I remember watching a video awhile back that noted how Steve Jobs, being keen on eastern religions, brought Zen principals into his surrounding environment. In that particular case, they showed how his home was very spartan, eliciting an expression of focus and elimination of distractions from the task at hand. The point they were making was that this showed through his products. On the iPad, you can only do one thing at a time. You have to focus on that one thing, and are not able to be bothered by distractions such as other windows/programs.
Of course, having multiple apps open on the earlier iPads would have been quite challenging anyway, so this was either a happy coincidence or an excuse/interpretation made after the fact. But the idea was cool none the less. It made me think about how distracting and unfocused work on a normal desktop can feel like compared to an iPad. The downside, of course, is that while this inability to have multiple things open side-by-side is fine for casual usage and entertainment, it makes a lot of tasks related to creation and work quite difficult.
So it will be a relief to finally have this feature on iOS. It certainly was a pain point. But that concept of focusing on a single task without distractions is still something worth remembering.
Gonna have to side with this. The parent poster is effectively trying to rationalize what is a technical regression by most interpretations under a veil of woo and mysticism.
I'm not sure about this specific scenario (seems to me you're right, it's technical), but this principle has been actually used before and abandoned recently. The size of the iPhone 6 is a great example of something Jobs dismissed under usability notions, despite them certainly having the technical ability to do it. Now it's done.
Although not sure if Jobs changed his mind, or if this was a "post-Jobs" decision. Apple's product development timeline would make that seem unreasonable.
Apple Watch offers a new screen to work with. Single-hand operation is still possible. It does not match the experience before for the moment, but it will get better. Viewing it as user surrounded by devices, it will offer a clearer picture.
I think voice control (Siri here) will reduce the need for another hand to get involved in operation. Actually, we could categorize all the operations. I guess for most of those high frequency operations, voice control + wrist triggered display + customized settings would be fine for many users, if they are working well. I believe Apple has fact-based analysis on this and made their choice. How that would deliver is another story.
Certainly, and I tend to agree with your point. Which is why I said "so this was either a happy coincidence or an excuse/interpretation made after the fact". Apple is good at their marketing; pooh-poohing ideas they don't currently support is part of their reality distortion field.
But my last point, which you're replying to, is that regardless of whether this was part of their reality distortion field or not, I still think the idea has value. After a long slog of work, I'll often fullscreen a video/movie to force myself to relax and focus. It's like going out and taking a walk. It forces you to stop juggling your clutter of thoughts and tasks, and just focus on the simplicity of a single effort (in this case, walking).
They also don't like putting resources towards a feature unless they feel they're able to implement it in the best way possible. They're not interested in throwing features in just to say they have them.
Indeed. It seems like the new features are all about focusing on single workflows that involve multiple apps, rather than being anything about "multi-tasking" (trying to get multiple orthogonal things done concurrently.)
* Split Screen is obviously for things like taking Notes from a page in Safari. One input app, one output app. No more switching. (Interestingly, together with its enhancements, this makes Notes.app a real competitor to Evernote.)
* Side Frame is obviously for "watching" one app for (slow, asynchronous) updates you care about, while doing your regular stuff in the main pane. Like keeping an eye on a Slack conversation that you're not actively a part of, while working. Side Pane could also be for building "accessory" apps that give you extra controls for another app. I could imagine running your Unity game in the main pane with a Unity editor/debugger/inspector in the side pane, for instance. Instead of every Unity game having to ship those controls in a hidden way, they just run a socket server that the other app attaches to.
* Picture in Picture is just a combination of the above, specifically for video content. Listening to a presentation while taking notes on it or doing other things, looking down at it whenever it seems something interesting happened in your peripheral vision. Would be great for iTunes U, where a lecture can be in PiP and the course's iBook can be in the main view.
I will note that Side Frame greatly resembles a similar Windows 8 feature, which didn't turn out well, though. If Apple wants their version to live up to their expectations, they'll perhaps have to limit apps from having Side Frame view-controllers unless it actually makes sense to be using that app as part of a workflow. Otherwise, we'll get the W8 "Email inbox in the Side Frame" design that is just constantly distracting people, instead of encouraging them to set up filters and proper notifications.
It's an interesting contrast to OSX, which most people I know use by keeping a stack of odd-sized windows on screen such that at least a bit of each is always visible.
That concept seems ingrained in OSX application window management as well. For instance, OSX's equivalent of "maximize" works more like "size window to content", and as a result I see many people on OS X with an active window they're paying attention to that takes up only half the width of the screen, with other windows or the desktop showing through on the sides.
I can't function that way. I'm currently typing this on a 2560x1440 monitor, in a maximized Firefox window. Occasionally I put two windows half-maximized side by side, but only if I'm actively looking at both simultaneously (for instance, presentation slides and notes I'm taking, or a document in LaTeX and the rendered PDF). Otherwise, I maximize everything, even if it "wastes" space or makes the window wider than the "natural" size of the content, just to avoid distractions
God you must have so much blinding white space. And so many websites that give you long lines of text stretching all the way across to lose your place in the middle of.
(OSX, 1920x1200 monitor, Safari taking up the full screen height but only about half the width. Just my desktop beneath though it's not uncommon for me to have a couple other finder or IM windows sticking around.)
I mean whatever works for you but I'd go crazy doing that, just as you'd hate trying to use things the way I do. People are different.
I just wish they provided an option - it's not like the previous setup was broken.
To be honest, the most annoying thing isn't that it goes fullscreen, it's the mind-bendingly slow animation that accompanies it. Just make the damn thing fullscreen instantly so that I can reverse it instantly, rather than waiting on a cutesy shrinking animation too.
I can't function that way. I'm currently typing this on a 2560x1440 monitor, in a maximized Firefox window. Occasionally I put two windows half-maximized side by side
Sounds like you'd get a lot of benefit out of a tiling window manager. I've been a full-time Xmonad user for 4 years now and I don't know how I'd ever go back to arbitrary-sized, overlapping window managers such as OS X's.
> Sounds like you'd get a lot of benefit out of a tiling window manager. I've been a full-time Xmonad user for 4 years now and I don't know how I'd ever go back to arbitrary-sized, overlapping window managers such as OS X's.
For my two use cases (maximized or left/right half-maximized), GNOME 3 works perfectly for me. I've tried tiling window managers, but I don't necessarily want something that minimal.
FWIW, I think it's a lot easier to work in non-maximized windows on OS X than Windows just because of the navigation. Windows are somewhat thrown around, but it feels very comfortable to bounce through them with cmd-tab and cmd-`. It feels much more natural than full-screen applications. But whenever I'm on Windows, everything's full-screened or, at the least, snapped. The only maximized window on my machine right now (2x27" 2560x1440 plus the rMBP panel) is Parallels, with a maximized Visual Studio inside of it.
GNOME 3 has the same application-switching/window-switching distinction, which I immediately disabled in favor of alt-tab doing window-switching. I rarely have more than one window open per application; the only common exception is Pidgin and its chat window, and I'd prefer if those two windows were docked together.
I can, but it doesn't feel as natural to use smaller windows there. For a very long time, OS X had no real concept of "fullscreen", and I think the predominant culture around application design still sticks by that. I've never willingly used a full-screen app on OS X for anything other than video or Parallels Desktop.
I started using Moom for this reason (there may be other similar utilities). It's still crazy to me that such simple window management is not present in the OS by default.
I can't do it either, the visual cacophony is too much. I just install better touch tool and bind some keys to properly maximize an app and barely mess with the broken window controls in OS X.
However, I like multiple monitors, and I think the reason is that monitors are large enough that the one I'm not looking at sits far enough out on my peripheral that I simply don't pay much attention to it.
I, too, prefer operating everything full-screen. The only time I'll run a window non-maximized is if I'm quickly throwing some accessory open that I'll use for less than a minute before I close it.
(edit: IM clients, too. Forgot about those. But, still, everything other than IM clients and quick accessories, I run full-screen.)
Yep. Notepads and calculators are what i most often run as floating windows. Mostly because i am referencing some other window for whatever i am working on.
That's my way too. A single click is always simpler than navigating a task switching interface, so I just have "big window" on left, "mid size window" peeking out at its right edge, and then "little window" - usually textedit - poking through in back. It's like a little sideways pyramid. I can also alt-tab through them super easy. Never found much use for Expose or Mission Control, i consider having to use them an organizational fail state for my process.
Do yourself a huge favor and check out SpectacleApp. It's Windows image resizing brought to Mac OSX and it's really neat. 100% free and open source too with sensible defaults unlikes it's competitors.
(I have the same 'windows everywhere, all just partially visible' approach that the parent commenters have).
I can't see how this app (and other layout managers) would help this workflow. I don't move or resize windows. They are all where I want them to be, albeit stacked on top of each other. You click (or keypress) to pick the window you want to use, then use it. No window movement necessary.
You have to focus on that one thing, and are not able to be bothered by distractions such as other windows/programs.
The issue with this philosophy is that the one thing you need to do might not exist as a monolithic application. This is where the unix philosophy shines: lots of small, simple tools interacting over streams of text.
But isn't it still about doing one task but using multiple apps? I guess there will always be people who, when given a gun(or any powerful tool), will always shoot themselves in the foot.
And that's why they added fullscreen mode to OS X. Both ways of working excel for different situations. It's great that they are now making the enhancements in sync on OS X and iOS.
Of course, having multiple apps open on the earlier iPads would have been quite challenging anyway, so this was either a happy coincidence or an excuse/interpretation made after the fact. But the idea was cool none the less. It made me think about how distracting and unfocused work on a normal desktop can feel like compared to an iPad. The downside, of course, is that while this inability to have multiple things open side-by-side is fine for casual usage and entertainment, it makes a lot of tasks related to creation and work quite difficult.
So it will be a relief to finally have this feature on iOS. It certainly was a pain point. But that concept of focusing on a single task without distractions is still something worth remembering.