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I've tried to use these desktop-inspired features on iPad and they are befuddling. Using two apps at once is beyond confusing. A simple use case, like copying

I've tried to use these desktop-inspired features on iPad and they are befuddling. Using two apps at once is beyond confusing. A simple use case, like copying an address from a Safari tab into Gmail via split screen requires so many mysterious, undiscoverable gestures, I doubt almost anyone is doing that. I think Jobs was right that convergence between workstations and mobile devices requires too many sacrifices, at least in the near term. I think the obvious solution could be an old one discovered by PARC decades ago: applications in windows and a mouse.

Angostura 7y ago
But the nice thing about the mysterious gestures is that you really don't need them. If you are a power user you might learn them - otherwise you just keep using it like an old-style iPad - like my wife does. It's sort of the equivalent of righ-click on a Mac.
- SomeOldThrow 7y ago
  Actually apple is pretty terrible about the discovery of right click functionality, I’d say that’s an obvious indication they prefer form over function. I wish Apple had gone Bauhaus in the 90s instead.
dmazin 7y ago
I think something mostly unmentioned, but implicit, in a lot of the power features of iPadOS is that they work great with a keyboard using shortcuts most people are already familiar with (e.g. command-c). The three-finger gestures, I agree, are pretty weird but you always have the keyboard (and the cut/copy/paste action menu).
soup10 7y ago
they are trying to hard to force gestures and touch controls, just support wireless mouses
- ogre_codes 7y ago
  These are different things. You should first and foremost be able to do everything on the iPad (or any touch device) with touch and/ or gestures. As soon as you require a mouse (or stylus, trackpad/ whatever) on a tablet you've screwed up. The whole beauty of a tablet is in its portability. Having to rely on a mouse or trackpad screws that up. That said, mouse support for the iPad can and absolutely should be much better. Just never a requirement.
  - mwarkentin 7y ago
    They added mouse support with this release. It’s an accessibility feature, and it moves a “fake finger” as your control rather than a precise mouse pointer but apparently it works.
    - yodon 7y ago
      It "works" but an actual mouse pointer would have been much better for normal users. The accessibility feature is unfortunately not actually what people who want mouse support actually want.
      - thirdsun 7y ago
        I'm pretty sure Apple wants to avoid interfaces that target a real mouse pointer and aren't easy to use with finger input. And I think they are right about that: Every UI should be accessible with finger input only.
  - soup10 7y ago
    It's nearly trivial for apple to add proper mouse support and just have apps self-identify as needing mouse or not. There's lots of things where touch controls just don't work well and it's not about "screwing up" the design its just touch controls are bad at pointing precision and there's plenty of reasons an app developer would want to support normal mouse controls. Not every app needs to be use-able on the bus.
tcdent 7y ago
The touch based workstation has been a concept forever, the technology just hasn't been there to execute it for a mass audience. All these systems need to do is provide enough value to be marketable; there's no reason for tech companies to ignore this as a product category. With more time and effort put into development it may be surprising just how effective they become. Most young kids I see are far more exposed to touch based interaction than trackpad, keyboard or mouse and I expect that will continue to be the case for most of their lives. Those of us who grew up with a physical keyboard as a primary input device can't relate.
wlesieutre 7y ago
A lot of discovery on desktop computers was by hovering over stuff for tooltips or poking around in menus. Touch devices don't have that, so you get the basic functionality exposed, but other stuff isn't as discoverable. I don't think this is as much of a problem as people make it out to be. They've managed to keep the iPad just as accessible to everyone, and they prod you occasionally with notifications from the Tips app for people who are willing to learn more. As far as moving a URL from a Safari tab to Gmail, why not just copy and paste it? Tap once on the URL bar, the keyboard pops up with all the text selected, and there's a copy button right there. Or you can tap on the selected text to bring up the cut/copy/paste buttons. Pressing and holding the URL to initiate a drag and then dropping in a text field also works for me, but I didn't test in Gmail. It's possible Google has some custom behavior that breaks this.
- jessriedel 7y ago
  > Touch devices don't have that, so you get the basic functionality exposed, but other stuff isn't as discoverable. I don't think this is as much of a problem as people make it out to be. They've managed to keep the iPad just as accessible to everyone, and they prod you occasionally with notifications from the Tips app for people who are willing to learn more. Indeed, I'd say the opposite: Most older folks simply do not discover stuff, or do so very rarely. They ask someone to show them how to do something, they memorize it, and they generalized/abstract from that only slightly. So they aren't missing the discoverability when changing to the tablet, while gaining a bit more intuition for swiping compared to the mouse.
- newscracker 7y ago
  > As far as moving a URL from a Safari tab to Gmail, why not just copy and paste it? Tap once on the URL bar, the keyboard pops up with all the text selected, and there's a copy button right there. Or you can tap on the selected text to bring up the cut/copy/paste buttons. Not the GP, but I can think of one reason not to copy paste, which is to avoid overwriting whatever’s already in the clipboard. However bad the discoverability may be, this function is just drag and drop, and need not involve the clipboard unless the user wants to.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
simonh 7y ago
Horses for courses I suppose, it took me a few minutes to learn how to use popovers and split screen, and now it’s second nature. My youngest doesn’t use any of that, but then she’s a magician with ProCreate and the pencil. It’s just a matter of what matters to you most.
Yhippa 7y ago
> I think the obvious solution could be an old one discovered by PARC decades ago: applications in windows and a mouse. I've tried both ways with tablets: using a pencil or a mouse. The mouse is a bit inconvenient because you have to carry something around with you that's a bit bulkier but the interaction with the computing device is so much more easy. It's annoying to have to pick up a pencil and doodle-gesture or touch the screen IMO.
innocentoldguy 7y ago
I used split-screen and some of the other desktop-oriented features in iOS 12.x and they were OK but not great. I think iPadOS has really polished these. Split screen is a lot easier to use, as are copy/paste/undo. Of course, the apps you use have to support these new features. There are some, like Kindle, that don't work well at all.
1123581321 7y ago
I just tried this for the first time with Safari and Mail and didn’t have any issue. And when I copied the text, a set of tips popped up to tell me I can do a three finger spread to automatically copy and paste, so in the future I can just do that gesture on the left and right side to quickly move text if I don’t have a keyboard connected for cmd+c/cmd+v.

Angostura 7y ago

But the nice thing about the mysterious gestures is that you really don't need them. If you are a power user you might learn them - otherwise you just keep using it like an old-style iPad - like my wife does. It's sort of the equivalent of righ-click on a Mac.

SomeOldThrow 7y ago
Actually apple is pretty terrible about the discovery of right click functionality, I’d say that’s an obvious indication they prefer form over function. I wish Apple had gone Bauhaus in the 90s instead.

dmazin 7y ago

I think something mostly unmentioned, but implicit, in a lot of the power features of iPadOS is that they work great with a keyboard using shortcuts most people are already familiar with (e.g. command-c). The three-finger gestures, I agree, are pretty weird but you always have the keyboard (and the cut/copy/paste action menu).

soup10 7y ago

they are trying to hard to force gestures and touch controls, just support wireless mouses

ogre_codes 7y ago
These are different things. You should first and foremost be able to do everything on the iPad (or any touch device) with touch and/ or gestures. As soon as you require a mouse (or stylus, trackpad/ whatever) on a tablet you've screwed up. The whole beauty of a tablet is in its portability. Having to rely on a mouse or trackpad screws that up. That said, mouse support for the iPad can and absolutely should be much better. Just never a requirement.
- mwarkentin 7y ago
  They added mouse support with this release. It’s an accessibility feature, and it moves a “fake finger” as your control rather than a precise mouse pointer but apparently it works.
  - yodon 7y ago
    It "works" but an actual mouse pointer would have been much better for normal users. The accessibility feature is unfortunately not actually what people who want mouse support actually want.
    - thirdsun 7y ago
      I'm pretty sure Apple wants to avoid interfaces that target a real mouse pointer and aren't easy to use with finger input. And I think they are right about that: Every UI should be accessible with finger input only.
- soup10 7y ago
  It's nearly trivial for apple to add proper mouse support and just have apps self-identify as needing mouse or not. There's lots of things where touch controls just don't work well and it's not about "screwing up" the design its just touch controls are bad at pointing precision and there's plenty of reasons an app developer would want to support normal mouse controls. Not every app needs to be use-able on the bus.

tcdent 7y ago

The touch based workstation has been a concept forever, the technology just hasn't been there to execute it for a mass audience. All these systems need to do is provide enough value to be marketable; there's no reason for tech companies to ignore this as a product category. With more time and effort put into development it may be surprising just how effective they become. Most young kids I see are far more exposed to touch based interaction than trackpad, keyboard or mouse and I expect that will continue to be the case for most of their lives. Those of us who grew up with a physical keyboard as a primary input device can't relate.

wlesieutre 7y ago

A lot of discovery on desktop computers was by hovering over stuff for tooltips or poking around in menus. Touch devices don't have that, so you get the basic functionality exposed, but other stuff isn't as discoverable. I don't think this is as much of a problem as people make it out to be. They've managed to keep the iPad just as accessible to everyone, and they prod you occasionally with notifications from the Tips app for people who are willing to learn more. As far as moving a URL from a Safari tab to Gmail, why not just copy and paste it? Tap once on the URL bar, the keyboard pops up with all the text selected, and there's a copy button right there. Or you can tap on the selected text to bring up the cut/copy/paste buttons. Pressing and holding the URL to initiate a drag and then dropping in a text field also works for me, but I didn't test in Gmail. It's possible Google has some custom behavior that breaks this.

jessriedel 7y ago
> Touch devices don't have that, so you get the basic functionality exposed, but other stuff isn't as discoverable. I don't think this is as much of a problem as people make it out to be. They've managed to keep the iPad just as accessible to everyone, and they prod you occasionally with notifications from the Tips app for people who are willing to learn more. Indeed, I'd say the opposite: Most older folks simply do not discover stuff, or do so very rarely. They ask someone to show them how to do something, they memorize it, and they generalized/abstract from that only slightly. So they aren't missing the discoverability when changing to the tablet, while gaining a bit more intuition for swiping compared to the mouse.
newscracker 7y ago
> As far as moving a URL from a Safari tab to Gmail, why not just copy and paste it? Tap once on the URL bar, the keyboard pops up with all the text selected, and there's a copy button right there. Or you can tap on the selected text to bring up the cut/copy/paste buttons. Not the GP, but I can think of one reason not to copy paste, which is to avoid overwriting whatever’s already in the clipboard. However bad the discoverability may be, this function is just drag and drop, and need not involve the clipboard unless the user wants to.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

simonh 7y ago

Horses for courses I suppose, it took me a few minutes to learn how to use popovers and split screen, and now it’s second nature. My youngest doesn’t use any of that, but then she’s a magician with ProCreate and the pencil. It’s just a matter of what matters to you most.

Yhippa 7y ago

> I think the obvious solution could be an old one discovered by PARC decades ago: applications in windows and a mouse. I've tried both ways with tablets: using a pencil or a mouse. The mouse is a bit inconvenient because you have to carry something around with you that's a bit bulkier but the interaction with the computing device is so much more easy. It's annoying to have to pick up a pencil and doodle-gesture or touch the screen IMO.

innocentoldguy 7y ago

I used split-screen and some of the other desktop-oriented features in iOS 12.x and they were OK but not great. I think iPadOS has really polished these. Split screen is a lot easier to use, as are copy/paste/undo. Of course, the apps you use have to support these new features. There are some, like Kindle, that don't work well at all.

1123581321 7y ago

I just tried this for the first time with Safari and Mail and didn’t have any issue. And when I copied the text, a set of tips popped up to tell me I can do a three finger spread to automatically copy and paste, so in the future I can just do that gesture on the left and right side to quickly move text if I don’t have a keyboard connected for cmd+c/cmd+v.