I would just like a way to simplify the iPad OS - my mum uses it to keep in touch with her kids, and when she accidentally enables multi-app mode, it inevitably results in a call to one of her kids to sort it out. Older people - even when they aren't disabled - don't have the fine motor control required to precisely aim their touches/swipes on the screen. She prefers her old iPad because it has a physical button - the swiping up gesture is a bit tricky for her.
I want an iPad that runs one app at a time, no hot corners, no swiping from edges.
Another comment mentions Assistive Access for the very dumbed down version, but you can also just disable the multitasking features in Settings if that’s the main issue
Ah good catch, they must have rearranged this when they added Stage Manager. It's more obvious now with its own "Multitasking & Gestures" in the top level settings categories, right above Accessibility.
There are three choices now: Off, Split View & Slide Over, or Stage Manager.
The real trick with Settings though is that it has a search bar at the top of the sidebar (with no visual indication that it exists unless you find it by scrolling up past the top), so you can always use that instead of hunting through the many pages of settings.
Parent commenter should probably turn off the 4-finger app switching gesture and the 3-finger undo/redo/copy/paste gestures as well. Doesn't seem like a feature their mom will be learning to use on purpose.
In the current version of iPadOS 17, you can turn off Split View & Slide Over (like you describe) but for years after their introduction I could find no way to turn them off after my spending hours Googling and navigating Settings. And my Googling surfaced many comments claiming that there is no way to turn them off.
Don’t know what to tell you, it’s been in there since iOS 9 when multitasking was first supported. it was originally in a Multitasking section within General settings.
It was there in iOS 9, in iPadOS 13 (the 9to5mac link posted yesterday), and is there today in iPadOS 17, but I'll concede I'm not spending the time to rule out that Apple took the option away during the year you were trying to turn it off and then they put it back afterward.
Android has tried to move in that direction as well, but at least they still offer you the option to create virtual home/back/multitask buttons at the bottom screen instead of gestures.
I've tried using Apples devices ever since they dropped the home button, but it always kinda ends up being way more fiddly than it has any right to be. Very often you just accidentally end up closing apps because of the hanging scroll gesture, which on non-gesture devices (read: configured Android and old iOS) just meant "scroll when needed" but on iOS/gesture controlled Android means "close the app". Especially annoying when reading large amounts of text.
Gesture control over buttons is one of those ideas that's neat but should never have been made the only option on iOS.
I, alongside seemingly everyone else, get frustrated that the OS doesn’t have more complex features. But for most of our moms, it’s probably better for them. The rest of us have macOS, Linux, etc.
There's absolutely no reason the iPad can't have both, as in a simple kiosk mode for old people to call someone, and then a "Power-user" toggle in the setting for those who want to enable the more complex features.
Why do old people need an iPhone or iPad just to call someone?
My mother in law insists on having the newest iPhone every year. It spends 95% of its time in the bottom of her purse, turned off. 1% of time is phone calls. The other 4% of its time is my MIL complaining about how complex it is while she laboriously dials a number. Realistically, she should just buy a dumb phone[0].
A complex tool like a smart phone or a computer has a duty to provide its user with the capabilities they need, even if providing such capabilities requires a complex UI. You can only make something as user friendly as possible. After a certain point, making something easier to use requires you to remove features.
This is why professional software, like CAD software or DAWs or programming languages, has a leaning curve. It is a tool that you are expected to have to learn to use. If your tool is too complex for your needs, return it and buy a simpler tool. Buying an iPad or iPhone just to make phone calls is like buying a stand mixer with all of the attachments when all you needed was a wooden spoon.
>Why do old people need an iPhone or iPad just to call someone?
Nobody said they do need it, it's just the HN trope that Apple devices are "so easy to use" that they'd somehow be better for the elderly, because devices form Windows and Android tend to nag you with more pop-ups and complex questions.
Because touch-based and mouse/trackpad based UIs are different enough to need separate support. An app optimized for one will look&feel much worse on the other. Remember Windows 8?
And what if I want to add them? Most likely other users would to if the SW support was there and you could run Mac apps on the iPad once you connected the keyboard and mouse.
I think I wasn’t very clear when I said “support”, my bad. Trying again…
Apps made for keyboard and mouse suck on touch&pen devices and vice versa (even if the device is basically able to run both) because most devs pick just one mode of interaction and optimize their UI for it, while the other mode is just “supported” as an afterthought.
That’s why I believe Apple decided to have separate devices for each mode of interaction, each with its own distinct OS&app ecosystem.
On the iPad I think the screen size makes stage manager unusable…but I have found stage manager hugely useful on my Mac with an ultra wide monitor along side Rectangle windows manager
iPhones are crazy now, there are so many types of interactions, press, hard press, double press, swipes in different directions. Press a program too hard and suddently icons start wobbling, the interface seems very undiscoverable to me.
My parents don't want any of these features, and to be honest I don't really want them either.
Having searched for and not found a reasonable cheat sheet, I made my own cheat sheet of all of the "gestures," laminated it, set it down for my mother. She still couldn't get it.
I think the gestures are just not a great way to go for the elderly, for a few reasons. First, gestures are not explicit, you have to discover them, be told about them, see them used by someone else. Second (and this one deserves subclassing) is motor control. Finger-tapping speed, for one, declines notably with age. Fine motor control, for the gestures, can also be impaired with age. Third, there's a lack of feedback when using gestures: no haptics, no titles to relay during phone calls, no "you just closed this program by swiping up!"
I'm on my 1st iphone after decades with Android and it's crazy how many secret gestures or taps there are with nothing telling you about them until you accidentally trigger them or look up how to do something.
Maybe my Samsungs had a lot of gestures I wasn't aware of but I feel like most things on the phone were very intuitive. Example, to end an incoming call and not just mute the ringtone you need to hit the power button. I didn't know about this for weeks and would drive around annoyed at a phone call ringing (but muted) in my car because it would stop my music playing.
On Android the buttons are right on the screen, I forget exactly but it's something like swipe left to mute, right to decline, etc.
I had to actually google "how to decline phone call on iphone" awhile back.. push the power button. If Android did that I'm pretty sure there'd be an arrow saying "PUSH THIS TO DECLINE."
And people in this post are talking about doing 3 finger taps. I didn't even know that was a thing..
I'll never forget the first time I accidentally turned on my flashlight at a dark movie theater and panicked because I hadn't learned that you can turn it on/off in the pull down bar yet. I think I had it on some button shortcut that if I hit a few times it'd turn on, and I didn't know what button I'd hit.
I was on Zoom with my mother playing cards recently. She often has trouble with accidentally closing the card game. I don't see how this problem could possibly be improved if it actually were impossible to have the card game open at the same time as Zoom. She would need half a dozen iPads.
(Of course, her solution often is to use a dedicated device for the card game and a dedicated device for Zoom, but this is an expensive solution for something the OS could be designed to handle well, and even if you can afford it it's a mediocre to bad solution.)
A simple mode can have togglable features as well (and all made simple).
You turn on simple mode, then you turn on split screen. All controls optimized to be simple, discoverable, and no hidden controls (as opposed to a normal mode, where all controls should be fast, intuitive, and keep you in a flow).
i'm a musician and audio engineer who encounters iPads for work regularly. my fine motor control is good enough to get paid to mix or play -- not good enough to reliably bring all open apps up (used to be a long press on the one button) so i can swipe one off screen to "close" it. feel for ya.
Try paying attention to the UI hints. When part of the previous app shows up on the left of the screen, that’s when you’ll get the app switcher.
Here’s a decent video showing the principle: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ewhAR7BmoMM Note that he lets go when the UI hint shows up on the left, but no earlier.
Yeah, how you control the iPad seems at odds with the job it's best at (and a big customer segment that wants a simple computer)
iPad has a physical disadvantage relative to iPhones and Macs which leads to a touch experience that never quite feels as assured or 'locked in' as the others.
The reason as I see it is that both Mac and iPhone you have much greater physical device stability, and this device stability allows the software to be more fluid and responsive.
For instance, the iPhone's app switch swipe gesture work really well in a one-handed device, since things are generally in reach and you have your fingers holding on the back of the device to stabilize it. As a result, you can switch apps very quickly.
That same app switching gesture feels awkward and is often mis-fired on iPad. The fluid responsiveness of the home bar and app switcher makes the whole experience feel less solid, because the device itself is less stable in-hand.
I think it may have been a mistake to port the home bar over to iPad, and they should have gone with either a physical button-based solution, or a press and hold then swipe solution. Specifically the bottom of the device that is closest to the user should not have anything trigger actions, that's the worst. Multitasking is also too easy to trigger, but that's not quite as bad. Notification & control center shades aren't that bad.
Either you have a stable device and a twitchy app switcher, or you have an unstable device and a solid app switcher. You can't have both be unstable.
(fwiw I'm a huge iPad fan as well as worked on a new tablet computer myself. I love the form factor but recognize it's fighting an uphill battle touch-wise)
Only tangentially related, but I always thought it was rather silly that only a few years after opening their billion dollar headquarters—that was in the shape the only remaining distinctive feature on iPhones—they chose to get rid of the home button in favor of what everyone else was doing. It seemed really rather silly. I miss the home button.
I too preferred the home button, not just for all the navigation features, but also because TouchID worked so well, and FaceID angers me basically every single time I have to use it.
FaceID was such a cool marketing gimmick that ended up a major pain in the ass.
When they announced it, I was so hyped because sometimes I had issues with TouchID (sweating finger after workouts, dirty finger when cooking, or damaged finger after swimming/handwork) but in practice it turned out to be so annoying.
It doesn't work when you don't look at it straight, it doesn't work when there is not enough light, it doesn't work when there is too much light...
Even if you disable the "require attention" setting, it is extremely annoying to unlock during driving (basically requiring you to take your head off the road) and it will randomly fail for no particular reason anyway.
To add insult to the injury, it makes Apple Pay a stupid 2-step process where you have to insistently look at your phone before putting it on the terminal.
I don't use my Apple Watch for Apple Pay either because it requires you to awkwardly twist your arm, since the signal can only go out from the glass display, because they chose aluminium for what is basically a sport watch (to make it look premium with no real benefits since the most vulnerable part get scratched/broken easily anyway).
I don't know why people keep giving so much benefit to Apple because the current user experience is really not good for the price of their stuff.
I guess I don't have to care because after I figure out what I want as an Apple Watch replacement, I'll switch to Android for my next phone.
I had exactly the same issues with TouchID, and also looked forward to FaceID for the same reasons, and I too was disappointed. However, I think that FaceID was noticeably improved by turning off the 'Require Attention for Face ID' setting. Perhaps it's something to do with wearing glasses? Maybe it was a placebo effect, but try it and see if it helps you.
Yeah, I know about that but I thought it was turned off and it wasn't.
So, I turned it back off, maybe it was re-enabled after a major update.
I hope it's going to improve things, it should, but I don't think it's going to solve the driving issue. I've looked to make an automation but as far as I can tell there is no way to change lock settings via automation (even just the duration of auto-locking).
Which is a general trend with Apple software nowadays. Too much focus on security at the cost of user freedom and ultimately functionality. They have made this automation software but so far, I have not found any use for it because there is always some limitation that makes it almost useless.
Shortcuts are also a major pain to "develop", Automator and AppleScript were painful but somehow, it's even worse.
Assistive Access is a distinctive iPadOS experience that makes it easier for people with cognitive disabilities to use iPad independently. Essential apps and experiences have been optimized for Assistive Access—items onscreen are bigger, features are more focused, and it’s easier to navigate and understand what actions are possible.
For remote management, there is kiosk mode (single app) that can be controlled by SimpleMDM et al, or local Apple Configurator.
The problem isn't features like multi-app mode. The problem is the nonexistent UI affordances. (And their converse, Apple's complete lack of discoverability... unless you count accidental gestures as 'discoverability,' I suppose.)
I'm constantly doing things with my iPad that I have no idea how to undo, other than by hitting the home button and starting over. I can't imagine how elderly and infirm people deal with these things.
I sort of feel the same way. All those invisible magic shortcuts make the device a bit arcane and they’re only there because apple refuses to include physical buttons. Like Face ID: please no. Give me back my finger print sensors
Thanks - I knew it was a setting back when the first version of split screen apps was introduced, then I would have sworn the setting was removed, and I don't know why I just assumed it still wasn't there.
For anyone else that wants to find it, just search for 'multi' in the settings app, and the third result will take you to the Multitasking & Gestures settings panel.
Bold move attempting to redirect/diffuse the point of the article by requesting the antithesis of it's asks. Bold courage asking for vastly more simplicity when point after point after point of this article is that iPadOS is positively tripping over itself with over simplifications abound.
I get that there's an argument to be made that the iPad OS's problems are due to over simplification, but I don't think that's what the article is saying - as I read it, the author is asking for fixing bugs and refinements. I think it hints at the core problem though: The OS designers are attempting to have it both ways. Is it possible to cater to both power users and novices equally well? I personally doubt it.
iPadOS is over-simplified in many ways, but not simple. It used to be simple, especially back around the original iPad Air. Now it's just complicated and too simplistic to do any real work.
I want an iPad that runs one app at a time, no hot corners, no swiping from edges.