Rene Ritchie’s Ideas for iPad Multitasking

I like the idea that, once you have an app docked on one side of the screen, the other side of the screen would just show a shrunk-down home screen for launching a second app in that space. That way you’d launch a second (or third — let’s get nuts) app the same way you do the first.

I also like the idea of using color to indicate which app has focus. It’s absolutely bonkers that iPadOS has never indicated in any way which app in split-screen mode has focus — a clear sign that iPadOS’s multitasking interface was designed to look good, not to be functional. And by “look good” I mean “look good in the eyes of someone obsessed with visual minimalism”.

Ritchie suggests three-finger pinching for getting in and out of the mode where you set up split-screen arrangements. I think there should be buttons for it — a simple obvious affordance you can just tap with one finger. That’s my overriding desire for iPadOS: let us do much more just by tapping with a single finger.

★ Friday, 31 January 2020