Check Out iPadOS 15's New Multitasking Features

[benshive]

A bit of an aside, but I want to thank the MacRumors team for their coverage. I love how there's a video, which I know a lot of people prefer, but then also an article that describes the new feature as well for those of us that prefer reading to watching. A lot of other places will have just one or the other

 

[boss.king]

People when Apple stuffs a bunch of new features into an update:

“Why can’t Apple move to a biyearly update schedule or focus only on stability and speed every other year? This release is so buggy. I miss snow leopard!”

People when Apple doesn’t introduce many new features (which generally results in a more stable release):

“Apple can’t innovate anymore, they’re letting their platform stagnate. I’m switching to Android/Windows.”

I'm all for stability release years, but I don't recall Apple saying they made any special focus on stability this year. For all we know, these releases will have all the same issues as the previous versions. 2020 was a very unusual year, it's entirely possible that Apple has just done less overall this time around.

Of course, if they made actual mention of a focus on stability then I take it all back.

 

[Arsenikdote]

I don’t quite understand the pushback on this. The main issue with the iPadOS 14 way was the fact that there was next to zero visual indication of the multitasking functions. I have friends who had zero idea they could multitask on their iPads they used all the time.

The way I see it, this solves that issue?

If that is the "main issue" then yes, that helps it. However, the issue of knowing HOW to use multitasking is different than actually USING multitasking. This doesn't not solve multitasking limitations which is why I think most people are upset, including myself.

 

[Abazigal]

View attachment 1790754
Any Bluetooth keyboard will work. This is what I use.

I bought that same keyboard as well, to try out with Samsung Dex, but found it a pain to type and use the trackpad with. How are you finding it?

 

[bmac89]

When pressing on the multitasking menu (...) and selecting slide over, presumably this brings the last used slide over app accross?

However, what happens when no slide over apps are open? Does it push the fullscreen app aside and show the home screen?

I have always wished that brining up the dock and long pressing on an icon showed the app expose rather than the context menu and then pressing on show all windows. Similarly I wish that long pressing on the dock icon in MacOS brought up app expose like it use to in Snow Leopard.

Thanks

 

[bmac89]

Also, how do you initiate a centre floating window?
Is this only available with mail currently?

 

[MacBH928]

Ok guys lets not kid ourselves here, iOS was not made for this. This is like a VW Beetle trying to a trailer truck and a submarine at the same time. Tim Cook does not know where to go next with iOS, he is at the same place as Gil Amelio with OS 7.

Those multi finger gestures and hidden menus are so complex to remember even I who use computers daily for a couple of decades find it hard. This is very far from Apple's philosophy of creating the computer to be used by anyone without lessons going as far as making the mouse 1 button so people are not confused by the 2 buttons. This is faaar off.

 

[MacBH928]

Yea, that is an improvement but mostly an aesthetic issue. How I select the multitasked apps has always been a minor problem compared to what the multitasked apps can do. My issue is that iPadOS does not really allow multitasking in the sense that background processes can run to completion as needed. The visual aspects of it are sort of irrelevant.

Here are examples of multitasking issues that I am talking about:
- I have an app that can mass-edit the EXIF data on photos. It can do a few dozen in the blink of eye, but doing it to 1,000 or 10,000 photos all at once can take a long time - especially if the photos are on a network drive. But the OS doesn't let the app run in the background for very long. So if I want the app to run for 30 minutes straight, which is how long it might take for it to do what it does, I have to keep it in the foreground and the iPad awake.
- Similar to above, uploading a large amount of data to an FTP is a problem. The FTP app cannot run in the background for very long due to OS limitations, so eventually the OS sleeps the app and the transfer is stalled. I can't start the FTP transfer, send it to background, and mess around on Facebook while the FTP app does it's thing off-screen.

i think true multitasking drains power big time, at least that was what I was told, I think if you load more stuff into RAM it sucks power more. iPads nor iOS are made for that. I could be wrong about that though... M1 macs seem to multitask just fine and have long battery life.

 

[oneMadRssn]

i think true multitasking drains power big time, at least that was what I was told, I think if you load more stuff into RAM it sucks power more. iPads nor iOS are made for that. I could be wrong about that though... M1 macs seem to multitask just fine and have long battery life.

Of course using your hardware will drain power. You know how to make the battery last forever? Turn off the device and put it away. But that's not useful.

 

[LordVic]

i think true multitasking drains power big time, at least that was what I was told, I think if you load more stuff into RAM it sucks power more. iPads nor iOS are made for that. I could be wrong about that though... M1 macs seem to multitask just fine and have long battery life.

it's not so much that it's more stuff loaded in RAM (which does have small impact), but more cycles the CPU has to handle. Every running application that has active threads will add some load. the more load, the more voltage to kept he CPU going and battery drain.

the thing is there's got to be a balance. what's the point of 40 hours of battery life on a device like an iPad or laptop for example if you can only do a single thing at a time? at some point we trade off battery life for functionality because it is worth it.

Apple's RAM limitations however tend to be less about battery life and more about user experiences. Apple's devices tended to (up till the M1s) be aenemic on RAM. And iOS, unlike MACos will not use storage for swap space should RAM be exhausted. Thus Apple needed hard limits on how much RAM apps can use, and how many apps can be loaded / actually running at a time.

It's why devices with 1gb of RAM today are basically unusable today. And why as Apps got bigger and needed more memory, Apple devices with the lower RAM counts require killing background apps even more aggressively. (on my 1gb iPad Air for example, I can only have 1 app running at time. iOS task kills everything else because of lack of RAM to keep anything but a single app running)

 

[LordVic]

Of course using your hardware will drain power. You know how to make the battery last forever? Turn off the device and put it away. But that's not useful.

will still get some degradation of charge

there's legitimately zero way with current tech of having devices that never run out of charge.

 

[oneMadRssn]

will still get some degradation of charge

there's legitimately zero way with current tech of having devices that never run out of charge.

Fair enough, but I suppose if you turned off the device and put it in the freezer, the battery would probably retain a significant % life left once warmed up again even after many years.

My point is: at this point in iPad is mature, and the users are knowledgeable. I don't think battery life is a good reason anymore for Apple to hold back proper multitasking from those that want it.

Also multi-user support and fast-switching should be included in this. I should be able to start a large file upload in one user account, hand the iPad to my wife who can switch to her account and browse her Facebook feed while my large file upload continues in the background.

 

[LordVic]

Fair enough, but I suppose if you turned off the device and put it in the freezer, the battery would probably retain a significant % life left once warmed up again even after many years.

My point is: at this point in iPad is mature, and the users are knowledgeable. I don't think battery life is a good reason anymore for Apple to hold back proper multitasking from those that want it.

Also multi-user support and fast-switching should be included in this. I should be able to start a large file upload in one user account, hand the iPad to my wife who can switch to her account and browse her Facebook feed while my large file upload continues in the background.

Oh I agree,

Apple has proven that the M1 and battery size in the MacBook Air for example is capable of industry leading battery life, while offering complete full OS capabilities.

Having the iPad essentially running iPad OS with software limitations, is purely an Apple business decision. they could have basically merged iPad and Mac at this point to provide a full scalable experience if they wanted to

But they don't. This is a business decision because Apple still wants you to own both a Mac and an Ipad. and are willing to keep the feature set significantly different via software limitations when there are no more hardware limitations due to the exact same platform they run on.

 

[Razorpit]

We all know how well that turned out https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/143869-the-5-biggest-tech-failures-of-2012/2

While Microsoft dropped the ball, doesn't mean Apple couldn't learn from their mistakes and release something better.

 

[oneMadRssn]

Oh I agree,

Apple has proven that the M1 and battery size in the MacBook Air for example is capable of industry leading battery life, while offering complete full OS capabilities.

Having the iPad essentially running iPad OS with software limitations, is purely an Apple business decision. they could have basically merged iPad and Mac at this point to provide a full scalable experience if they wanted to

But they don't. This is a business decision because Apple still wants you to own both a Mac and an Ipad. and are willing to keep the feature set significantly different via software limitations when there are no more hardware limitations due to the exact same platform they run on.

I agree we know there is no technical reason they cannot do it, so it is an intentional decision. But I don't think it's as nefarious as you make it sound.

My outside observation is that:

Apple views the desktop/laptop MacOS experience as the "old" way of having a UI dating back to the Xeros PARC. Everything since then (Windows 3, Windows 9x, Windows NT, 2000, XP, 7, 8, 10 through current, System or OS 1-9, OS X era, MacOS through current) is all part of one conventional UI paradigm. Specifically, that UI is a rough skeuomorphism of mid-century white-collar work desks. There is a "desktop," there are "files" organized by "folder" and you can move things around and top of each other like paper, or you can put files/folders away in a shelf to not see it on your desktop.

On the flip side, Apple wants iOS and iPadOS to be something totally new. They want to leave the above old UI paradigm behind and invent a completely novel UI paradigm. To merge the two would concede that they cannot invent something totally novel.

But we've been working under the old UI paradigm for 40 years now. That's multiple generations of workers used to it. So Apple is swimming against the flow in a major way. They've been forced to concede and sneak-in some "old" ways of doing things into iOS/iPadOS (e.g., "Files"). But they're still pushing ahead to try and make it so their novel UI completely obviates the old way of doing things.

To give credit where credit is due, the iOS/iPadOS UI is really good for a ton of uses. But it's has not completely obviated the old way of doing things, and at the moment it cannot.

 

[darngooddesign]

Bingo! That's one of the major reasons why we'll not see macOS on an iPad. People here who think that would be great haven't thought this through in how that would be cumbersome in daily use. It would be a nice conversation piece to see macOS running on an iPad. But actually using it to do real work would quickly get old.

You are talking abut MacOS apps running in iOS. The assumption is that MacOS on the iPad would work mostly like MacOS on a computer.

 

[darngooddesign]

The fastest and most intuitive way to switch between apps is already available for iOS 14. Unfortunately, the trick only works if you attach the iPad to the Magic Keyboard. The command is cmd-tab. This will bring a list of currently opened apps. To switch between apps, just click the corresponding icon.

Pressing CMD+Tab with a keyboard isn't any faster than a four-finger left/right swipe; not to mention, a keyboard combo in a touch interface is less intuitive than a touch gesture. That being said, once you are already using a keyboard, especially one without a trackpad, then the Cmd+Tab shortcut is quick.

 

[citysnaps]

You are talking abut MacOS apps running in iOS. The assumption is that MacOS on the iPad would work mostly like MacOS on a computer.

No, I'm not. I'm talking about macOS running by itself on an iPad.

 

[darngooddesign]

No, I'm not. I'm talking about macOS running by itself on an iPad.

So how would the full MacOS, with the full MacOS Finder and multitasking, be cumbersome on the iPad? You could use the keyboard and mouse/trackpad when you need more precision, but otherwise just full screen or split screen the MacOS apps when you want to use touch. MacOS could detect the lack of a mouse/trackpad and add padding around touch elements.

 

[citysnaps]

So how would the full MacOS, with the full MacOS Finder and multitasking, be cumbersome on the iPad? You could use the keyboard and mouse/trackpad when you need more precision, but otherwise just full screen or split screen the MacOS apps when you want to use touch. MacOS could detect the lack of a mouse/trackpad and add padding around touch elements.

As a heavy Lightroom user, I'd much rather process photos on a Mac desktop or laptop. Yes, I could add a mouse/trackpad and keyboard pieces to an iPad and maybe attached disks when needed, but why would I want to when my laptop and desktop computers already handle that beautifully - for both home and travel.

Using an iPad with macOS with a touch interface only having to control LR and edit my photos and with attached disk or networked storage would be awful. Yes could be done in a pinch. But certainly not for me.

 

[farewelwilliams]

While Microsoft dropped the ball, doesn't mean Apple couldn't learn from their mistakes and release something better.

They learned that touchscreens just aren’t a great experience on the Mac.

 

[jdawgnoonan]

Most of the new features iPad received were announced during the iOS and macOS segments. When Apple introduces new features that come to all three systems they spread them out across the keynote. (for instance Apple could have introduced new safari during the iOS segment and universal control during the iPadOS one, but then they wouldn't have had anything to announce for macOS)

I think they should announce new features that multiple systems will get (like new safari and FaceTime) separately first, and then announce only the stuff specific to each OS (like iPad multitasking) during their segments.



I don't view the M1 as all that major for iPad Pro. It's essentially an A14X, which is what would have been expected in this year's iPad Pro anyway. It likely would have been more expensive for Apple to develop a separate chip in between the A14 and M1 than it was to just put the M1 in iPad Pro and call it a day.

Bottom line being that the iPad Pro's hardware was already capable of far more than it's software allowed, and that hasn't changed.

The iPad Pro is a great device. It could just easily be so much more than it is.

 

[jdawgnoonan]

That's an absolutely false and ridiculously statement. 😆

Okay, provide some examples?

 

[LordVic]

I agree we know there is no technical reason they cannot do it, so it is an intentional decision. But I don't think it's as nefarious as you make it sound.

My outside observation is that:

Apple views the desktop/laptop MacOS experience as the "old" way of having a UI dating back to the Xeros PARC. Everything since then (Windows 3, Windows 9x, Windows NT, 2000, XP, 7, 8, 10 through current, System or OS 1-9, OS X era, MacOS through current) is all part of one conventional UI paradigm. Specifically, that UI is a rough skeuomorphism of mid-century white-collar work desks. There is a "desktop," there are "files" organized by "folder" and you can move things around and top of each other like paper, or you can put files/folders away in a shelf to not see it on your desktop.

On the flip side, Apple wants iOS and iPadOS to be something totally new. They want to leave the above old UI paradigm behind and invent a completely novel UI paradigm. To merge the two would concede that they cannot invent something totally novel.

But we've been working under the old UI paradigm for 40 years now. That's multiple generations of workers used to it. So Apple is swimming against the flow in a major way. They've been forced to concede and sneak-in some "old" ways of doing things into iOS/iPadOS (e.g., "Files"). But they're still pushing ahead to try and make it so their novel UI completely obviates the old way of doing things.

To give credit where credit is due, the iOS/iPadOS UI is really good for a ton of uses. But it's has not completely obviated the old way of doing things, and at the moment it cannot.

If iPad OS let's me one day run MacOSx programs natively, or even a MacOS VM on an iPad, I will give Apple the victory in the new paradigm for touch OS's

 

[MacBH928]

it's not so much that it's more stuff loaded in RAM (which does have small impact), but more cycles the CPU has to handle. Every running application that has active threads will add some load. the more load, the more voltage to kept he CPU going and battery drain.

the thing is there's got to be a balance. what's the point of 40 hours of battery life on a device like an iPad or laptop for example if you can only do a single thing at a time? at some point we trade off battery life for functionality because it is worth it.

Apple's RAM limitations however tend to be less about battery life and more about user experiences. Apple's devices tended to (up till the M1s) be aenemic on RAM. And iOS, unlike MACos will not use storage for swap space should RAM be exhausted. Thus Apple needed hard limits on how much RAM apps can use, and how many apps can be loaded / actually running at a time.

It's why devices with 1gb of RAM today are basically unusable today. And why as Apps got bigger and needed more memory, Apple devices with the lower RAM counts require killing background apps even more aggressively. (on my 1gb iPad Air for example, I can only have 1 app running at time. iOS task kills everything else because of lack of RAM to keep anything but a single app running)

I agree with you and this is where I would like to draw the line, iOS was not made to do work unlike many people are forcing it to do so. Its a consumption device, it will not do multi-tasking. You want multi-tasking buy a Macbook Air , better than buying iPad PRO then buying an external keyboard and try to force it do what MacOS can do very easily.

Don't bring a knife to a gunfight.