"if I could go back to the pre-split-screen, pre-drag-and-drop interface I would. Which is to say, now that iPadOS has its own name, I wish I could install the iPhone’s one-app-on-screen-at-a-time, no-drag-and-drop iOS on my iPad Pro. I’d do it in a heartbeat and be much happier for it."

Weirdly there is just a setting and it is strange that Gruber doesn’t know about it.

Settings->HomeScreen & Dock->Multitasking->Allow Multiple Apps

“Drag applications from the Dock or Home screen to create Split View and Slide Over apps. Swipe from the right edge to reveal your last Slide Over app.”

I like multiple apps except for in Safari, where I semi-regularly accidentally activate slide-over by dragging a link when I'm trying to scroll a page. Getting out of this mode is a pain in the ass, because AFAIK, you have to drag the slide over into split-screen mode before in order to close it.

Anyway, in desperation I turned off multi-tasking, but it doesn't disable the drag-link-to-create-slide-over-behavior. Instead it becomes even worse because the dragged link replaces the previous window. Even worse, you can't click the Back button to get back where you were. Doubly-even-worse, Safari's history is and has been broken for a long time... not every link you've visited is in the history, titles don't match the page you were on, etc.

Anyway, whatever the hell Apple did to Safari as part of iPad OS... I hate it.

edit: I didn't realize there was a slide-over-switcher you can activate and then from there swipe-up to kill the slide-over you don't want. Still a PITA. https://www.imore.com/how-use-slide-over-and-split-view-ipad...

Not just Steve Jobs: the development of the Apple Newton (arguably the precursor to the iPad) was in part led by Larry "NO MODES" Tesler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Tesler http://www.nomodes.com/

Here is Larry's 1981 BYTE article about modes, complete with a "DON'T MODE ME IN" T-shirt made by a mutual friend:

https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1981-08/page/n103/...

Thank you. It's a big article, it starts on the page 90 and ends on 147(!) there. Also, the article is from 1981 and Tesler already works for Apple, as seen on the first page.

To compare with the article date, Apple Lisa was released January 19, 1983 (and, by the way, Macintosh January 1984, iPhone January 2007, iPad January 2010 -- Jobs certainly had a system).

Yes! Thanks!

"Primary inventor of modeless editing and cut, copy, paste."

http://www.nomodes.com/Larry_Tesler_Consulting/CV_files/NOMO...

Since cca 1973.

Reference: doi:10.1145/2212877.2212896

+1 I still haven’t figured out how to get split screen reliably and every time. But I don’t find a need for split screen either. A few times, I tried I had to google how to get split screen then I gave up. Also, sometime I automagically get split screen and can’t figure out how to get rid of it. Usually land up just closing apps in split screen and restarting apps.

Two extremely useful use cases of mine:

- drawing in Procreate with reference material in the split.

- learning a song by singing + playing it on the guitar with chords and lyrics displayed, with it playing in Music† at the same time (on repeat + seek readily accessible)††

† I find it infuriating that no other music app than Music has considered split a possibility.

†† I'm aware there's a "Play" thing in Ultimate Guitar but it's absolute crap, playing a YouTube version that often doesn't match, obscures the sheet with a PIP, and is terrible to make repeat/seek. This is a perfect use case of functional composability using split screen.

I use my iPad Pro in splitscreen almost exclusively. Probably because I mainly use it for notetaking and research, instead of as just an entertainment device. That said, the usability of multitasking has for some reason become far worse on iPads since iOS 11 and I'm still waiting for them to do anything to improve it. I still can't believe it's in the state it is now, years later.

Is this the 13" or the 11" version you have?

13"

I think if you find a compelling use case for it, you will figure it out :-)

I scan physical books to PDFs and read them as Quicklook from Files. Now, these books sometimes refer to other parts within the same book. So I almost always split the same book into 75:25 split. The smaller section section to move between the book/chapters, the larger section for focusing on.

I find this almost TWMish way of windowing actually helps me focus better than on the full MacOS.

Another use case. I write code on iPad(yes... I do), no.. not production code but something I am trying to figure out or learn. I code it in Pythonista (I have read about PyTo but don't need it just yet). If Python won't cut it then I type it out in Buffer Editor. Now I maintain an index of my code snippets in Numbers sheets to keep track of stuff. This time 50:50 split between the two and it works.

Most important use case, hand written notes. And with an App, searchable hand written notes.

On the iPad Pro, recently I found out it's possible to hook up a RaspberryPI as well for some more heavy lifting (but I guess by that point I would just not bother and bring a laptop)

And I have tried non Apple solution as well. A cheap Win 10 tablet followed by Surface Pro 6. With the Surface Pro I wouldn't need the RaspberryPI. In theory, it is the most comprehensive mobile platform and should do all of the above I have mentioned. However, the overall experience with that form factor and the clunkyness of Win10 as a touch based or tablet based OS spoiled it for me. I returned the Surface Pro.

Even with all it's limitations which I had to train myself to get around, iPad Pro is still the better mobile computing experience.

I dream that some day Apple will make a Thinkpad Yoga type device which will be running a full MacOS but will support the Apple Pencil and touch screen. OR an alternative dream is for Surface Pro to become less clunky in use as a tablet device.

Wait - how does a Raspberry Pi help you here? Do you ssh into it from the iPad? How do you connect to it physically?

I love and use split screen all the time on my iPad for a variety of use cases. Even though I love the feature and find it really useful all of the UI constraints related to it are totally true. I would never want the feature removed, but the existing UI for it is beyond maddening.

I code in one terminal app and look at documentation on the second. I watch videos in the full screen and browse twitter using the slide in option. I love the multitasking tbh

> And Steve Jobs was old enough to learn that much earlier: that the "modes" are bad and that good UI doesn't require one to do some magic to switch between them, as it can be summarized in the joke: "How to Quit Vim and Exit the VI Editor — the most popular Stack Overflow question -- and I'm using vi last two years because I can't figure out how to exit it."

The more a software do, the less it's user friendly... You can't really compare Vi, a text editor that need training to master by technician, and the IpadOS. They are not made for the same people.

The File, Edit, etc menus on macOS are much more clear interface than most applications I've used on the iPad.

macOS is undeniably more powerful - It's the truck versus the sports car in the analogy.

But macOS is much much more straightforward and easy to use. I have far fewer things that I just have to memorize.

I would argue that vi(m) is more user-friendly by being more upfront about its learning curve.

Vi(m) favors “easy to use” over “easy to learn” - which is the right tradeoff for a tool that one can use for hours a day for decades.

Though I always liked the line, “Vi is user-friendly - it’s just picky about who its friends are”.

(BTW, “ZZ” is usually the right answer to quitting/exiting - still funny to see, decades on, people teaching “:wq<return>”.)

Thank you. I just learned I've been exiting vim wrong for years.

I think that is different from being “user friendly”, where “user friendly” means “the UI for this application is as intuitive as we could make it do that a wide range of nontechnical users are able to comfortably use this application with a minimum of formal instruction.”