iOS 11 Demo Highlights Potential for Drag and Drop on iPad

[MacRumors]

During this week's Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple revealed a collection of iPad-specific abilities coming to iOS 11, including a new customizable dock that can be accessed from within any app, a Files app, a new app switcher, and support for drag and drop.

With the first beta of iOS 11 currently in the hands of developers, a few specific examples of what's possible with the much-anticipated drag and drop feature have been causing excitement online.

A demonstration of the various ways you can drag and drop in Safari on iOS 11 /cc @mikecane pic.twitter.com/5Rg9Lqe2GL - Steve T-S (@stroughtonsmith) June 7, 2017

The short video above demonstrates a possible use case in Safari in particular. The clip shows how the user can now long-press on a URL address in the Safari search bar and drag it to the right-hand side of the screen to duplicate the Safari window in Split View mode. Another action demonstrations the ability to drag a hyperlink on a web page and drop it on the + icon at the top right of the Safari toolbar to instantly open a new tab showing the linked page.

A similar hyperlink drag is then drawn over to the Bookmarks icon at the top left of the screen, but this time the user holds onto the link and is able to navigate to their Reading List and store the link there for later referral.

Lastly, the same action is performed on a web-hosted file link, dragging it to the right of the screen to open the download link in another Safari window in Split View. With the hosted file selected with one finger, the user then uses the finger of another hand to invoke the new iPad dock with a swipe up from the bottom of the screen. Continuing with multitouch, he then drags the File app icon up to the right to open the last-viewed Documents sub-folder, and simply drops the selected file into it with his other finger.

Developers are still experimenting with the potential of drag and drop on iPad, but it's safe to assume that with support for multi-select and spring-loading, the possibilities for various workflows are far-reaching. For instance, another developer has discovered that it is possible to drag up to four different stacks of objects from various apps using four fingers on one hand in order to drop them all into a single Notes sheet.

Drag and drop on iPhone appears to be limited at this stage in iOS 11 in developer beta testing, with the majority of related features restricted to iPad, but it's possible that some aspects could come across to the smaller screen if Apple feels they're practicable.

The public beta of iOS 11 is expected to be released later this month, with the final version coming in the fall.

Article Link: iOS 11 Demo Highlights Potential for Drag and Drop on iPad

 

[Sunny1990]

Finally iPad is getting features it Needed form long time.Now it's lot more than a big iPhone

 

[fokmik]

just from safari,the whole video, thats impressive

 

[djcerla]

I like the iPad precisely because it's on rails, so relaxing for what I use it for.

But this is a tremendous feature for a generation that feels more at home with multitouch rather than a single mouse pointer.

 

[Dave245]

It does looks like a really great feature that will make a big difference on the iPad Pro. It's also a stand out moment along with the new iPad Pro's and the iMac's from WWDC.

 

[kdarling]

I'd probably still just long press on a link to open it in a new tab.

Finger dragging to a small target can be a pain.

Some of the other options look useful though.

 

[ChrisCW11]

If it works as well as text selection and copy and paste, forget about it. Still baffled that its near impossible sometimes to properly select text on iOS and Safari, its either one word, or the whole f*cking page of text and you can't adjust it, yet same website on Chrome on Android text selection works properly.

 

[Shalev Lazarof]

that dragging feature started to make the iPad a real work tool, now if it will have the support and development of pro apps that will use the pencil as a precision tool i defiantly see the iPad as the new modern PC

 

[rohanparekh]

Except ugly control center....everything else is welcome in ios11

 

[xalea]

How is this faster/easier than holding on the link and selecting "open new tab" etc.? I'm all for more options, but this actually look kind of tedious.

 

[Tech198]

The Safari URL dragging to split view ...that would be handy.

Its just about more ways to do the same thing..... not really any quicker. I mean, ya, u do have to hold the link anyway, so instead of dragging,u may as well select an option that is right there.

 

[newyorksole]

I smell a new iMac and iPad Pro 10.5" in my future. So excited.

 

[swingerofbirch]

It's so weird when they've done the exact opposite on the Mac. They've taken the iOS interface of making you press buttons instead of being able to drag and drop. Take Photos on the Mac. You can't drag a group of photos to the side bar to create a new album--a UI paradigm that has existed since the first version of iTunes. You can't even drag and drop photos out of Photos to another app unless it's to Mail or the desktop.

On the Mac, Apple's software has been becoming a mess since around 2007 with regard to UI intuitiveness. iOS seemed to be spared until recently.

I can see only a very, very small percentage of iPad users using the new features that were introduced. They're too complicated. iPad in multi-tasking view now looks like the cockpit of an airplane. The Control Center has that ugly cockpit look in general. Pretty sure it wasn't what Steve Jobs had in mind. They're trying to force creative productivity onto the iPad, and it will be a good device for creative productivity for a very small niche set of users. If I were a developer though, I would question why I was putting money into developing music, video, photo editing etc onto a relatively small platform where the prevailng price of software is so low.

 

[Marx55]

Bring a Mac tablet and forget toys!

 

[639051]

If it works as well as text selection and copy and paste, forget about it. Still baffled that its near impossible sometimes to properly select text on iOS and Safari, its either one word, or the whole f*cking page of text and you can't adjust it, yet same website on Chrome on Android text selection works properly.

Not making excuses for Apple but text selection with touch devices always sucks (to my knowledge) on mobile devices. Pages can do all sorts of stupid formatting that make that part difficult, I had the same issue on Android.
[doublepost=1497010277][/doublepost]

It's so weird when they've done the exact opposite on the Mac. They've taken the iOS interface of making you press buttons instead of being able to drag and drop. Take Photos on the Mac. You can't drag a group of photos to the side bar to create a new album--a UI paradigm that has existed since the first version of iTunes. You can't even drag and drop photos out of Photos to another app unless it's to Mail or the desktop.

On the Mac, Apple's software has been becoming a mess since around 2007 with regard to UI intuitiveness. iOS seemed to be spared until recently.

I can see only a very, very small percentage of iPad users using the new features that were introduced. They're too complicated.

I am really looking forward to the features of iOS 11 on the iPad, no matter how complicated they are initially but I completely get what you're saying about it. It will be interesting shifting some of the elderly that I know who use it and showing them how a few things work.

Also, the Mac thing .. ugh yes completely correct that the UI and interaction with it has become so much worse. I parted with my 5K iMac for several reasons but one was the awful choices with UI interactions these days.

 

[5105973]

I might struggle with this new way of doing things, but I've watched kids 12 and under use iPads and drag and drop on game interfaces in various gaming systems. They move their fingers around the user interface at speeds my eye and brain can't follow and have skills I probably can't develop at this stage of my life. My 12 year old seemed to find this part of the keynote interesting. In this case, Apple might be addressing the future better than those of us who grew up on mice and joysticks can appreciate.

 

[DNichter]

Except ugly control center....everything else is welcome in ios11

The notification center is horrible. Hoping they make big changes throughout the beta period.

 

[GadgetBen]

That is so cool. Finally, I can actually use an iPad to multitask properly!

is that only using Safari or does it not matter which browser?

 

[nurotic]

is that only using Safari or does it not matter which browser?

I tried dragging a link in chrome. It will let me drop the link into another app. But it could not open a new tab or anything like we see in the video above.

I would imagine that iOS browsers would need to have their interface updated to react to such dragging actions.

 

[Rogifan]

Is anyone forced to use drag and drop in iOS 11?

 

[QuarterSwede]

If it works as well as text selection and copy and paste, forget about it. Still baffled that its near impossible sometimes to properly select text on iOS and Safari, its either one word, or the whole f*cking page of text and you can't adjust it, yet same website on Chrome on Android text selection works properly.

Personally I like it better than text selection on macOS or Windows where I've had the system try to guess what I wanted just as much.

I didn't find this hard or time consuming.

 

[prospervic]

I might struggle with this new way of doing things, but I've watched kids 12 and under use iPads and drag and drop on game interfaces in various gaming systems. They move their fingers around the user interface at speeds my eye and brain can't follow and have skills I probably can't develop at this stage of my life. My 12 year old seemed to find this part of the keynote interesting. In this case, Apple might be addressing the future better than those of us who grew up on mice and joysticks can appreciate.

Exactly! So appreciate your honesty. So many of the complainers on here apparently have "old-fart" mindsets -- they've forgotten what it's like to be young, inquisitive and open to new things. Being over 50, I nonetheless LOVE the new iOS 11 interface, and am so excited about the "future of computing" it portends!

 

[macduke]

If it works as well as text selection and copy and paste, forget about it. Still baffled that its near impossible sometimes to properly select text on iOS and Safari, its either one word, or the whole f*cking page of text and you can't adjust it, yet same website on Chrome on Android text selection works properly.

Yeah, this is one of my biggest gripes with iOS, and I often forget to mention it, so thanks for bringing this forward. If iOS 12 is literally only this fix and nothing else I will be happy. Some websites work well, others are horrible. I'll have problems selecting text around 70% of the time on iOS and maybe 2% of the time, at most, on my Mac because of layout issues. The way that it snaps to huge chunks is so freaking annoying. For now I wish there was an option to disable it. In the keynote they mentioned machine learning helping them with palm rejection on the Apple Pencil. It would be nice if they could apply machine learning to text selection by analyzing the page and tracking a person's finger movements to assist with what they're probably trying to do.

 

[wigby]

How is this faster/easier than holding on the link and selecting "open new tab" etc.? I'm all for more options, but this actually look kind of tedious.

It is faster and easier for those that are used to only using mouses and touchpads on their desktops and laptops. I think it's really a gesture to win those "pro" users over so they'll finally start adopting iPad into their workflow so Apple can finally grow iPad sales again.

 

[GadgetBen]

I tried dragging a link in chrome. It will let me drop the link into another app. But it could not open a new tab or anything like we see in the video above.

I would imagine that iOS browsers would need to have their interface updated to react to such dragging actions.

Thanks for the info dude. I am going to download it on my new iPad Pro when it arrives next week. Anything that you notice about the stability that concerns you, or is it just the usual random crash stuff?