If things remain constant, then possibly. However, noting in the technology world remains constant…ever.
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Apps Reportedly Limited to Maximum of 5GB RAM in iPadOS, Even With 16GB M1 iPad Pro
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CMD-Q does not work that way on iPadOS. You use CMD-Tab to open the app switcher and then select one of the apps. The highlighted app will then receive the CMD-Q.
Open notes and a web browser side-by-side. Hit command-f. Which app will you be searching? Now you want to search in the other app - how do you make that happen?
Can you provide an example of an iOS app that does not use a blinking cursor to indicate an active text input? After a quick but incomplete survey of the apps on my iPad I can not find any.
I just loaded maps side-by-side with files.app. Both showed a search bar. Neither has a blinking cursor.
When i type, neither receives input (so neither is “active” - that’s a problem in itself).
I press CMD-F, and one of them becomes active. Can you guess which one? Because, until it happened, there was no visual indicator that I could see to tell me which one was going to be it.
And if I want the other one to receive CMD-keys, I don’t see how to do that. Even touching it doesn’t make it start receiving cmd-keys. Looks like you have to touch inside a text input?
It’s just terrible.
The app where the search input box opens at the bottom. Want to search in the other app? You have to dismiss the search input in the first app if you have not already. Then use CMD-Tab to switch to the other app and then CMD-F again.
BTW, I did not know any of this until just know because I do not use a keyboard with my iPad often enough to learn the shortcuts, but it only took me a minute to figure it out.
Not sure what you are saying in that first sentence. But if you are referring to the input box opening AFTER you press CMD-F, that’s the point - on the mac, it’s always apparent where input will go BEFORE you do the input. On iPad, I see no indication of what will happen until I try it.
Also, cmd-tab doesn’t even show me both apps. I have maps on the left and files on the right, and CMD-tab doesn’t show files in its list.
Neither receives input because neither app automatically selects a text input field on launch. That’s a developer design decision (and possibly an Apple design guideline, I do not remember), so neither should get input if you just start typing. It’s entirely possible to write MacOS or Windows applications that behave the same way.
Which one will become active on CMF-F will be whichever one you touched/interacted with/launched last. (BTW, the grab handle at the top will be darker for the active window. It’s inadequate, but it’s there)
Just touching the other app will not switch focus if the search input box for the first app is open. It apparently takes over. It has to be dismissed first. Might be a bug, might be a feature.
So I’m supposed to remember which I launched last? You are defending this design? It’s pretty indefensible.
My original point stands - it should always be immediately apparent which app has focus, and where keyboard input will go. And there should never be a situation where you have multiple apps visible and NONE has focus. (As a developer, this is not something that happens on macos, but does happen on ios because of the way the ios app lifecycle works)
Interesting, because I always see the two open apps as the first two on the left of the switcher with CMD-Tab.
I am not defending anything. Just answering your questions on the assumption that they are not rhetorical.
There is also a difference between whether an app has focus and whether any of its text inputs have focus.
Post-Jobs I really doubt there is anyone at Apple visionary enough to lead (or even care about) such an effort. Just look at the derivative state of iOS / macOS a decade later.
OK, but as we've established, "the highlighted app" is hard to figure out.
Go with cmd-N, then. Or cmd-S. Are you saving the text document, or the spreadsheet?
Try split screening safari and messages. type into messages. then tap on and type into the safari address bar. This actually screws up for me about 90% of the time. It's not even just unclear ... text input literally goes into messages instead of safari.
I find these kinds of observations to be extremely pedantic. Making random tangential observations is not contributing to the discussion.
I find posters who ignore context to be annoyingly useless. My earlier post that you quoted was specifically about the app you are selecting to be obviously highlighted in switcher as one of the steps in a sequence, answering a specific question, with a context.
Also, there was a complaint stating that are apps that do not have blinking cursors to indicate that they have focus when they should have understood that the lack of any blinking cursors indicated that no app had focus for text input, which is not the same as saying that neither app has focus.
Nobody should understand any of that because it's terrible UI design as stated. The fact that you figured it out is pointless to the discussion.
I agree the UI needs work in this case, but as the op you responded to pointed out, there are several ways to see which app is in focus. The blinking cursor on the text field is a bit annoying on iPados compared to macos, but it’s not always as easy as other have tried to infer on macos either. The amount of times I have typed something on macos and it’s either gone nowhere or into the wrong field on the active app or otherwise is not insignificant.
None are ideal unless you use your eyes, and when you use your eyes both are adequate.
As I said though- work here on ipados would be appreciated.
First of all, the app switcher is a shortcut. It should never be the primary let alone exclusive way of navigation.
Second, I shouldn't have to actively seek this information. It should be available in plain sight.
Great.
How does that in any way address @cmaier's concern?
Can you see how someone might construe that as pedantic?
Yes, it's technically true, but it's also besides the point.
Yes, and most of them are flat-out bad.
Correct. Instead of making it better on iPadOS, Apple has decided to make it worse on macOS. Congratulations.
(I still, more than half a year in, expect the front-most window to have a darker chrome. In Big Sur, it instead has a brighter chrome, breaking with decades of UI tradition for no reason than Alan Dye thought it looks pretty.)
Everyone is acting like it would be so impossible for apple to make the app with active focus super clear. All they have to do is make the little bar at the top of each window do something other than ”very slightly change its color without it being apparent which color means active.” Perhaps have it have a slight glow effect, or change shape, or change color to green, or something else obvious. And while they are at it, how about if I tap on that little bar, it gives that window the focus? And add keyboard commands to rotate focus through visible windows. That would all be a good start, but still wouldn’t address all the other issues with ipad multitasking (e.g. windowing arbitrary apps that don’t happen to be on your dock already is a pain, swapping an app you have in slide over with an app you have in splitview (so that they swap places) is hard, you never know for sure whether drag and drop will work, etc. And since there is no “desktop,” a whole heck of a lot of things would be easier with a yoink-style shelf where you could stage things.
That's fair. I still think the model is much worse on iPadOS ... in many cases outright broken and not just unintuitive, as I pointed out with messages/safari.
I don't really have the same problem with focus windows as you on macOS ... it's generally pretty clear (used to be even more clear) and when I lose track of focus it tends to be because I have many monitors and there's a lot to keep track of.
Yes and this is exactly why macOS should be on the iPad. Not replacing iPadOS, but as an adjunct. We have 40 years of UI iteration on macOS for window based multitasking and full operating system goodness. Meanwhile, iPadOS has its roots in a single app at a time mobile model and this split screen mode they've implemented has basically failed to evolve in the past few years. This indicates to me they have no idea where to take the model, possibly because there isn't actually anywhere to take it. I don't need or want touch-based versions of Xcode/Final Cut Pro/Photoshop, etc.