“Spaces” coming to the Apple iPad?

For those Mac OS X users who love “Spaces,” a new patent filed by Apple indicates that the company may soon add the feature to the iPad.
According to a patent uncovered by Patently Apple the 2009 application is called, “Device, method, and graphical user interface for manipulating workspace views.”

In summation, Apple envisions the new feature allowing users to:

“In some embodiments, a multifunction device with a display and a touch-sensitive surface creates a plurality of workspace views.  The device displays a first workspace view in the plurality of workspace views on the display without displaying other workspace views in the plurality of workspace views and detects a first multifinger gesture on the touch-sensitive surface. In response to detecting the first multifinger gesture on the touch-sensitive surface, the device replaces display of the first workspace view with concurrent display of the plurality of workspace views.”

Using gestures to navigate the various work spaces, users could pinch various parts of the screen, use a five finger tap, and more to access items.
Apple added gestures similar to those described to an early beta version of iOS 4.3 provided to developers.  The feature allowed users to return to the home screen with a five-finger pinch, access the multitasking bar with a four-fingered swipe, and move between open applications by swiping multiple fingers across the screen.

Unfortunately when iOS 4.3 was released, the feature was not made available to users, but is still available provided your iPad is registered as a development device in Apple’s Xcode software.

In lieu of continuing to run iOS on the iPad, Patently Apple believes Apple may add a full Mac OS X version to their tablet.

Are you a Spaces user?  Do you think adding the feature to the iPad would make using the device a better experience or more difficult for users?

The author of this post is Jeff Cormier

Founder/CEO of C4 Universe, person of the law, write for The Next Web, iPad Fan, ForeverGeek and other sites. Find me on any social network under jffcrmr. It works, try it... http://about.me/jffcrmr

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