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I already can't keep more than one tab open on my retina iPad Mini because it's so memory-constrained. How would it manage to keep multiple apps open?

The jailbreak folks have apparently found that the iOS 7 kernel has memory compression built-in, but not enabled. I really hope they bring it to iOS 8. It would be essential to supporting split-screen apps on current hardware.

Apps would also need to scale correctly to many different sizes. This isn't something iOS apps have had to deal with before so I imagine running in split-screen mode would require explicit app support.
 
I wonder if this will be iPad Air and newer or if earlier iPads like 4th gen can do it too.

I think it depends on if this will be a "selling feature." However, I don't think Apple considered split screen important enough to be a marquee feature.
 
I agree. If it's one thing that's not gonna help iPad sales, it's support for multiple accounts.

Actually, as I’ve posted before, multi-user/multi-profile could actually increase and/or sustain sales, plus create long[er] term customers as they buy into the Apple ecosystem (and add a Mac, a couple of AppleTVs, consume iTunes content, etc.)

It’s a simple business proposition. What’s better in the long run for Apple? Losing some sales of a 2nd iPad because one is easily shared (assuming accounts/profiles added), or losing a sale of an iPad to a competing product because it was cheaper to buy two, or it supported multiple users?

Factor in enterprise, government, etc, sales as well, and adding multiple user accounts becomes a pretty compelling business case.

...and here’s an actual real world use case supporting increased iPad sales if it supported multiple users :)

I understand your quote from Apple's perspective, but as a consumer, why would I care about iPad sales? I get no benefit from it. As a family of 4, multi-user accounts would have me update my iPad2 immediately. Right now my wife and daughters use the iPad. I rarely touch it. We have it restricted based on my youngest (8). I use my MBA or Nexus 7.
 
But there isn't any way in hell I'd let my kid play with MY iPad. I use it far too much and am not going to throw some massive protective case on it so they won't break it.

Kid can either save up and buy him/herself one OR I'd just get them their own. Multi-user account feature or not.

I'm likely not the only one who thinks this way either - just to share the OTHER side.

My two-year-old gets 30 minutes of iPad time each week with educational apps.

It'd be nice to know we could trust her with the iPad for those 30 minutes, and that she can switch between the handful of educational apps without accidentally deleting emails/pictures. Or worse, opening Netflix, which DOES have Human Centipede but DOES NOT have parental controls.

In short: I'm glad that you have the money to go buy your kid his/her own iPad. Some of us would prefer a cost-effective software solution.
 
Slide to unlock was also on Windows CE in 2005, but Apple still claimed that Samsung stole it from them - and won.

Because Apple didn't patent slide to unlock. That's just a name given to the patent by the media. Perhaps you could read the actual claims of Apple's patent. They involve manipulating an image along a path to unlock an electronic device. Which was not on Windows CE in 2005.

And the multi-tasking interface that Apple does have was taken from WebOS/Palm Pre in 2009.

Or from the mobile version of Safari in iOS 1.0.

And Apple stole slide-from-top notification center from Android, and now Apple is "following" with larger screens, possibly NFC, etc.

Yep. Though I'm not sure how you steal something that doesn't belong to someone.

For what it's worth, I'm totally FINE with all of the above. Competition borrowing and refining makes better interfaces. But Apple's self-righteous stance in this area feels hypocritical since they steal just as much... going back to complaints about Windows copying Mac, when Mac was copied from Xerox in the first place.

It's only hypocritical if you don't bother understand the details or place things in context.
 
Only on the iPad 4 and air probably :(

If it'll be indeed (artificially) restricted to newer models (to force people to upgrade, as is so frequently done by Apple), I have some good news: the recently-released JB windowing environment "OS Experience" runs just great on "old" hardware too. I've used it a lot on my iPad3 and found it excellent.

See https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1724497/ for more info.
 
YES. This is in my top 3 desired features in iOS 8. Thought for sure we'd see it in iOS 7 after they showed it in Mavericks.



I still don't get this. You want to compose a message in your current app? It will still interrupt you. What's the big deal with goings to messages and then back to your app?
 
Well that was quick... I don't really view having two apps open on a screen at the same time a Samsung first. Apple has made a conscious decision to only have one app open at a time, it's not like 4 finger swipe is difficult really.

I suspect this "enhancement" is aimed more at the 12" iPad Pro crowd but they're able to port it over to 9.7".

Yeah, you can swipe but can you see the app that is not currently on the screen? Samsung did it right.
 
Hopefully you will be able to airplay one app to an external display while running another on the iPad. Great for watching a movie and using the iPad for anything else at the same time
 
I guess it would depend on what apps, to be honest. Did they use Safari in the mix?



I wouldn't use iMovie on an iPad at all, period. That's asking for trouble.

Here's a screenshot. The tweak was released about a week ago and admittedly I don't use the functionality very much yet, but it does work well and is more robust than the functionality described in this article

Safari + email and/or a video is my most likely use case.
 

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I still don't get this. You want to compose a message in your current app? It will still interrupt you. What's the big deal with goings to messages and then back to your app?

For example, when you DO need the other info remain visible. For example, when composing a mail in Mail to a non-copiable address (to avoid spam) shown in Safari. It's much easier to enter the address if you see it all the time than doing the same when you don't.

And that was just one example.
 
Only on iPad functionality? It's been awhile since we talked about fragmentation since iOS becomes more fragmented by the release. Funny how that works.
 
For example, when you DO need the other info remain visible. For example, when composing a mail in Mail to a non-copiable address (to avoid spam) shown in Safari. It's much easier to enter the address if you see it all the time than doing the same when you don't.

And that was just one example.

Oh, I get that, but in current size iPhone screens that will be hard. Maybe iPhone 6...
 
I already can't keep more than one tab open on my retina iPad Mini because it's so memory-constrained. How would it manage to keep multiple apps open?

Web browser tabs can take up quite a bit of memory. That doesn't mean you couldn't have Pages and Twitter open at the same time though.

The other "solution" would be that it works like crap except on the iPad Air/Retina Mini 2 ;)
 
Well that was quick... I don't really view having two apps open on a screen at the same time a Samsung first. Apple has made a conscious decision to only have one app open at a time, it's not like 4 finger swipe is difficult really.

I suspect this "enhancement" is aimed more at the 12" iPad Pro crowd but they're able to port it over to 9.7".

Well that was quick to have the first apologist reply...

Change goal posts much? All this board does is rally around apps that Apple did first that others copy; but now that Apple is doing something that Samsung did first on smartphones to not being a "Samsung first".

The hypocrisy on this forum is appalling.
 
I just logged on to see how many people who defended Apple's "multitasking" now would spin this around somehow. I won't be surprised when I see that Apple invented split window and Samsung copied them, lol.

Welcome Apple to 1994.
 
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