Nexus 10 vs iPad4 vs Surface RT (battle of the tablets!)

[smbu2000]

ithis said:

smbu2000 said:

 

On an iPad you don't need to use the home button at all, if you enable multitasking gestures in the settings menu.

http://gigaom.com/apple/how-to-use-ipad-multitasking-gestures-and-why-you-should/

You just grab the screen (pinch in) with 4/5 fingers and it takes you to the home screen. Swipe up from the bottom and it brings up the multitasking bar. Swipe left or right with 4 fingers to switch between programs.

They've been available to the public since iOS 5 released. (Developers had access since 4.3)

They are very useful and I almost never use the home button on my iPad.The only time is when I want to take a screenshot(power and home button). Otherwise never.

Now if only Apple would enable them for the iPhone as well...

 

Ah right. I did not know about the 5 finger pinch close nor the 4 finger swipe up for the app bar. You still have to longhold on the app to close it though. Anyways, it works nicely I see.

5 finger pinch close (I wasn't able to replicate with 4) to bring up the home screen is somewhat difficult on the phone I would presume :).

They are really very useful and I've been using them constantly since I found out about the feature. It's disabled (set to "off") by default. Switching between apps with a swipe is handy too, say I'm typing something in Pages and I need to check something I can swipe back to Safari and when I'm done swipe right back to Pages.

Actually, I don't think it would be too bad. Besides they could always substitute some other gesture instead. Before I upgraded my phone, I was using a "multitasking gesture" program on my jailbroken iphone 4 called Zephyr. The gestures are slightly different, it works pretty well.

http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/zephyr-jailbreak-tweak-adds-multitasking-gestures-to-iphone-20111229/