When you try to multitask on an iPad without a keyboard case, it often feels like you've made a mistake. A keyboard makes app switching easier, because you have the Command + Space key shortcut, and Spotlight becomes available to pull in apps not in the dock. And without the keyboard case, you're stuck with the virtual keyboard.
Last weekend, when I was trying to watch a video in Safari while chatting in Slack, I came across the virtual keyboard's biggest problem: It's really big.
So, when I had to type out replies in Slack or even take notes on the clips I was watching, the keyboard obscured nearly half of the screen. This meant that half of the video I was watching in Safari was not visible.
The ability to pop a video out of Safari and move it to a corner is a minor bandage, but it's not enough. Once you extract the video and start sliding it around your screen, it becomes so small that you're now squinting to see your content. And that's almost as bad as missing half the display.
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Yes, you can undock and split the keyboard, but that's one step shy of what the iPad virtual keyboard really needs. If the keyboard could shrink to appear under just the app in which you're using it, that would make a lot more space available. Each of the tasks in your multitasking session would get the space to breathe.
There's another potential solution, though, and it ties into existing iOS 13 on iPad rumors. Supposedly, we're going to get multiwindow apps, which will resemble sheets you can tear off of one another. If multiwindow apps do in fact arrive, then — maybe — we'll get resizable windows.
With resizable windows, you'd be able to shrink and zoom Notes to the size of your choice on both the length axis and width axis, not just width, which is what's available now. That level of customization would also prove valuable on the iPhone, where we're still waiting on split-screen view.
As the iPad's version of iOS becomes more adjustable, users will be better able to fit the operating system to their lives and workflows. And that will put Apple on course to make this tablet the machine the company claims it is. Because, unlike iOS on the iPad, macOS still provides an interface that feels finished, ready and free of any growing pains.
Credit: Laptop Mag
