Originally published at: iPadOS 15 Finally Makes Multitasking Discoverable - TidBITS
Multitasking on the iPad has been a mess for years, thanks to relying on obscure gestures. With iPadOS 15, Apple has added a new Multitasking menu that provides a visible interface along with a new center window option, a shelf for open windows, and a radically enhanced App Switcher.
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I hope Apple is reviving discoverability and user testing; I never let my late mother upgrade to a MacOS version in which the green button entered full-screen mode with no obvious way to return to normal. She understood the well-designed Mac UI, but would never have been able to cope with that. I’ve known an experienced Mac user with a doctorate in a real science to need my help escaping from Undiscoverability Hell, and one with a doctorate in a dismal science to get lost after iOS updates.
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iPadOS Split Windows have been more than a mess for me. Despite nearly 40 years spent absorbing the Apple way of thinking about interfaces, I could never, never remember how to invoke a split window. But occasionally I could do it by accident, at the very moment I did not want one, and then for real spend minutes of my life trying to get rid of the unwanted window. It was a straight-up interface failure. I’m very encouraged by the inclusion of actual controls for multi-tasking, even if the highlighting in the screenshots still looks distressingly low-contrast. My hope: someone, someday, is going to persuade Apple that a 9% grey tint is a minimum limit rather than a maximum limit.
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Had nightmare with iOS 15.0.1 update this weekend. Too many “on by default” features I could do without, the long time for the download, verify, install, verify and then find I lost several gigs of space. Worst was I usually offload my picts via Preview. Well, Preview on my Catalina MacMini (last OS it can take) has an error on launch. Never was there. Yet, it imported all the images to a select drive. And after crashing twice. I was able to go in and delete past years of already backed off movs and images.
Thanks Apple. Your iOS now means I need to get a larger capacity phone and presumably means latest (I’m running an 8 and will wait for 12Pro refurb). Next up, the iPad (which is not a critical tool like my iPhone). So I will see how its with multitasking.
Does anyone at Apple know what Accessibility is and that a hairline update progress what shows faint pulsing of greys…is not ideal? Or that turning on “features” that weren’t on, is not desirable? Focus…I don’t like it. What I want is, any text message (SMS or otherwise) to go to unknown. Not show up at all and let me decide that yes, its junk, and not a contact. Or that an unknown + URL is not wanted. I want that option. Anyway, off to take iPad to iOS 15.0.1 (oh, if this needs newest iPad…).
And now there is a 15.0.2 out!
A post was merged into an existing topic: iOS 15.0.2, iPadOS 15.0.2, and watchOS 8.0.1 Fix Bugs, Major Security Flaw
Thanks for the detailed explanation of how this new feature works. Now I know enough to want to avoid it. Think I’ll stick to my Mac.
Hoping that’s not because of my post above.
I was responding to the miserable “have to remember inscrutable gestures and that they exist” experience that was present before iPadOS 15.x.x was released.
The newly released interface that includes actual controls sounds like it will make multitasking a useful addition to the iPad experience.
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Perhaps Apple can use this as an example, and work their way back through all the other things they have made undiscoverable. /dream
This ‘feature’ has been so bad that I have resorted to restarting my iPad when I accidentally triggerred one of these monstrosities. And there are plenty of other features that require exploratory screen stroking in 45° increments from all possible corners and edges, with every possible number of fingers and gestures. As Douglas Adams said back in the dark days:
A quick calculation told me that this procedure would be unlikely to be finished before the most optimistic estimates of when we may expect the heat death of the universe, and that it would certainly be quicker simply to hire someone to type everything out for you. I mean everything: the Library of Congress, the Bodleian Library, everything.
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One annoying factor is only certain apps remain usable in split screen or slide over modes.
For example, I noticed the Settings app is not able to use these modes. Which can make checking things a PIA.
I’m not sure there are all that many such hidden iPad gestures that are the only way of doing something, as was previously the case with multitasking. In most cases I can think of, like swiping right with four fingers to move back to the previous app, that’s just a shortcut to one of many ways of switching to apps, such as double-pressing the Home button on a Touch ID iPad to open the App Switcher or simply pressing it once to return to the Home screen and then using the Dock or a Home screen icon to switch to the other app.
So let’s make a list. What gestures have no onscreen or physical reminder and are the only way to invoke some action?
While this new thing is WAY better than the convoluted mess they had before, I could not seem to get it to do a split in landscape (was trying to do text & watch a football game!). That it can not do that leaves the cleanup simply lacking.
I share Matt’s pain. I keep getting a fly out screen whenever I touch the screen near the right or left side of my iPad Air’s screen. Then I have to stop what I’m doing and futz around to get rid of it. Is there any way to shut this off?
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Not any more with iPadOS 15. However, if you have a slide-over item showing, you’ll notice a horizontal bar, like the home bar on a Face ID iPhone, on the bottom. If you swipe up and hold as you would on a Face ID phone to show the multitasking screen, the iPad will show a version of that for the apps that are set up to slide over. You can swipe up on each of them to delete them from the slide over area, and when all of them are gone, there will be no more slide over items to show when you swipe in from the edge of the screen.
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However, if you have a slide-over item showing, you’ll notice a horizontal bar, like the home bar on a Face ID iPhone, on the bottom. If you swipe up and hold as you would on a Face ID phone to show the multitasking screen, the iPad will show a version of that for the apps that are set up to slide over. You can swipe up on each of them to delete them from the slide over area, and when all of them are gone, there will be no more slide over items to show when you swipe in from the edge of the screen.
This is a great undocumented gesture! Thanks for that.
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Rather than focussing on the gestures, lets look at the functions.
Anything on IOS requires either poking an icon in some way, poking some text that might be a button or link, or using a gesture of some kind.
Icons and text are discoverable as long as they are visible — if they disappear (as is the current fashion) rather than greying out, the existence of the function is not findable.
Gestures — especially ones with multiple digits — are inherently obscure, so they should be extremely consistent, and reinforced with text that shows what they are doing. Or, help should pop up when you do something often using buttons, suggesting a gesture. Nothing should be left to only gestures, unless there is text to indicate that at first (‘swipe right continue’).
This applies to various versions of iOS, iPhones and iPads — which is part of the problem. Things which worked, stop working, and there is no way to find them again.
So, with that rant out of the way, here is a short, incomplete and imperfect list. They mostly represent actions that I or people I know have not been able to perform, or have only been able to perform by a circuitous route, or have only found by accident and not found again. Some are still subject to ‘stroke the screen randomly and hope; if all else fails, restart’.
- Help, of any kind. Especially when offline. Especially ‘what does this icon mean now?’.
- Undo, especially “go back to where I was and how the screen looked a moment ago”. This is particularly critical because random or systematic poking is the only way to find some things.
- Search in mail
- Search from Home Screen
- Bring up the control panel
- Change what is in the control panel
- Create a folder in the Home Screen and put things in it
- Undo move of an icon in home screen
- Make an enlarged full screen image go away
- Make a full screen video go away
- Show a mute button to stop sound (slapping the screen with your whole hand should do this!)
- Make the notifications screen go away
- Make the camera go away when accidentally brought forward by trying to swipe the notifications screen away
- Show the today view
- Make app cards view go away
- Invoke text edit bar
- Move cursor in a text field, especially when text is not visible (eg Safari address bar)
- Force quit an app because it has frozen.
- And finally … everything to do with seeing multiple apps or windows at once.
And before anyone jumps in: yes, for most of these a Google search will find results that might work on the iOS/device combination in question. But “search Google” ≠ discoverability.
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I think there are two types of gestures that you’re identifying here, those that would be used infrequently enough that people would have trouble remembering them (like the old multitasking gestures) and those that you use so frequently that they’re easily picked up. For instance:
- Help, of any kind. Especially when offline. Especially ‘what does this icon mean now?’.
This is an entirely valid criticism, although it’s not like any help system has ever really been successful. Remember balloon help?
- Undo, especially “go back to where I was and how the screen looked a moment ago”. This is particularly critical because random or systematic poking is the only way to find some things.
Apple has tried several times to come up with an Undo, but it’s so infrequently needed and so inconsistently supported that nothing has caught on. I try the shake to undo periodically, but it’s very hit or miss. And there’s some sort of multi-finger swipe when editing text, but I’d have to look it up because I need it so infrequently that it doesn’t stick.
- Search in mail
I use Gmail, not Mail, but when I pulled up Mail just now, the search field showed at the top of the All Inboxes screen.
A better example of this would be search in Settings, where you have to know to pull down when at the top of the screen. And it works poorly even then.
- Search from Home Screen
This one doesn’t bother me—I use it all the time so swiping down from the center of the Home screen is total second nature.
- Bring up the control panel
Again, Control Center is something that I’d expect people to use enough that they’d remember the swipe down from the right corner (or whatever it is on Touch ID iPhones).
- Change what is in the control panel
That’s entirely deserved criticism, and I have no idea why Apple doesn’t put an Edit button at the bottom of Control Center to open Settings > Control Center. There’s plenty of precedent for that with Today view and Share sheets.
- Create a folder in the Home Screen and put things in it
That doesn’t bother me—it’s not something people need to do hardly ever, so they can look it up if they forget that dragging one thing on top of another works.
- Undo move of an icon in home screen
Eh. The frequency and liability from this mistake is so low that I wouldn’t waste much effort on enabling it. In theory, if Undo support were consistent everywhere, it could be added, but whatever.
- Make an enlarged full screen image go away
I’m not sure what this means. If you’ve enlarged something by pinching out, pinching in would seem to be reasonable to reverse it.
- Make a full screen video go away
Generally speaking, I see controls when I tap the screen and one of them is often an X.
- Show a mute button to stop sound (slapping the screen with your whole hand should do this!)
I can’t say I’ve never wanted to stop audio, but as far as I can remember, whenever I have, there’s a clear Play/Pause button.
- Make the notifications screen go away
You swipe down from the top left to get Notification Center; swiping up puts it away. That seems reasonable. And while you might not guess it, it’s also only a secondary approach for revealing it since all that stuff appears if you swipe up on the Lock screen too.
- Make the camera go away when accidentally brought forward by trying to swipe the notifications screen away
You mean when you’ve invoked the camera from the Lock screen? That does feel like an error on Apple’s part to me, since swiping to the left on the bar at the bottom of the iPhone screen should work, but in fact only swiping up returns to you to the Lock screen.
- Show the today view
Just like App Library, that doesn’t bother me too much. Ideally, Apple could add slightly different dots that indicate Home screens
- Make app cards view go away
Do you mean the App Switcher? Getting into it is funky with that swipe up and slightly to the right, but getting out of it seems obvious—just tap the app you want.
- Invoke text edit bar
Not sure what you’re referring to here.
- Move cursor in a text field, especially when text is not visible (eg Safari address bar)
That doesn’t much bother me. Tapping something to make it expand or become editable seems reasonable. And you can press and hold in the text to move the cursor. Trackpad mode invoked by pressing on the Space bar isn’t discoverable (a tiny icon there could help!) but if you’re likely to use it, you’ll remember it easily.
- Force quit an app because it has frozen.
This should not be made obvious in the UI—it’s a last-ditch troubleshooting feature and making it more obvious would encourage people to work against iOS and hurt their performance and battery life.
- And finally … everything to do with seeing multiple apps or windows at once.
And that’s what the new multitasking UI does.
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I do this often enough that I know it’s double-tap with three fingers. Shake to undo is a cute gesture and not terrible on an iPhone, but kind of silly on an an iPad.
Shake to Undo inspired by Etch-a-Sketch? 
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Thank you. I couldn’t figure out why I sometimes got the App Switcher and sometimes didn’t. I wasn’t including the “right” intentionally, just haphazardly (I assume).
I do use Mail, and I often have trouble with its search function not finding what I want. Once, after Mail failed to find something that I knew existed, I hunted it down and had it on the screen and again told Mail to find it. Again Mail failed. I don’t know what the problem is, but Search in Mail needs work. Fortunately for me, I rarely Search, but when I do, I am frequently disappointed.
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This 100%. Talk about something that would actually make a difference.
These days I sometimes find myself actually going to the gmail web interface to search my work mail because local Mail.app search is so bad in comparison. Obviously, I don’t expect Apple to do search as well as Google, but could they at least try?