Sunday, April 04, 2010

iPad: Where the Lack of Multitasking Fails « Steve Wildstrom on Tech [+ iPad hypertext observations]

Some iPad perspectives from Steve Wildstrom (read the full post)

I was of the camp that believed that the lack of multitasking on the iPad wasn’t that big a deal. It took me about 15 minutes of use to discover that I was wrong. Two apps, the Kindle Reader and TweetDeck are hurt badly by the inability to have more than one app running at a time.

[…]

The outstanding Kindle Reader has a similar problem. Links in Kindle text are blessedly live. But when you click on a link, the iPad shuts down Kindle and opens Safari. When you are done with the browser, you have to shut down Safari and reopen Kindle. Kindle at least has the good grace to remember your place.

He also notes the rumored multitasking iP* OS update, but in the meantime I agree the mostly-serial-multitasking model on the iPad is a big constraint, and I also agree the iPad is a poor hypertext client.  If it’s true that “most people in the world are not techies,” I suspect a lot of iPad users are going to be perplexed when, e.g., they click a link in an e-reader context, are launched into Safari, and then can’t use the back button to return to the initial context. 

I imagine the system-wide hypertext model was a source of much Apple designer debate, especially if Steve Jobs dictated the single-button iPad user experience (yes there are also iPad on-off and volume hardware buttons, but the main UX is a single button).  The Kindle has a system-wide back button, and it works as expected (as does the back button/icon in the Kindle’s admittedly basic browser).

iPad: Where the Lack of Multitasking Fails « Steve Wildstrom on Tech

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

SO just to get this clear, your complaint is that leaving the safari window and returning to your app takes two clicks instead of one? I think you stretching for something to complain about.

I have to stress what it is your trading for your multi-tasking: security. If we have a one-app-at-a-time in memory model like the iPad, it doesn't matter what happens in Safari or in my mail or in that third-party app with a virus in it that App Store quality checks somehow missed. Nothing can run in the background and bork up my system.

This is the very bane of windows and other OS. Every PC OS and even Mac OS have this problem, but its most prominent in Windows due to the number of targets for these viruses and malware, etc. The iPad, assuming its only half as popular as the iPhone before it (though I hear more demand from the people I work with and just chatting about it at the store than the iPhone), would still be a very tempting target for malware and virus writers. It doesn't matter though because nothing can run in memory as it all gets shutdown each time you close an app.

pbokelly said...

I'm complaining about a disrupted user experience conceptual model that's out of step with the Internet information model.

The debate about multitasking and security is well-established -- and the iPad iteration of it will fade fast when Apple inevitably introduces a true multitasking iP* OS update, probably later this year.

Check my previous iPad posts for more context-setting -- I'm not saying the device is an Edsel; I'm simply sharing observations about aspects that make it less than ideal for my personal usage patterns.