One of the complaints about the iPhone is you can’t multitask very well. Switching from program to program terminates each one. It’s not the way we work on the desktop.
I love “Spaces” on my Mac. It’s like having multiple screens and I find no trouble managing and organizing my work using it. For those Windows lovers who miss out I just run my mouse to the bottom left, spaces appear and I can then drag any item between spaces. Then it opens in effectively a new screen. Great for working on two or more projects a time. Here’s what it looks like.
Now here’s an iPhone screen. One of the problems with the iPhone is you can only run one app at a time unless you have a jailbroken iPhone. So you know it is capable of running more although that may cost you battery life.
So my thoughts for how to put spaces on the iPhone.
1. Simple double click the round button. Rather than bring the phone to the top it brings spaces. You touch one quadrant and you get the single app that is running in that quadrant. Thus you should be able to run at least 3 apps concurrently with the fourth the home navigation page or the phone. An X on each space could stop that app running in the background.
2. While in any app enable a 7 like swipe. eg what ever app is visible. left top to right top to left bottom in one motion. Switches space and app. Right top to left top to bottom right another switch. bottom left to bottm right to left top. Another switch. And one more doesn’t need repeating.
This would allow us to run two or three apps concurrnetly. Frankly I don’t really want or need more than that. This would allow chat to consisitently run, along with the browser and perhaps keeping a game or something else running in the background.
Nokia’s and other already allow me to run other programs in the background but frankly I almost never have as they run out of computing juice and most were two hard to switch between.
One app at a time is a real negative. A spaces approach would provide a little more choice and really increase utility for users.
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I had the same idea, but ‘double taping’ the home screen button is used for something else. Perhaps touching the bar at the top with the clock etc on it. I know that takes you to the top of the page but that isn’t a very necessary feature so we could have spaces their instead. Another problem would be that the iPhone wont have enough computing power to do that and simultaneously run many apps at the same time. . .