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Spaces for Tablet Patent Further Hints at Mac OS X Tablet?

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A recent Apple patent filing for a Spaces-like feature for a tablet device, though it’s unclear if the feature may make it to a future iPad or iOS revision. In fact, by nature of Spaces, the feature may be more suited to a Mac OS X tablet rather than an iOS-powered iPad. 

Spaces is a feature on OS X that allows users to create workspaces based on tasks to eliminate clutter and help users focus on specific tasks. For instance, a user may group all webpages into one space and use a separate space to open a Word document to draft a proposal. In another space, a user may group an Excel spreadsheet, some old PDF reports, and an email with some numbers to create a budget while another space may have somw webpages and a Keynote presentation going.

While using an operating system or other application with a plurality of open applications and/or application windows, a user may need to move from one workspace view (i.e., a first “virtual desktop”) to a different workspace view (i.e., a second “virtual desktop”), move one or more windows from a first workspace view to another workspace view, or see several workspace views simultaneously.

As the Spaces paradigm on Mac OS X involves groups of apps or programs together, it makes use of windows, an element that is missing in iOS as apps are usually blown up full-size to take advantage of the full tablet screen, negating the need for windows. As such, it’s unclear how Apple would implement Spaces on an iPad in its current form sans windows.

As Apple is working on merging the strengths of iOS to OS X on the desktop and the strengths of OS X to iOS on mobile, it will be interesting to see where the two operating systems begin to converge and whether Spaces will eventually see a release on a tablet or iPad.

Via: Patently Apple

 

4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. imrananwar

    04/05/2011 at 1:18 am

    While I am sure there will be an eventual possible overlap of devices and form factors, with some butting and cannibalism between iOS and OSX at the tablet level form factor, why is is assumed that Spaces itself cannot be implemented in an iOS device? Doing windows on an iPhone would be difficult from a usability perspective, but the generous iPad screen size allows such functionality for sure.

  2. Anonymous

    04/05/2011 at 3:52 am

    I hate this kind of patent absurdity.
    It’s multiple desktops.
    That’s all it is.
    It has been around for years.
    If they are granted a patent for putting it on a tablet then I am going to scream into my pillow.

    • Anonymous

      04/05/2011 at 3:55 am

      And frankly – even on a tablet … this is nothing more than what android is doing know with multiple screens you can stick your different widgets or whatnot onto willy-nilly.
      Which again is no big shakes for the inventiveness of android because – again – whoever thought of this first thought of it a long, long darned time ago.
      I can’t take it.
      My heart it beating so fast….
      I’m not even going to wait to see if they’re granted a patent on this…
      Where’s my pillow!?

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