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Making iOS better

ardchoille

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What's the purpose of the task manager (TM)? To switch apps. You really can't interact with the current app or the home screen when the TM is active so why limit the TM to one row of icons on the bottom of the screen?

The task manager (TM):
* Triple-tapping ( or other interaction) on the home screen or an app zooms out to show 2x2 rows of current thumbnails of all previously launched apps - we'll call this the app "stack". The current TM shows icons which aren't as informative as thumbnails and some icons are too similar to others.

* swiping in the stack navigates left or right in the stack

* long pressing an app in the stack reveals a button to remove that app from the stack (the same as the red "X" in the current TM)

* dragging one thumbnail on top of another moves those two apps to the front of the stack

* After exiting the stack, two-finger horizontal swiping in an app switches between the first two apps in the stack making copy and paste much easier

In-app performance:
* triple-tapping the home button shows a zoom window in apps that support zooming (such as Safari)

* triple-tapping again closes the zoom window

* while the zoom window is open it can be dragged to any area of the screen. If dragged off screen the zoom window moves the visible area of the content similar to scrolling but available for all 4 directions

* tapping the zoom window zooms the app in on that area of content

There are times that I want to see content in one area of the screen and then interact with content in another area.

The keyboard:
* the "?" And "!" buttons can be combined into a "long press to select" button similar to the .com button (URL field). This makes room for a "nav" button.

* the nav button shows a new keyboard screen that has buttons for Home (moves the cursor to the beginning of a sentence), End (moves the cursor to the end of a sentence), Select (selects as normal with current layout), Delete (deletes the word under the cursor without having to select it first), and arrow keys for moving the cursor. Moving the cursor at the top of the screen usually covers the magnifying glass in my experience.

Possible layout:

/\
select
< Home End >
Delete
\/

I imagine game developers could also use this for in-game navigation alleviating some of their current code.

I'm just brainstorming here to try and make iOS a better experience for everyone. Feel free to share ideas.

Does Apple have a "community brainstorm" web page that allows sets to submit ideas?
 
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