I apologize if this has been asked before, though I did look and could not find it.
Basically, exactly what the topic says. Is iPadOS a truly new OS that will need its own version of apps to run them (and therefore I will avoid upgrading) or is iPadOS really just a new UI for iOS on iPad and all apps currently working on it (including Scrivener) will continue to do so?
Thanks!
It is just a branding name, and a way for Apple to indicate that updates will happen more frequently. I am running the beta and so far haven’t run into any issues with Scrivener.
Perfect! Thanks!
Whereas I get a crash as soon as Dropbox tries to sync, rendering Scrivener unusable on the current beta. Any idea how yours is working, Brammy?
Sorry, I don’t have any more input, but I’d like to hear updates about this.
I was looking forward to the public beta to finally be able to use 2 windows of Scrivener on iPad, but I’m too afraid to loose the ability to work on my iPad, which has become my primary work station, to take the leap of faith…
Well, it’s not quite Apple’s “official” thing, but Scrivener has been doing multiple panes of content for years. Run a search for “Quick Reference” in your tutorial to read up on it.
It’s not a branding thing. It is a different version of iOS based on the iOS core with enhancements to make use of the added real estate and make iPads more of a ‘PC replacement’ and improve productivity.
Issues with some apps are to be expected during the beta phase. That is why Apple advise not to use a beta on a production machine or to entrust essential data to a beta.
The vast majority of app developers make no effort to publicly release updates to address issues with beta versions as code is often added and removed during that period. They may well be working in the background to explore the new features to see how they can make best use to enhance their app.
Worrying about any issues at this point is a wasted exercise. When the beta is at the GM stage developers will test their apps against it and make any tweaks necessary to ensure compatibility etc or in rare cases where they have no intention of updating, flag compatible versions. I can think of a handful of apps over the years where that has happened and they have been ones where they appear to be so niche and limited sales that the developers lose interest. There is nothing to suggest L&L would be one of those rare cases.
Best advice for everyone with essential data I.e. your next great novel is stay away from beta. On the other hand if you are adventurous and have data you are willing to risk, have a play and contribute to bug finding on the beta. You can always wipe and go back to the stable release.
Yes, the quick reference pane is great, but right now I need to open two scrivener projects at the same time, so… 
Ah, well I wouldn’t cross my fingers for something like that, to be honest. That’s a good deal more complicated than opening two files at once from the same repository (i.e. project), like they demonstrated in the keynote address with Mail.
And yet, they said we could open two occurrences of the same app at the same time…
Something tells me that will be significantly less complicated with something like Maps, than Scrivener, which would need to potentially work with multiple Dropbox “instances” syncing these multiple project portals at once. Sounds like a recipe for a mess to me, without a lot of very careful oversight. Even just opening a project more than once would be something that would require a deep level of redesign.
You’re right. But I think there are workarounds.
If it is to open two different projects, there shouldnt be any syncing issue.
And inside the same project, it could be a minor redesign of the Quick Reference ability,
A bit like when we open a file with Quick Reference but in macOS instead of iOS.
It would need a bit of design, but it seems doable, don’t you think?
I read somewhere that Apple are planning on making it obligatory for apps to be able to run two side by side versions after IOS13/Ipados has been released. So, if Scrivener still wants to be available on the App Store, then it will have to offer this.
I think this ‘requirement’ is because big companies like Google have been deliberately dragging their heels on their IOS versions updates, so Apple is now going to make more requirements obligatory to ensure they are in place.
This will probably be more important with software like Ipados, where there are so many productivity enhancements that are tied up with being able to have multiple instances open at the same time.
That’s not how it would work if they are genuinely multiple instances though. The analogy on macOS would be using “open -n Scrivener.app” terminal command so you have two instances of Scrivener running, and then force them to both open the same project at once, overriding the warnings. The result would be swift and certain corruption—which is why such a thing would require a deep level of redesign.
But to reiterate I don’t really know for sure. I’m not the programmer. So the two of us speculating between each other on whether or not this will actually be easy to do is a bit like us chewing the fat over how easy it would be to add 1.2kg of weight to a rocket’s payload manifest or orbital insertion.
All I’m saying is, “that sounds complicated”.
Unless by “somewhere” you mean you found it in Apple’s developer section, I wouldn’t pay it too much credence. That doesn’t sound like a well-thought out plan to me.
Yeah, that’s the toolkit. What remains to be seen is how it handles cases where software can open files out of its internal storage area and edit them. What happens if two instances of the software have the same file open, would text you type into one side appear on the other side as you type (like how Quick Reference works)? Or would they each have their own memory space, and thus conflict each other with forked copies where auto-save steps on its own toes? Or in the case of a program like Scrivener, if two instances think they have absolute authority over an elaborate structure involving many files in many subfolders—are there tools for delegating that authority between two other independent binder processes?
These kinds of problems are what I suspect would require “deep redesign”, since at the moment when you open a project Scrivener assumes it will be the only thing modifying all aspects of that project. It will not expect AnotherScrivener do potentially be doing the same thing.
All this sounds like it makes it pretty imperative to do whatever it takes to get iCloud sync.
Yet again, iCloud leaves out Windows (and potentially Android) users. Further, none of the discussion says anything about iCloud sync. I doubt that which variety of sync makes a heck of a lot of difference to the challenges of opening two instances of a project, given Scrivener’s storage-based format.
Synchronization, with iCloud or otherwise, is only relevant to sharing projects between systems. It is not relevant to the situation described here, where two projects are simultaneously open on the same system.
Katherine