All iPads How to enable ‘home screen’ to show up in CMD-tab from keyboard?

[wegster]

So I had a less than thrilling surprise issue on my refurbed IPP, which led to me deciding Apple L1 ‘chat support’ is only marginally better than speaking to a brick and waiting for a response. Eventually, we reloaded the IPP without a from backup restore, losing all of the misc settings I’d set up as well as apps, configurations, etc.

One of the things I can’t seem to sort out now is I used to see the home screen as an ‘app’ when doing a CMD-TAB cycling through apps, but now it’s not there. Does anyone know how to re-enable this?

 

[Wackery]

Just use cmd h?

 

[AutomaticApple]

Just use cmd h?

But how do you make it show up in the CMD + tab menu?

 

[Moyapilot]

Seems like a bug...I can’t even get red of the home in that screen using the ‘q’ key. Its the only one that won’t let me remove that way. Strange!

 

[cupcakes2000]

Seems like a bug...I can’t even get red of the home in that screen using the ‘q’ key. Its the only one that won’t let me remove that way. Strange!

Command Q is to quit the app, you obviously can’t quit the home screen.

 

[Moyapilot]

Command Q is to quit the app, you obviously can’t quit the home screen.

Exactly...thats why I’m confused why its happening to OP. There is no way to thus ‘add’ the homescreen back in

 

[chrfr]

Command Q is to quit the app, you obviously can’t quit the home screen.

Command-Q isn't for quitting apps on the iPad at all.

 

[sparksd]

So I had a less than thrilling surprise issue on my refurbed IPP, which led to me deciding Apple L1 ‘chat support’ is only marginally better than speaking to a brick and waiting for a response. Eventually, we reloaded the IPP without a from backup restore, losing all of the misc settings I’d set up as well as apps, configurations, etc.

One of the things I can’t seem to sort out now is I used to see the home screen as an ‘app’ when doing a CMD-TAB cycling through apps, but now it’s not there. Does anyone know how to re-enable this?

Under Accessibility, is Full Keyboard Access enabled?

 

[wegster]

Under Accessibility, is Full Keyboard Access enabled?

No, because it caused other bugs in OneNote, e.g. typing tab or space was going in insane mode.
That was probably it however...wonder if I can re-enable and clear all the 'full keyboard mode' settings/key mappings to get just the CMD-TAB 'home screen' in the window cycle list..

 

[sparksd]

No, because it caused other bugs in OneNote, e.g. typing tab or space was going in insane mode.
That was probably it however...wonder if I can re-enable and clear all the 'full keyboard mode' settings/key mappings to get just the CMD-TAB 'home screen' in the window cycle list..

Yep, turn that off and you lose the keyboard commands associated with it.

 

[cupcakes2000]

Command-Q isn't for quitting apps on the iPad at all.

Actually, you appear to be right. It doesn’t quit apps from the regular app switcher, just removes them from the tab switcher. So it’s not for quitting apps it seems. But surely that’s a bug, becuase what is the point of that? What do you propose command Q is for then? You quit apps like that on the Mac, which was why I presumed.

Edit** sorry- I meant cmd Q (from the tab switcher). Sorry- my bad. Though I have to say you probably knew what I meant given the context.

 

[MyopicPaideia]

Actually, you appear to be right. It doesn’t quit apps from the regular app switcher, just removes them from the tab switcher. So it’s not for quitting apps it seems. But surely that’s a bug, becuase what is the point of that? What do you propose command Q is for then? You quit apps like that on the Mac, which was why I presumed.

Edit** sorry- I meant cmd Q (from the tab switcher). Sorry- my bad. Though I have to say you probably knew what I meant given the context.

Actually, you were fine - the difference is that on iPadOS you don’t actually quit apps...ever. This due to the different way that iPadOS handles memory management compared to macOS. Once an app is kicked from RAM due to something else needing the memory, it will just restart from the snapshot, and depends on the app for what actually happens. With games, for example, you will be dumped back to the title screen, and may lose unsaved progress, depending on the game. For productivity and creative apps, you will usually reload the file you last had open and continue from that state, and virtually all of these have autosaves so that it would be pretty hard to lose unsaved changes.

All cmd-Q (or command-Q) does in iPadOS is remove the app from the tab app switcher. It doesn’t quit the app. The only way to “quit” apps in iPadOS is to swipe up on them in the multitasking view, and this will manually flush them from memory (if they are still in there at all - the multitasking view shows a complete history, not just apps still in RAM).

 

[cupcakes2000]

Actually, you were fine - the difference is that on iPadOS you don’t actually quit apps...ever. This due to the different way that iPadOS handles memory management compared to macOS. Once an app is kicked from RAM due to something else needing the memory, it will just restart from the snapshot, and depends on the app for what actually happens. With games, for example, you will be dumped back to the title screen, and may lose unsaved progress, depending on the game. For productivity and creative apps, you will usually reload the file you last had open and continue from that state, and virtually all of these have autosaves so that it would be pretty hard to lose unsaved changes.

All cmd-X (or command-X) does in iPadOS is remove the app from the tab app switcher. It doesn’t quit the app. The only way to “quit” apps in iPadOS is to swipe up on them in the multitasking view, and this will manually flush them from memory (if they are still in there at all - the multitasking view shows a complete history, not just apps still in RAM).

Thanks for clarifying, well explained. Although, you keep saying ‘cmd X’, it’s ‘cmd Q‘ for me, same as macOS, is it a typo or am i somehow different?

I wonder why ‘cmd q’ gets rid of apps whilst within the tab app switcher though, and doesn’t pass over to quit the app out of the main switcher. Seems a redundant feature, what’s the point of it?

One would think, regardless of the way the iPad handles quitting apps (or not as the case may be), that it would mimic the mac in this manner. ie, ‘quit‘ the app as the app switcher would.

Hence why I suspected it a bug perhaps.

 

[wegster]

Did some quick playing around by re-enabling Full KB access, but selectively clearing the hotkeys to see if I could both get the 'home screen' in app/tab switching mode AND have OneNote not completely broken.
1. Wasn't able to see the home screen in tab/cmd/app switching via CMD-TAB - am now completely unsure how I had this before, but it was there..loved it.
2. No combination found of clearing (e.g. tab, space, arrow keys) would let Full Keyboard access work sanely in OneNote - may well be a bug in OneNote at this point, but - no joy for me, had to disable Full KB access.

Still trying to sort how I had Home screen showing up in CMD-TAB switching before I reloaded it.

 

[MyopicPaideia]

Thanks for clarifying, well explained. Although, you keep saying ‘cmd X’, it’s ‘cmd Q‘ for me, same as macOS, is it a typo or am i somehow different?

I wonder why ‘cmd q’ gets rid of apps whilst within the tab app switcher though, and doesn’t pass over to quit the app out of the main switcher. Seems a redundant feature, what’s the point of it?

One would think, regardless of the way the iPad handles quitting apps (or not as the case may be), that it would mimic the mac in this manner. ie, ‘quit‘ the app as the app switcher would.

Hence why I suspected it a bug perhaps.

Sorry about that, besides iPadOS I use Linux much more than macOS these days, so got my X’s and Q‘s mixed in my head. It is of course cmd+Q - I’ve edited my post.

 

[wegster]

Haven't spent a lot of time on this, but still no resolution to the original question, which is back burner driving me nuts.

I have a feeling is was either an accessibility or full keyboard option, somewhere - but the latter is too buggy for apps I need to use regularly at this point.

 

[Mac47]

I had the same problem. A forced restart (hold down power button and down-volume together) restores the home screen icon to the app switcher.

 

[itcomesinwaves]

I had the same problem. A forced restart (hold down power button and down-volume together) restores the home screen icon to the app switcher.

Thank you! After wiping my iPad starting new, I was having the same problem and this fixed it. Not only are there no settings for it, it’s a very difficult problem to google for.

 

[majorlinux]

I had the same problem. A forced restart (hold down power button and down-volume together) restores the home screen icon to the app switcher.

I know this post is “ancient” by now, but this worked for me as well!