iOS 8 is likely to supercharge the functionality of Apple’s iPad with a new split-screen multitasking feature, according to sources with knowledge of the enhancement in development. These people say that the feature will allow iPad users to run and interact with two iPad applications at once. Up until now, each iPad application either developed by Apple or available on the App Store is only usable individually in a full-screen view.
The ability to use multiple applications simultaneously on a tablet’s display takes a page out of Microsoft’s playbook. Microsoft’s Surface line of tablets has a popular “snap” multitasking feature that allows customers to snap multiple apps onto the screen for simultaneous usage. The feature is popular in the enterprise and in environments where users need to handle multiple tasks at the same time.
No, this is not a “page out of Microsoft’s playbook”. What is wrong with these people that features that have been part of computing for decades are now magically new just because they’re on a mobile device?
Please, stop this madness.
They haven’t had one in decades. At this point, anything straight out of Microsoft’s playbook should be assumed stolen from someone else’s playbook, unless proven otherwise.
Stolen? Does someone own a patent on this?
Although I understand your sentiment, it has to be said that Microsoft Research produces some amazing work and employs some of the best minds in computer science. I would be very happy if I had even a chance of living up to their standards.
In case there’s any doubt, here’s a link to Leslie Lamport’s publications page (employed by Microsoft since 2001):
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/lamport/pubs/pubs.htm…
I chose Lamport because he’s well-known, but there are a myriad others I could have picked out.
However, it does sometimes baffle me that these amazing ideas don’t seem to benefit the actual products Microsoft sell. Maybe it’s hard to apply the ideas or maybe they’re still gestating for the future. However, my guess is that many of the ideas are constrained by Microsoft’s approach to business.
So I do understand what you say, and I’d be very surprised if multiwindow support on tablets can be traced back to Microsoft Research. However, I still think the researchers at Microsoft deserve due recognition for their work.
Wow, this is… Awesome : http://awesome.naquadah.org/
Kochise
I don’t think the point is tiling windows as much as it is multi-windows.
By the way, Awesome is certainly great, but it is a relative late-comer to the arena of tiling WMs.
Metro uses a tiling window paradigm, so the comparison is rather apt.
As far as multi window functionality, Android vendors have been offering that capability for a while as well.
Edited 2014-05-14 18:36 UTC
And this one is much more awesome http://i3wm.org/
Yes, I tried Awesome, but it wasn’t that awesome to me. i3 on the other hand was love at first sight.
Awesome is what I have been using for years
Has anyone? In years? Do you think Apple is any better? Linux? Nobody is really innovating anything in the UI space.
But it’s just Microsoft. Right.
Not sure, but didn’t multi window get introduced in Samsung’s Galaxy Note phones before Microsoft introduced the Surface? Guess they just wanted to reference tablets here.
I don’t think the “take a page out of Microsoft’s playbook” line had to do with who invented the feature, only with who thought it would work in a tablet form factor.
One of the headlines of using Windows 8 and Surface was that you could be more productive because you could have multiple things on the screen at once in a finger friendly environment. It was marketed as such.
This is too late for those of us who wanted a tablet form factor that could be used as a laptop when needed. Especially since myself and others I know needed full MS Office capability. Windows 8.1 tablets are really coming into their own with products like the Asus T100 being so affordable. I do prefer IOS or even Android apps to Windows apps, but the ability to run a full MS Office alongside other apps was just too much to justify buying another Ipad.
Very unlikely that this is coming, at least not for arbitrary applications. Firstly, the iOS SDK is not set up for this kind of arbitrary scaling of applications. Most apps would react very badly to being squished into part of the screen. Secondly, Apple doesn’t have a history of porting features into iOS just because they are available on desktops. If they’re doing multi-window, I bet it will be for just a few special usecases (like watching a movie and browsing the web) just like they did for multitasking.
Nice to see that Thom is not afraid to be outraged at even the most unsubstantiated rumours though.
Yes, it is a page out of Microsoft’s playbook, because they’re the only tablet maker that is actually doing this. Are you purposely ignoring context? The article is talking about the iPad, so that phrase is obviously in the context of tablets.
On the few other tablets and phones, it was a hack, and didn’t ever work well because it wasn’t supported by the overwhelming majority of apps. The fact that Windows 8 Metro apps actually support it without hacks or workarounds, and that Apple is doing the same, likely because of Microsoft’s support, absolutely means that it is a page out of Microsoft’s playbook.
The fact that this is a standard feature on desktops is irrelevant, because the article isn’t about desktop computing at all, which is still a completely different beast from tablet computing.
I don’t have my Byte magazines to reference so I could be very wrong but did GO-OS have multiple windows? All I could find quickly was:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PenPoint_OS
On the other hand I am almost sure that Pen for Windows did, but all I could quickly find was:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_for_Pen_Computing
Of-course the real grandfather of them all is the DynaBook. While again I could not find proof that it was multi-windows, I find it hard to believe that multi-tasking would not be part of his design and thus probably also multiple windows:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook
http://www.mprove.de/diplom/gui/Kay72a.pdf
Does anyone have the facts on these older models?
Windows For Pen was released in 1992. Here it is running on a contemporary tablet (YouTube video, WARNING: TURN DOWN VOLUME): http://tinyurl.com/ldhxm3m
See the overlapping windows? As Windows For Pen was a spin-off of Windows 3.1, no doubt it also had a tiling windows function.
Note that the person is navigating using his fingers — not a stylus. Going from stylus to finger touch (and back) is perfectly natural/obvious and not innovation. Finger touch was around long before Windows For Pen was originally released.
Amazingly, here is what appears to be an Apple fanboy admitting prior art in regards Windows For Pen, without any pressure from non-fanboys (YouTube video): http://tinyurl.com/mmy35a3 He boots Windows For Pen on his Ipad, but he can’t seem to get it to fully function.
By the way, the only indication that this presenter might be an Apple fanboy is the tell-tale way in which he dismisses undeniable prior art with qualitative comments, such as. “… it’s not that exciting,” and with the line at the end, “Microsoft Windows For Pen computing is real, and it will boot-up on the Ipad… not that it would be that useful…”
Of course there is prior art to Windows For Pen in regards to the obvious capability of multiple windows on a tablet. PenPoint was released in 1991. Here is a 1994 demo of PenPoint showing overlapping windows (YouTube video): http://tinyurl.com/mp8rvwh Certainly, there were predecessors to PenPoint.
Edited 2014-05-13 20:09 UTC
Thank you, your post came while I was editing mine.
Microsoft can be blamed for a lot of things including how they held off GO in the tablet field. But they clearly was there before Apple’s.
Edited 2014-05-13 20:18 UTC
Didn’t the Xerox Star tile windows upon first opening?
What i am expecting is for those of the fruit faith to declare resolution adaptability the best thing since sliced bread once this hits stores…
Edited 2014-05-13 23:04 UTC
I know this site is a bit anti-apple, but just because desktop computer OSs have had something for ages but it’s never been done on the computer in your pocket doesn’t mean it’s not new. I mean, if I figured a way to have a jet engine and wings on a car would that be something new and interesting or ignored because jets have had engines and wings for decades?
Also this is a rumor, most likely not bound in reality at all, so no one outside of bloggers are claiming it’s some revolutionary and new thing (if they are indeed claiming anything like that, and if it’s not in relation to iOS, to which is *is* a new thing), so we really need to settle down a bit
It’s not anti-Apple here — there are plenty of very vocal Apple supporters in this forum, with only a few non-apple folks who bother to show that “the emperor has no clothes.”
It’s not new. Multiple windows was done on mobile OSs long, LONG ago, and such a notion is quite obvious.
Fanboys merely need use common sense and open their eyes to the numerous examples already mentioned/linked in this very thread.
Lots of cars have had jet engines, and countless flying cars have appeared within the last six or seven decades (no doubt, a few of them sporting jet engines). There might be something interesting in your particular configuration, but the general concept of a flying jet car would be nothing new.
Nobody’s excited except for the fanboys.
Edited 2014-05-14 00:15 UTC
HA HA HA HA !!!!…this is the payback time for Microsoft.
Now it is their time. It is good that everybody thrashs Microsoft like they thrashed their competition with paid journalist and forums trolls.
HA HA HA HA HA !!!! That is the only thing that Microsoft deserve.
Note to the rest: Never train your salesforce with the “Art of War”.
I don’t know what the context of this is, but most people today won’t learn anything from the Art of War. Not because it is useless but because they don’t understand the whole book stems from knowing what you are good and bad at first and foremost. Sales people (and CEOs often) today simply don’t understand what they are working with, and sales is least concerned with the principles self-governance.
MS used to train their salesforce with the “Art of War” on the 90’s.
Found it!!!
From Page 33:
http://boycottnovell.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/comes-3096.pdf
“Strategy of Sun Tzu” – Complete madness.
Like Sun Tzu wrote…
No, this is not a “page out of Microsoft’s playbook”. What is wrong with these people that features that have been part of computing for decades are now magically new just because they’re on a mobile device?
Please, stop this madness.
You can make people believe whatever you want. It’s just a waste of energy to get annoyed and upset about stuff like this. Let’s be clear, Thom, I completely agree with you, what’s passing for new and innovative these days it’s the weakest it’s been in the history of computing, but the marketing is by far the strongest.
I think nowadays if you want something new and innovative in computing, you’re going to need to do it yourself.
Let me guess, after Apple implements its own snap feature they will then proceed to sue Microsoft with a patent suit over the use of snapping apps? Par for the course for Apple.
Thom Holwerda asked…
It looks like ‘on a mobile device’ is the new ‘over the Internet’ and ‘with a computing device’ as far as the tech media and patent office is concerned. I guess now would be a good time to start looking around at what obvious uses could be patented with an addendum of “on a mobile device’ in the filing. If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to open a small innovation company in East Texas….
–bornagainpenguin
Don’t forget “in the cloud”.
“On a smartwatch”!
I think that’s covered by “on a mobile device”.
Do you really think they won’t try to file it separately?
Good point.
they’ll come out with a totally innovative curved display!! never seen before.. like the previous times!
Depends on how you define ‘new’.
1. Multiple programs side by side on a computer. Since the ‘ 50s (?)
2. Multiple programs side by side on a computer, w/graphical interface (“windows”, WIMP). Since 1973 (Xerox)/ 1984 (Apple)/ ’90s (Microsoft)
3. Multiple programs side by side on a tablet. Since (debatable) the ’00s (PocketPC, Microsoft) / 2012 (?) Samsung/Android / 2013 (Microsoft Surface)