One of the most popular arguments against the iPad is that the device doesn’t support multitasking. I’ve discussed this subject many times before, and after Apple introduced its version of multitasking at the latest iPhone OS 4.0 event, we all know that what we’re going to get is much more like a system-wide persistent state feature rather than actual multitasking. If by multitasking you meant to be able to have multitple windows on screen at the same time, you won’t have that. You won’t be able to see more than one app at a time, and I’m definitely fine with that. If I’m writing something in Pages I don’t need to keep an eye on Twitterrific, and when I browse websites with Safari I don’t edit spreadsheets in Numbers.
There are some cases though where you’d want to work with an app and have another one open, running on its side, to take a quick glimpse at it every few minutes. When I’m on my Mac, it happens that I read stuff in DEVONthink and take a very quick look at the newest tweets in Tweetie. Maybe this it’s no exactly multitasking (I keep thinking that we humans cannot multitask), so I’ll just say it’s fast app switching which benefits from the larger real screen estate of a Mac. But would you imagine this on the iPad? Having Pages and a small widget on screen at the same time? Wouldn’t it become a mess, even with this beautiful 10 inches display?
Maybe. Maybe we just don’t need widgets at all, and screw you if you want a damn Dashboard running on the iPad. Let’s take a different approach: basing on the iPad UI guidelines, the implementation of split views and popovers is highly recommended. You know, the same stuff Mail, Instapaper and all the other apps do. And when you have a split view in front of you, isn’t that a very raw kind of multitasking? You basically have two views running at the same time, so I guess it’s quite fair to call it in this way. No let’s apply this to a browser, and here comes Multitasking Browser for iPad.
The concept behind this app is that you should be able to do your browsing and have something else open on the other side of the main window. Say you’re reading MacStories and you want to check your mail, Multitasking Browser is meant for this exact purpose. If you think about it, the possibilities are many: watch a Youtube video and have the lyrics in the smaller window; have your Gmail Tasks on the left and Evernote’s web interface on the right, so that you can finish that review you’ve been assigned and then delete the task. Again, it’s just up to you.
From an interface design standpoint, the app is quite straightforward: when in landscape mode you have a split view, while the portrait mode triggers the use of a popover to access the websites configured in the sidebar. Indeed, the app comes with a list of default sites to browse in “mini-mode”, like Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, Digg and more. Just take a look at the screenshots to see which websites are in, but please keep in mind that the devs claim to be able to extend the list of favorite side-sites over the air. Too bad you can’t manually enter a website in the favorites, so if you want to use Hahlo (which works great here) you have to manually enter the URL. Both the windows have a URL field, but the side one doesn’t come with the possibility to open multiple pages. So it’s like an iPhone browser embedded into an iPad app, but you can’t open windows like in Mobile Safari for iPhone. Also, two other things worth mentioning about this side browser: it supports saved state, but it doesn’t remember logins. So you’ll have Twitter there again on each relaunch of the app, but you’ll have to login every time. This must be fixed soon.
The “main” window is nothing but a smaller Safari, with a few differences to consider. You can add bookmarks but there’s no bookmarks bar: I don’t know if this is a SDK limitation or the devs still have to implement it though. Thing is, while it’s great to access bookmarks from a popover, I do miss Safari’s bookmarks bar. Also, Multitasking Browser comes with its very own way to manage open pages (or tabs), but it doesn’t feel as snappy as Safari. The latest update introduced many big fixes and interface improvements, but the developers still have to put a lot of work on it. Same applies for the side browser which is pretty slow sometimes.
So at this point you may wonder why I decided to buy and review this app, considering all the quirks I’ve mentioned so far. Actually, if you manage to get over the aforementioned problems and keep a “it’s gonna be fixed” state of mind, Multitasking Browser comes in handy a lot of times. Personally, I found it useful especially during my reading sessions, when I wanted to read some posts on Engadget or TechCrunch (stuff that doesn’t usually go into Instapaper) but wanted to keep an eye on Twitter as well. What if a new beta of iPhone OS 4.0 came out when I was reading? With Multitasking Browser I can do my reading and keep a quick eye on Twitter in the meantime. Sure it’s not a full featured client, but at least it keeps me posted with the news while I’m doing something else and I don’t want to close the app, maybe even risking to lose the paragraph I’m reading. I don’t know if OS 4.0 will definitely kills this kind of applications, but until that time I’ve found some interesting scenarios for Multitasking Browser: check on the latest MacStories comments and see what’s going on in my Facebook stream; read some Digg stuff and listen to Youtube playing on the other side of the screen; post something on Google Buzz and then regret it because no one uses it. These are only a few of the ways I’ve found myself using the app, but this widget-like thing is cool and I know you guys can come up with something better than me. One thing I’m missing is the possibility to “send links to the main window”: please guys, let me open a Digg post in the right panel with the next update. Other than that, I’m quite satisfied with the things I’ve done with this alternative browser.
Multitasking browser has its problems and the developers are working on that: scrolling issues in the popover and more favorites features are the improvements they should focus on. But overall, this app positively impressed me: I haven’t really thought it could be fun and productive to have Twitter running in a small sidebar and MacStories’ web admin on the other one. And what you can do with it is just up to you. If you think you could use an app like this, than it’s totally worth your money.
Go download it. You can also follow the app on Twitter as @multibrowser.
P.S. For the sake of my graphical satisfaction, the icon is awesome.
