iOS 18 changes you’d like

[Artemis]

What are you hoping for (as in, a realistic hope but may or may not be coming) for iOS 18?

I’d like to see a notification center that isn’t so low on visual contrast to the point of barely crossing my mind. Android still does this correctly even if the control center stuff should or shouldn’t be there. IOS’ bundles aren’t well thought out, and there should be an option to swipe down from the right for notifications too. (As for control panel, then maybe you could still swipe right for that again, or it becomes a left swipe).

The use of my wallpaper with notifications is just weird still and the whole design feels like it’s just for a mockup.

 

[Cmaier]

I’m pretty happy with ios, though i wouldn’t turn down the ability to position home screen icons more freely, the ability to have audio from multiple sources at once, etc.

I’m more concerned with iPadOS, which needs a lot of work. A windowing system that is much more flexible (why only 4 windows in stage manager? why can’t i truly position them freely? Why is it such a pain to add windows and move them from “group” to “group?” I don‘t need macos, but macos-like windowing would be a huge quality of life improvement for me.

I’d also like a much better Files app.

Preview.app would be fantastically useful.

allow apps to keep running in the background, at least when i’m plugged in. For real. none of this “get an entitlement and stay in the background for awhile, maybe, until the OS decides to kill the app” stuff.

The list is probably endless.

 

[Eric]

What are you hoping for (as in, a realistic hope but may or may not be coming) for iOS 18?

I’d like to see a notification center that isn’t so low on visual contrast to the point of barely crossing my mind. Android still does this correctly even if the control center stuff should or shouldn’t be there. IOS’ bundles aren’t well thought out, and there should be an option to swipe down from the right for notifications too. (As for control panel, then maybe you could still swipe right for that again, or it becomes a left swipe).

The use of my wallpaper with notifications is just weird still and the whole design feels like it’s just for a mockup.

An option for notifications on the top of the screen again. To this day I cannot figure out why they force it to the bottom, what is the actual benefit there?

 

[Cmaier]

An option for notifications on the top of the screen again. To this day I cannot figure out why they force it to the bottom, what is the actual benefit there?

easier to reach with your thumb?

 

[Eric]

easier to reach with your thumb?

If that's their only reason it would be pretty ridiculous, particularly without an option. It was pretty widely panned when they released it, maybe they'll come to their senses.

 

[Cmaier]

If that's their only reason it would be pretty ridiculous, particularly without an option. It was pretty widely panned when they released it, maybe they'll come to their senses.

hate to say it, buddy, but i think that ship has sailed.

 

[throAU]

i would love to see proper support for the hypervisor framework so that apps like UTM or even parallels can be ported. you can already run UTM via side loading/jailbreaking. It already works, its just a political decision inside of apple.

if i could run a vm of windows 11 on ipad all of my reservations about using an ipad pro as my single device would be quashed. the hardware spec is more than good enough now!

 

[Citysnaps]

A windowing system that is much more flexible (why only 4 windows in stage manager? why can’t i truly position them freely?

I would be thrilled to open pCalc in a small positionable window on my iPad Pro. Having it take up the whole screen is ridiculous (would be OK if I was 95 years old and had poor eyesight). I don't mind that on my iPhone, as the size feels normal.

 

[Cmaier]

I would be thrilled to open pCalc in a small positionable window on my iPad. Having it take up the whole screen is ridiculous (would be OK if I was 95 years old and had poor eyesight). I don't mind that on my iPhone, as the size feels normal.

you can do that now with stage manager.

 

[Citysnaps]

you can do that now with stage manager.

View attachment 29474

Thanks! I've never played with Stage Manager - I'll give it a whirl.

 

[Artemis]

hate to say it, buddy, but i think that ship has sailed.

Yeah I also don’t mind the being at the bottom per se. The ergonomics are good in that respect. Safari for instance moving to the bottom tab bar was fantastic, one of my favorite changes in years.

 

[Artemis]

Files I agree Cliff. Also, positioning icons wherever without a locked grid hopefully comes.

 

[Cmaier]

Yeah I also don’t mind the being at the bottom per se. The ergonomics are good in that respect. Safari for instance moving to the bottom tab bar was fantastic, one of my favorite changes in years.

given that the phones keep getting bigger, and given that we seem to be getting a major UI overhaul this year at WWDC, I‘m guess we’ll see more stuff moved to the bottom in other apps.

 

[Artemis]

given that the phones keep getting bigger, and given that we seem to be getting a major UI overhaul this year at WWDC, I‘m guess we’ll see more stuff moved to the bottom in other apps.

good point. Hope so

 

[Yoused]

I’m more concerned with iPadOS, which needs a lot of work. A windowing system that is much more flexible (why only 4 windows in stage manager? why can’t i truly position them freely? Why is it such a pain to add windows and move them from “group” to “group?” I don‘t need macos, but macos-like windowing would be a huge quality of life improvement for me.

I have not had an iPad that can run Stage Manager, but it sounds kludgy. iPadOS, being based on iOS still seems to cleave to the notion of inflexible view framing – full screen, overlay size, quarter or half screen. But screen size itself is variable, so apps have to adjust to what those sizes mean. Windowing seems like a no-brainer: you drag the drag bar with your finger or you put one finger on it and pinch to resize. All they have to do is port some code over from classic Mac OS 1.0, which ran on an enormously less powerful machine.

As to the home screen, my Mini has a wide screen that could easily accomodate another column of icons, but Apple does not seem inclined to let me make use of that space, possibly because it would befuddle the rotation scheme. So just give me the option to free-place icons (again, cf Mac OS 1.0), and instead of trying to figure out how to rotate the layout, just keep the layout as it is and rotate the icons/widgets in place.

I am not suggesting that they competely redo iPadOS just to please me. But these capabilities are well within reason: just bury them three screens down in Display or Desktop preferences, where we can get at them but most people, who are fine with the SQ, will never notice them. Hell, I would pay an extra twenty or thirty dollars to unlock those type of enhancements (which would protect muggles from having their UIs changed by the visiting nephew).

Also, just stop making that damn Photos widget appear in my stacks. If I want it there, I will put it there. If I remove it, please fail to decide that I made a mistake and it really needs to be there. As I used to say to Excel at work, Stop Helping Me!

 

[exoticspice1]

Especially with the rumoursed 6.9” screen. It’s said we will finally have the option to move the apps where we want and lock them on the home screen.


Sounds perfect to put them at the bottom forever.

 

[throAU]

Thanks! I've never played with Stage Manager - I'll give it a whirl.

Stage manager is great imho. Even better on the mac. works really well in situations where you have multiple things going on the background and several tasks involve GROUPS of windows rather than one window per task. You can group windows together so switching from one multi-app task to another is a case of a single click.

You can resize and drag windows on the ipad with it - but primarily for me the great thing about it is grouping apps together for a single task.

 

[Andropov]

allow apps to keep running in the background, at least when i’m plugged in. For real. none of this “get an entitlement and stay in the background for awhile, maybe, until the OS decides to kill the app” stuff.

I've been thinking about this for a while as it's something the iPad definitely needs to do "Pro" workflows. Viticci mentioned this as well on his article about the limitations of iPadOS. However I'm not sure how to maintain a great UX with this.

On iOS/iPadOS, there's no concept of "background" apps, so there's no problem with showing technically closed apps in the multitask views. However, if you could have apps working in the background, not only would they need an indicator to show which apps are open (like the dot below the app icon in macOS's dock), which is trivial to do, but they'd also have to rethink the whole multitasking experience. I think it'd be very confusing to show closed apps in the multitasking view along with foregrounded (active) apps and backgrounded (active) apps. Plus you'd need to keep closing apps constantly when switching to a different app to avoid excessive power drain. Lots of iOS apps have abysmal power consumption when idle.

On macOS this problem doesn't exist because closed apps are not shown in Mission Control. I guess iPadOS could copy macOS here, but then the experience would be inconsistent with iOS, not sure the drawback of having to close apps all the time is worth the ability to do background work.

Maybe the solution is to expand what Background Activities already does, offering an API to keep doing background work that developers can rely on (unlike Background Activities, which are not guaranteed to run). This can be done (by other means) for downloads/uploads, but not for other kinds of tasks (like video export). I guess they could support another API that lets developers schedule some (properly annotated) tasks that can run after the app is backgrounded.

 

[Cmaier]

I've been thinking about this for a while as it's something the iPad definitely needs to do "Pro" workflows. Viticci mentioned this as well on his article about the limitations of iPadOS. However I'm not sure how to maintain a great UX with this.

On iOS/iPadOS, there's no concept of "background" apps, so there's no problem with showing technically closed apps in the multitask views. However, if you could have apps working in the background, not only would they need an indicator to show which apps are open (like the dot below the app icon in macOS's dock), which is trivial to do, but they'd also have to rethink the whole multitasking experience. I think it'd be very confusing to show closed apps in the multitasking view along with foregrounded (active) apps and backgrounded (active) apps. Plus you'd need to keep closing apps constantly when switching to a different app to avoid excessive power drain. Lots of iOS apps have abysmal power consumption when idle.

On macOS this problem doesn't exist because closed apps are not shown in Mission Control. I guess iPadOS could copy macOS here, but then the experience would be inconsistent with iOS, not sure the drawback of having to close apps all the time is worth the ability to do background work.

Maybe the solution is to expand what Background Activities already does, offering an API to keep doing background work that developers can rely on (unlike Background Activities, which are not guaranteed to run). This can be done (by other means) for downloads/uploads, but not for other kinds of tasks (like video export). I guess they could support another API that lets developers schedule some (properly annotated) tasks that can run after the app is backgrounded.

They are already inconsistent with iOS. They also to the very non-Apple thing where you can toggle stage manager on or off. So I say replace stage manager with “pro interface.” Toggle it on and you get floating windows, persistent workspaces (like Mac’s multiple desktops) where apps don’t die in the background and where your “show me everything” interface only shows apps that are running, and allows you to easily drag them between workspaces.

Keep it toggled off by default for people who prefer the “iOS” way of doing things.

 

[dada_dave]

I've been thinking about this for a while as it's something the iPad definitely needs to do "Pro" workflows. Viticci mentioned this as well on his article about the limitations of iPadOS. However I'm not sure how to maintain a great UX with this.

On iOS/iPadOS, there's no concept of "background" apps, so there's no problem with showing technically closed apps in the multitask views. However, if you could have apps working in the background, not only would they need an indicator to show which apps are open (like the dot below the app icon in macOS's dock), which is trivial to do, but they'd also have to rethink the whole multitasking experience. I think it'd be very confusing to show closed apps in the multitasking view along with foregrounded (active) apps and backgrounded (active) apps. Plus you'd need to keep closing apps constantly when switching to a different app to avoid excessive power drain. Lots of iOS apps have abysmal power consumption when idle.

On macOS this problem doesn't exist because closed apps are not shown in Mission Control. I guess iPadOS could copy macOS here, but then the experience would be inconsistent with iOS, not sure the drawback of having to close apps all the time is worth the ability to do background work.

Maybe the solution is to expand what Background Activities already does, offering an API to keep doing background work that developers can rely on (unlike Background Activities, which are not guaranteed to run). This can be done (by other means) for downloads/uploads, but not for other kinds of tasks (like video export). I guess they could support another API that lets developers schedule some (properly annotated) tasks that can run after the app is backgrounded.

They are already inconsistent with iOS. They also to the very non-Apple thing where you can toggle stage manager on or off. So I say replace stage manager with “pro interface.” Toggle it on and you get floating windows, persistent workspaces (like Mac’s multiple desktops) where apps don’t die in the background and where your “show me everything” interface only shows apps that are running, and allows you to easily drag them between workspaces.

Keep it toggled off by default for people who prefer the “iOS” way of doing things.

This is where I come back to maybe different kinds of interfaces for different kinds of iPads ... Pro interfaces and capabilities for Pro models and maybe Airs and more iOS-like interfaces and capabilities, for non-Pro/Air iPads. I dunno maybe a bad idea - basically bifurcate the iPad line to more macOS-like Pro and revert the others to iOS but with a bigger screen. Because there are two kinds of iPad users and they want and need very different things.