Rethinking the iPad Browsing Experience

Reading the conclusion, they say discoverability of the sidebar is a factor. Well, I've seen some iphone/ipad apps that by default, show all the toolbars and buttons for a few seconds before hiding them (like showing and hiding the dock in OS X); and some even give a little automated "nudge" imitating an aborted swipe motion to show that there are other screens you can swipe to).

I like physically reading a page on the iPad - being able to use touch to control the page is wonderful. But I hate just about everything else about it. This is probably because I have very non-linear browsing habits and a typical session involves opening 10 - 15 pages as I branch off into links on the page or google for more information about terms in the page. For this purpose mobile safari is simply horrible. It is a good <i>reading</i> device but it is not a good <i>browsing</i> device.

This is a good article and I love Arc90, but I find the act that I can't watch the demo video of their iPad usability solution on my iPad humorous.

Interesting concept, but I don't think toolbar real estate is much of a concern on the iPad; if it was they could just automatically hide the toolbar altogether like on the iPhone.<p>And I like having the name and URL visible at all times, as well as my bookmarks. I don't think I've ever complained about having to reach <i>all the way</i> to the top of the screen to tap my Google Reader bookmark.<p>Address bar attached to keyboard is an nice idea, and something I've thought about myself. I find myself wishing there was an input mode that simply attached an textview onto the keyboard, especially in Safari.<p>I also wish the iPad keyboard had select all/cut/copy/paste keys, arrow keys, next/previous word, start/end of line, forward delete, delete word, etc. I love actually typing on the screen, but positioning the cursor and revising text can be a pain.

Why don't they just code such a chrome and publish it in the AppStore..?

The webOS dock-ribbon you can pull up from the gesture area in any card app would be another interface paradigm Apple or a third party could implement. I'm sure HP will blow the iPad experience out of the water with their tablet... #sda

The browsing experience on the iPad is fantastic. That said, I too have noticed some small hiccups, though the author's problem with the address bar at the top hasn't bothered me. The two things I don't like are:<p>1) I don't really know what a link points to without clicking it. I would love to just, say, draw a circle with my finger around the link and have it display the URL. Maybe there's some way to hover over links on the iPad that I don't know about?<p>2) No immediate close button. I have to hit the two overlapping rectangles to bring up the "tabs" and then close from there.

I have concerns with moving the address bar all the way down to the top of the keyboard: depending on the viewing angle, your fingers might cover your line of sight to the address bar, and you might accidentally touch the address bar while typing, causing you to change the cursor point or select text and overwrite the current text. How about we split the difference down the middle...and move the address bar to the middle?

If you get rid of the browser chrome at the top, how do I know what URL I am visiting?

I couldn't watch the video on my iPad. They should rethink that.

This is the way you access the URL bar in the Palm Pré browser (swipe at the top). and navigation is done with floating buttons at the bottom. Much better, IMO.

Sidebar experience similar to Dolphin HD for Android?