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iPad Multitasking support: why do developers get to decide?
- Thread starter brilliantthings
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- gmail ios 13 ipad multitasking
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Yep. Gmail is the only reason I really care about this.
I think the simple reason is that if you want to "force" all developers to do something, then you had better be prepared to enforce it.
Say you want all apps to support a certain feature. Are you prepared to delete all apps that don't meet the deadline, or at least block all updates?
I don't think this is a line in the sand that Apple is ready to draw just yet.
Say you want all apps to support a certain feature. Are you prepared to delete all apps that don't meet the deadline, or at least block all updates?
I don't think this is a line in the sand that Apple is ready to draw just yet.
There is precedence though. When the iPad Pro 11" came out it was so annoying because so many apps didn't update to the new resolution, which made black bars on the sides of the screen. I believe Apple eventually made a deadline where app updates had to support it.
Good point. I do think that something like supporting your device’s resolution is a lot easier to justify than an optional feature such as split-screen which might not make sense on every app.
I'm not against multitasking however I think it should be relegated to newer very high end iPads that are specific built for it.
Adapt the app to work with an auto layout. Adapt your app to function properly with audio events, notifications, status bar indicators, etc. Optimize as much as possible for better resource management. Those aren't easy task and will cost some business A LOT of money in iOS development.
iOS 9's multitasking dev suggested test was to run their app side by side with Maps while its doing a 3D flyover. Both apps should remain responsive. Not impossible but optimization only goes so far before features are cut.
App state delegates need to be more strict then ever so when your app goes into the background it frees up assets, cache, etc. per Apple. Meaning expect your app to refresh the majority of the time it comes to the foreground.
And maybe its just me but for a company that puts so much focus on their Human Interface Guidelines I feel accessing multitasking features is very cumbersome. And its not uncommon for me to have to get someones (my parents) iPad out of multitasking mode.
I don't think its a terrible idea however I don't think its something my Air 2 needs. Adding a blah UI and at the expense of UX isn't good.
Adapt the app to work with an auto layout. Adapt your app to function properly with audio events, notifications, status bar indicators, etc. Optimize as much as possible for better resource management. Those aren't easy task and will cost some business A LOT of money in iOS development.
iOS 9's multitasking dev suggested test was to run their app side by side with Maps while its doing a 3D flyover. Both apps should remain responsive. Not impossible but optimization only goes so far before features are cut.
App state delegates need to be more strict then ever so when your app goes into the background it frees up assets, cache, etc. per Apple. Meaning expect your app to refresh the majority of the time it comes to the foreground.
And maybe its just me but for a company that puts so much focus on their Human Interface Guidelines I feel accessing multitasking features is very cumbersome. And its not uncommon for me to have to get someones (my parents) iPad out of multitasking mode.
I don't think its a terrible idea however I don't think its something my Air 2 needs. Adding a blah UI and at the expense of UX isn't good.
If the OS is built from the ground up to support multi tasking e.g. Windows, MacOS then no extra work is required by the devs to support it. The problem with iOS is devs have to jump through extra hoops to support split screen, background refresh, slide over, different resolutions. For a free or $1.99 app that’s hardly worth the effort.
Absolutely. I'm a power user of sorts and I find iPad multitasking counterintuitive.
I’d say the biggest difference is that iOS and macOS take very different approaches to process management, and a much stricter approach to entitlements on iOS. But yeah, it is still related to the amount of work devs have to do.
Interestingly, you don’t have to support slide over as a feature, or split screen, or even different resolutions. You just need to support automatic layout and get all three. But the fact that auto layout was introduced later, after many of the major iOS apps came into existence, means that a lot of devs won’t switch over quickly, or will do hacks to avoid going to auto layout.
Or you run into folks that think using automatic layout is for suckers, or have problems with it, or are using something like React Native which prevents you from using it, and then never use it. It’s these folks though that I don’t have much sympathy for, TBH.
Honestly, a new app has no excuse not to support it. It’s not an additional expense when bootstrapping a new codebase. I have a couple apps I wrote in Swift 1 originally that took minutes to update for the iPhone X, iPad Pros, Split Screen, etc. Mostly just testing and finding layout bugs.
That said, I don’t think there’s a lot of user demand here. The feature hasn’t exactly been getting better. I’d say in some ways it’s worse in iOS 13 than in 11. Which is depressing.
Not a shame.
There are issues going on that might not let developers not make the original deadline.
There are issues going on that might not let developers not make the original deadline.
With most recent update, Gmail app supports multitasking on iPadOS! It’s a bit clunky, but it’s a start.
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It’s incredibly clunky. The New “+” button is off screen in multitasking. Oh well. They’ll get there.
And acutally this is only when you first open the updated app in multitasking view. If you first open it full screen, it seems to work fine.
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It’s incredibly clunky. The New “+” button is off screen in multitasking. Oh well. They’ll get there.
And acutally this is only when you first open the updated app in multitasking view. If you first open it full screen, it seems to work fine.
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Thanks for the tip! I was wondering why they didn't mention it in the description of the update but after I tried it it's almost unusable in slideover. Instead of having text wrap it just crops it so you have to scroll around in the window.
What's the reasoning behind YouTube not allowing picture-in-picture? Note, they don't allow it even with YouTube Premium, so it's not even something they're holding back to make money.
It seems odd because PIP is a feature of the OS and costs YouTube nothing to implement, and they don't mind you doing it on MacOS and Windows. I've always found it strange that companies artificially limit applications on mobile platforms; I mean what the heck is the difference, you're doing the same task regardless.
You're right. I was sure I had PIP during my trial of Premium. There are other apps that allow it, but it's pretty clunky.
To be fair, running YouTube on safari does enable PiP by default and “background” playback is kinda a thing (video always at the front). But yeah, random limits making no sense only alleviate people and prevent them from enjoying the service.
Now I’m waiting for eBay app to support multitasking
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Do you mean miniplayer? I wouldnt call this PIP. It only floats in front of the YouTube page.
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Do you mean miniplayer? I wouldnt call this PIP. It only floats in front of the YouTube page.
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eBay app was updated for the first time since the 30 June multitasking deadline and it still doesn't support multitasking. I don't get it.