ubuntu on my Windows tablet (Acer Iconia W700) now, typing from it
in fact. Interestingly enough, I had no driver issues (everything as far as I
can tell worked perfectly with a fresh Ubuntu install), but I've had more
software issues with touch support. I thought Ubuntu was supposed to be better
with that, and while multitouch gestures seem to work with Unity, there are
very few places where they are implemented.

------
devindotcom
One of the few features from Windows 8 I was hoping Apple and others would
adopt. 8 really did have some interesting innovations in the 'productive
tablet' world, it was just... well, we all know what it was.

Think they'll bring in a "charms" thing for quick actions, maybe from the left
side?

------
Yhippa
This is a feature I love on my Windows 8 tablets. Glad to see iOS will be
getting this.

~~~
sahaskatta
I've loved the snapping apps to sides of a screen on my Surface for the past
few years, however does anyone know whether the full-screen snapping is still
around in Windows 10? It seems like Microsoft may have removed it in favor of
a simply snapping apps within the desktop.

~~~
Someone1234
Windows 10 has two "modes." Tablet mode, which is very similar to 8.1, and
desktop mode which is a mash up between 8.1 bits and Windows 7 bits (e.g. apps
in windows, no full screen Start Screen, etc).

So in answer to your question: If you're in tablet mode then it will still
offer that in Windows 10.

------
nkoren
Great feature. I used to love doing this with my Amiga.

~~~
ytdht
it is pretty crazy how computers are going backwards lately

------
zyxley
Note that as of the moment, this will only be available on the iPad Air 2.

~~~
zippergz
Probably because of memory limitations; I would be surprised to see it ever
come to older devices because they were already pretty memory-constrained.

~~~
markque
The only reason to do this is increase the sales of the latest iPad, there is
no technical reason. Again apple treats it's customers like shit

~~~
JadeNB
This seems like a bold claim to throw out without substantiation. It is
undeniable that older devices are more resource-limited, and do run the latest
OS faster. Sure, Apple probably is trying to push sales of new devices (which
is their right—they have no obligation to retrofit the latest-and-greatest
features to old devices); but to say that's the _only_ reason seems rather
strong.

~~~
markque
I should have said, I meant the fact that the iPad Air won't get it. It's
almost the same device, fair enough older iPads won't receive it.

~~~
abhorrence
The Air 2 has twice as much ram as the Air, and memory has long been the
constraining factor on the iPad.

------
walterbell
If Apple introduces a larger iPad Pro with multitasking, this will shine more
(blue) light on human eyes and create a need for platform-wide color
temperature adjustment in iOS. At present, this is only available in a few
apps. On desktops, it is available via fl.ux.

~~~
spython
f.lux is available on jailbroken ios devices.

~~~
walterbell
Anyone who uses iPad at night would benefit from blue light control in iOS.
This is a larger group of people than those who are willing and able to
jailbreak their iPad.

------
BinaryIdiot
If only they allowed the iPhone 6 Plus to do some of these neat iPad features.
Surely some of them would work at least in landscape mode.

~~~
codezero
Nobody has really implemented landscape mode in their apps on iPhone 6 plus. I
expect the same will be true for this feature.

~~~
wingerlang
Well if the iPhone6+ is in landscape, it would fit two "portrait" mode apps
side by side.

~~~
codezero
That's not quite what I meant.

iOS 8 with the launch of iPhone 6 Plus promised to allow developers to make
their portrait mode apps also run in landscape mode on the larger device.

No developers actually made use of this feature, so it's pointless.

~~~
wingerlang
Oh, do you know where I can read about that? Never heard about it before.

~~~
codezero
Nothing solid but this is a start: [http://thenewsprint.co/2014/12/17/the-
state-of-the-iphone-6-...](http://thenewsprint.co/2014/12/17/the-state-of-the-
iphone-6-plus-landscape-screen/)

~~~
wingerlang
It seems developers still have to implement a specific controller/something
for that. I thought you mean something different where it would all be
somewhat automatic.

~~~
codezero
That's exactly my point. When it was announced it wasn't obvious that this
didn't come for "free" and I am saying the new dual pane feature is likely to
need the same such implementation which won't attract developers.

------
SwellJoe
I've always thought tiling window managers were the future (as they're just
flat out superior to windowing systems for many, many workflows). I just
didn't know it would be Apple that would make it popular. But, maybe tiling
will become the de facto UI for everything in the next few years. I'd like
that.

~~~
Cantremeber
A vague tiling like functionality has been available in Windows since 7. In 10
it looks they're finally expanding this to have more options then just halves,
something I've been doing with a third party program for awhile now (it has
halves, thirds, and quarters).

This is not a true tiling WM but I've personally found their use a bit limited
as there are times when it makes sense to have multiple windows overlapping,
at least in my own work.

------
mark_l_watson
I will wait until this ships, but I don't think that I will like it more than
quickly switching apps with a sideways swipe. For example: I write a lot on my
iPad, keeping a text editor open to a markdown file and a PDF open in an
adjacent app. I sometimes quickly swipe back and forth when making edits.

I recently bought a keyboard cover for my iPad, which I don't often use, but
an iPad Air with a keyboard cover overlaps some laptop use cases, and the
split screen might be useful.

~~~
walterbell
Which iOS tools do you use to generate PDFs from Markdown?

~~~
mark_l_watson
leanpub web service, reads manus rope from dropbox and put generated pdc,
kindle, and I book files back into dropbox.

------
rebootthesystem
Not going to make any difference. The plain fact is that iOS sucks for any
real work and the OSX UI is a disaster that came out of not wanted to let go
of an idea that worked OK on a little 9 inch Mac screen.

The second assertion is the easiest to prove. Setup a Mac to drive a wall of
six or nine HD or better 65 inch monitors and see how quicly you end up at the
doctor with carpal tunnel and intense shoulder and arm pain. Not so with most
Linux platforms, Windows and even going back to Irix and Solaris.

On he iOS front, well, it's mostly good for games, browsing and very simple
tasks (like credit card scanners). Anything beyond that where there's far more
user involvement the whole touch thing falls apart very quickly. Try entering
a few thousand transactions into an accounting program, maintaining a large
codebase or working with a non-trivial Excel file. It's a great "fun and
games" interface, but that's about it.

Apple Watch. Dead as a doornail.

I am getting the feeling that Apple is noe entering into the downward slope
that ultimately happens once all the smoke and bullshit clears out.

Context: We develop for all platforms and have been using Macs since the
Original 9 inch CRT models.

~~~
rebootthesystem
The thing about down-votes is that they don't change reality one bit. They
might provide the voter immediate satisfaction but the truth of the matter
isn't modified in any way.

Let's see how this Apple thing plays out over the next few years. I run into
more and more people every day that are sick and tired of their i-device and I
have yet to hear anyone at all say they have any interest whatsoever on the
Apple watch.

So, down-vote or not, whether you agree with me or not is immaterial at this
stage. The only thing that matters is whether or not my opinion today will
hold true a few years from now. I think it will. And, of course, I could be
wrong. That's the way it goes.

~~~
zimpenfish
Thing is, people have been saying "Let's see how this Apple thing plays out
over the next few years" since 2007 and they keep growing.

"I have yet to hear anyone at all say they have any interest whatsoever on the
Apple watch"

A million pre-orders on day one would suggest you might not be representitive
here.

The watch definitely interests me - smart notifications on the Garmin 920XT
have convinced me of the utility.

------
dwarman
Many years ago - 2010 to be precise - I installed Desktop for iPad by Aqua
Eagle. I don't think it ever got updated. It is still installed, still works
on iOS 7.1.2, but is no longer in the store nor, interestingly, does it show
up in my list of installed Apps. It implements split screen multitasking,
albeit with their own versions of each App. I never use it.

------
listic
I was expecting an OS X-toting, keyboard-wielding Surface 3-like iPad Pro
instead.

Now when Apple squeezed multitasking into a regular one, I am not so sure
whether to expect the iPad Pro. Maybe in autumn, with/instead of the supposed
iPad update? I wouldn't rule out the secret homebrew CPU that could replace
the x86 Core M.

~~~
tjl
If there's going to be an iPad Pro, they'll announce it at an iPad event like
they've done in the past.

~~~
jowiar
All the features they announced (including force touch trackpad) seemed to
indicate "iPad pro is coming". At this point, I'd say better-than-even money
that they will announce it to coincide with the actual release of the OS.

------
udev
I wonder if this will lead to wider screen formats long term.

~~~
freehunter
I really hope not. I have a Thinkpad Tablet 2 with a wide screen and it's nice
to watching movies or having apps running side by side but it's awful to try
to hold one-handed. It's far too long.

------
adeptus
Congratulations, Windows 3.0 level achieved!

------
acd
BSD 4.4 was released 1994 it has multitasking which the Darwin kernel in OS X
and also ios are based upon. Talking about 1994, NT also has had preemptive
multi tasking since 1993. Multics the father of UNIX had multi tasking in
1965.

~~~
csixty4
I know the headline is talking about something different, but I always think
something along the same lines when someone talks about iOS multitasking. Does
the kernel have a Process Control Block? Is there interrupt-driven preemption?
Well, then it's a multitasking OS in the technical sense.

But using the term "multitasking" to mean two applications on screen at the
same time goes back to the Amiga days, maybe even earlier. I've just accepted
it at this point.

------
higherpurpose
Google's, but especially Sundar Pichai's, stubborness to make Android more PC-
like to the detriment of Chrome OS meant that Apple gets to do multi-windows
natively before Android - which should've had it at least two or three years
ago.

Sure, Android M is likely to get multi-windows as well when they announce the
final version (maybe), but we've still moved from Android getting some
features two or three years before iOS, to Android and iOS launching very
similar features about the same time.

This is a big problem for Google because Apple can release the new OS with the
new features to 50% of its users within a week and to 85% of its users within
a year. It takes a certain version of Android to do that at least 3 years.

If Google can't release its major Android features years before iOS anymore,
then it _needs_ to make upgrading Android devices by itself an even bigger
priority, rather than leaving it to others.

~~~
founderling
Why do Android users update slowly? I have a few Android devices and I think
they pop up with a message from time to time "new os version ready to
install". But I am not sure. That shows how much I care :-) But I guess it
_is_ that way and then why would anybody _not_ update?

~~~
mikeash
Android users update slowly because Android updates depend on the OEMs, and
the OEMs update slowly or not at all.

With iOS, Apple releases an update, and then everyone with an iOS device made
in the past N years (where N is 4 or so at the moment) can download it more or
less immediately.

With Android, Google releases an update. Then the OEMs slowly start working on
updates for their various devices. If they feel like it. Often they just don't
bother. Then if you're lucky your OEM finally gets their job done and you can
update. And by the time that happens, you're lucky if it's only one or two
point releases behind what's now the latest.

~~~
gsnedders
And for phones distributed through carriers, once the OEM provides an update,
it then (probably) gets tested by the carrier, and only then (eventually)
pushed out. Sometimes the carriers don't even distribute updates the OEMs
provide.

