What the F Apple? (rearranging webpages on iPad/iphone)

[DeanSolecki]

I use between 6 and 9 windows in safari at any given time. There are 4 websites that I always have floating around in that 9, but not always in the same place.

When you look at the windows all laid out next to each other they look like icons on your home screen. Looking at them you want to hold down on them and arrange them in the same way that you arrange app icons on the home screen, so that your "frequently used" sites are all up at the top and then random links that you're keeping around temporarily (like this thread that I'm starting) can be pushed to the bottom and then cleared out when newer things replace them, or rearranged as the importance of each changes based on whatever criteria.

I feel like this would be even more important with an iPhone because you have to swipe through each page individually, but that interface doesn't suggest rearranging the way the iPad interface does. It looks like I SHOULD be able to rearrange them on the iPad.

Anyway, I'm sure this has bothered someone else.

 

[LeeTom]

Yep! I've tried holding for the wiggle several times after iOS updates. Maybe this summer?

 

[DeanSolecki]

Yep! I've tried holding for the wiggle several times after iOS updates. Maybe this summer?

I hope so. The only thing I can think that might hinder this is that you have to cancel the "wiggle" with the home button, and apple may not want the home button to be used "in app" that way because it could potentially be confusing...

...but I hope I'm wrong about that and it ends up in iOS 5.

 

[mickbab]

Yes I've always wondered why Apple hasn't implemented this functionality, it would be very useful. I imagine on the iPhone it could take a long time to move things around, only being able to see one screen at a time, but on the iPad where 9 pages are viewable at once it would be just as easy to do as moving app icons around.

Come on Apple!

 

[Gav2k]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

Open them up in the order you want to start with?

 

[Fliesen]

I hope so. The only thing I can think that might hinder this is that you have to cancel the "wiggle" with the home button, and apple may not want the home button to be used "in app" that way because it could potentially be confusing...

...but I hope I'm wrong about that and it ends up in iOS 5.

The iphone facebook app has a 'wiggle to rearrange' feature.
Once you're done you just hit the 'done' button.

So that shouldn't be a problem, really

 

[DeanSolecki]

Yeah, a beefy "done" button showing up with the wiggle could easily replace the (not very intuitive) home button cancel for the home screen as well, if you think about it.

Good point.

If you look at it, rather than the "wiggle" (which would be a bit cumbersome) just adding a "rearrange" icon in the upper-right hand corner of each page so that you could quickly drag pages around would be ideal and it wouldn't require canceling anything at all.

 

[DeanSolecki]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

Open them up in the order you want to start with?

I occasionally do, but if I open a link in one suddenly it's pushed the order out of whack. Not critical, but it seems like an obvious and easy feature to implement. Of course two text message alerts took forever so I guess we know what to expect.

 

[talkingfuture]

That one always annoys me too, though not as much as the inability to open links in a background tab. I think safari is the part of iOS that needs the most work in future updates.

 

[BergerFan]

It's not just in Safari, either. We should be able to do the same in the Photos app. We should be able to re-order images, by drag & drop, have a 'Sort' button, where they can be sorted by date, name, size, etc, and be able to choose which image is the album cover.

 

[DeanSolecki]

It's not just in Safari, either. We should be able to do the same in the Photos app. We should be able to re-order images, by drag & drop, have a 'Sort' button, where they can be sorted by date, name, size, etc, and be able to choose which image is the album cover.

In the iPad phot app, if you hold two fingers on an album, you can drag it around, but it doesn't seem like you can do anything with it? The albums won't combine or re-order. I wonder if this is a feature that isn't completely developed yet or if there is something very specific that you can do with this that I'm failing to notice?

Either way there's a lot that could be done with the photos to make it more than an unordered everything-bin for photo booth sessions. I think the fact that it syncs with folders on your computer has something to do with its limited customization, but working around that isn't rocket-surgery.

 

[Fliesen]

In the iPad phot app, if you hold two fingers on an album, you can drag it around, but it doesn't seem like you can do anything with it? The albums won't combine or re-order. I wonder if this is a feature that isn't completely developed yet or if there is something very specific that you can do with this that I'm failing to notice?

you can 'drag it around' because you're essentially at the first 0,5% of the pinch gesture which follows your fingers.
you're not dragging around the album, but the still stacked preview of the photos

That one always annoys me too, though not as much as the inability to open links in a background tab. I think safari is the part of iOS that needs the most work in future updates.

i think that's intentional. They want to prevent people from opening up dozens of tabs in the background, which would definitely create performance issues after a while due to the iPad's limited ram.
i don't mind that, really

 

[GnillGnoll]

Just try some of the alternative browsers. They can open tabs in the background and have better caching, better tab interfaces and other features like better scrolling.

 

[mickbab]

Just a new thought.

Why couldn't it work like the iBooks app?
You don't need to hold and wait for a wiggle to rearrange, you simply hold and press and drag. I don't see why Safari couldn't work like this too.