iOS home screen redesign

                               

The multitasking interface on iOS has been an area that I’ve had a lot of passion for. I’ve run into many ideas and have hit a lot of walls. Here is some of my earlier work:

Multitasking

Multitasking — Revised Version

I decided to go a different route and try to bring in the good characteristics of other Apple products and interfaces and merge them together.

Here’s my idea of bringing the Mac OS X Launchpad concept to iOS and merging the following into one interface:

• Launchpad
• Multitasking
• Music Controls
• Brightness / Volume Slider
• Basically all the multitasking utilities available to you now in native iOS

Initially, this would be a replacement of the entire multitasking interface all together.

Note: This interface can be launched from the SpringBoard and inside applications (not from the lock screen).

Also: This interface is more oriented towards the iPhone and iPod touch. I have another idea in mind for the iPad. After I’m pretty solid with this, I’ll move onto that.

Let’s break this down into sections so I can best explain this:

Activation:

This would be done natively (double pressing the Home Button) or by a gesture of some sort.

Shade:

When you activate this interface, the background as displayed in the photos will pop up. The shade is a mixture of the Notification Center shade (toned down a bit) and a blurred view of the background. The goal behind this view is to keep the experience all together — the focus should be on what is on the shade but it keeps a small sliver of what else is going on to promote a unified experience.

Applications:

On the shade, applications are lined up for easy access. They are arranged from bottom to top and by last used. That means that the applications that are running are down at the bottom closest to your fingers. The blue indicator under the applications lets you know that the application is running. Just like the native multitasking interface, holding down on the icons will allow you to get to wiggle mode and kill applications.

Since you’re bound to have more applications than 16 (per page), you can swipe from left to right to go from page to page. I’m unsure on how much configuration I personally would add to the layout of the shade itself, but it’s a possibility. Once again, Launchpad is a way of accessing all your applications and launching them from wherever you are — whether from the SpringBoard or inside an application.

Bottom Navigation Bar:

When you first activate the shade (however you do that), it will always start at the Launchpad. A button shade tells you which button you are viewing. To change buttons, simply press or swipe along the bottom bar to move onto the next option. As mentioned above, you can tinker however you want. But, the other buttons are important as well.

• Music — Instead of the music controls and what not being viewed from the start, simply swipe the bottom bar until Music is selected to view what that interface. My aim is to add more then just the standard music controls to this interface but I have not started on that yet. This would include the volume slider and what not as well.
• Settings — I’m not even sure I want to keep this: this was just filler to be honest. However, this could be useful if you want quick access to certain settings. However, I may change it to something else later on.

Note: This navigation bar could be potentially scrollable with more interfaces but I’m unsure of what to add.

I’ll be sticking with this for a while so stay tuned for what is to come! You’re always welcome to give suggestions and critiques as well. Thanks!