Spaces are crucial to my daily workflow on my MacBook (I never was a ⌘⇥ guy), and the prospect of using Spaces on my iPad as a virtual workspace is amusing. While Spaces will still exist in Lion alongside Mission Control, Spaces itself is sort of taking a backseat in terms of what we traditionally think of in Leopard and Snow Leopard. The patent suggests that Apple has been toying with the idea of Spaces on the iPad – shown running a version of OS X in the patent files – and suggests that multitouch gestures could manipulate items on screen and bring Spaces into view. Just like the desktop, gestures have been submitted which give users the ability to push a window to an adjacent space by dragging applications to the edge of the screen, and to drag windows between virtual the virtual desktops. The gesture to open Spaces is noted as a pinching gesture at the corner of the display, a perfect choice in that it also mimics the hot corner features in OS X. The patent was filed in Q3 of 2009, and give us a little insight into how Apple may incorporate a new multitasking system in iOS. I don’t think the multitasking bar is as nimble as HP’s Card view when it comes to multitasking on webOS devices, and mulling over a patent like this reminds us that Apple may make some big changes in the next iteration of iOS.
[via Patently Apple]
