App Switching - Counter intuitive to "Flow"?

After 5 days of using the Z10, I've noticed what is in my opinion, a gaping flaw in the "flow" experience of BlackBerry 10. Now keep in mind I used to work on this phone when I was at RIM, so I do love every piece of it but I'm still surprised that this feature didn't get put in some how.

This feature being the ability for the user to jump from app to app without having to return to the grid or the active frames panel. In many ways, swiping up would, to many users, be no different than pressing the home button. If the flow experience were to be fully implemented and not just for jumping from an app to the Hub, then you should be able to jump from an app to another app without having to return back to the active frames.

That's my two cents. Otherwise this phone is brilliant and I can't wait for the world to see what RIM has up their sleeve for the next full touch, tablet, and other BB10 experiences.

I don't mind the current layout, but I agree with you.
In my opinion, doing the "Peek" gesture, but going to the opposite direction as the hub, should take you over to the previous app you were on. The issue with that would be what if you want to go to the second last app you were using?

If that was in my hands i would do it just the same way as the playbook does it, swipe horizontally in the screen to go to the next open app...

No. Totally disagree. Gave this copious hours of thought. That's what the PlayBook has... flowing from app to app left to right or right to left, and it's OK on the tablet to do that, but on a phone I think it would way too easily too accidentally gesture into another app.

You'd get really frustrated with accidental swipes really quick. Plus, even on the PlayBook, I personally find the app to app movement isn't that useful once you have more than two apps open.. as you have to remember what order your apps are in and if you're swiping left to right from the first app to say the forth app. If you're on the far left of your open app ribbon, you have to swipe three times to jump through apps (which are going to slow things down a tiny bit as they're opening) before you swipe all the way over to the forth. On Z10, you swipe up and see all four and straight into the forth. It is flowy. And it is quicker, especially since they are displayed by recency. Plus, you can swipe up and into the other apps in a very fluid motion. The up and in almost feels like a single motion. Don't think it's counter intuitive to flow at all.

What I do find sort of unflow like is the context menu, where you have to stop flowing and have to tap and hold to invoke the context menu. Deleting an email is too long. I just want to swipe on an email to delete it... not tap, hold, get pop up context menu, and tap again to delete. Too many steps and I'm sort of putting a pause in my flowing motions.

I'd be hard-pressed to think of a better way to do multitasking given the constraint of keeping everything touch-based on not hung-up on old button-based paradigms. Kevin's right that it would be way too easy to accidentally switch, even with smart touch rejection on the software side. Additional touch sensors (back, side?) might introduce some interesting alternatives, but that also increases manufacturing and development costs. I'd love to hear ideas about how to increase multitasking efficiency, though. Howzabout hold down the volume down key to enter an overview mode, and tilt the device to highlight another app, release the key to go to it? It's pretty hard to accidentally hold volume down for three seconds, though then you start conflicting with track skip...

While I do think that the Playbook has a leg up on multi-tasking, I still think that there are too many steps involved when you compare it to how you get from an app to the Hub. While it may be dated, I loved how the BB7 phones had the function of holding down the BlackBerry key to see what apps you have open. This to me would still be easier than swiping up to only see an option of 4 open apps compared to an option of 10+ apps when you held down the BB key.

Either way, if you were to ask a SW designer about flow with respect to app switching, I don't think they would be able to tell you it's "true flow" when you mention the option of app to hub switching.

Did not think about but it that way, now that you all mention it i agree, and I find the Hub to be requiring to many steps for a few things, I also find inconsistent to have the access to the settings in some apps with a swipe down from the top and for example in the browser in the context menu at the right accessible via the menu (or whatever we have to call those 3 dots in the bottom right).

I would really like to have the option to go trough my messages without having to go back to the list after reading one message

I can see the points about the swiping, but I am kind of a dinosaur, I love my 9930....hold the blackberry button, tap the app of choice from the list.

I really really really love universal search, and am hoping it works as well on the Q as it does on my Bold.

Pull the phone out and press one button to call most people, type a little bit of a name to get the option to call or test or email that person.

I am excited to upgrade, but in order to be more mainstream it does seem that we have lost some of the hardcore functionality that made us BB die hards.

On the other hand I cant wait to use that awesonme sounding browser.

Originally Posted by turbo2g2003

While I do think that the Playbook has a leg up on multi-tasking, I still think that there are too many steps involved when you compare it to how you get from an app to the Hub. While it may be dated, I loved how the BB7 phones had the function of holding down the BlackBerry key to see what apps you have open. This to me would still be easier than swiping up to only see an option of 4 open apps compared to an option of 10+ apps when you held down the BB key.

Either way, if you were to ask a SW designer about flow with respect to app switching, I don't think they would be able to tell you it's "true flow" when you mention the option of app to hub switching.

Swipe up then touch the app you want (especially since your finger is already hovering over the app after the swipe up) is 10 times faster than holding and waiting for the menu to popup and then selecting an app.

Originally Posted by Kevin Michaluk

No. Totally disagree. Gave this copious hours of thought. That's what the PlayBook has... flowing from app to app left to right or right to left, and it's OK on the tablet to do that, but on a phone I think it would way too easily too accidentally gesture into another app.

You'd get really frustrated with accidental swipes really quick. Plus, even on the PlayBook, I personally find the app to app movement isn't that useful once you have more than two apps open.. as you have to remember what order your apps are in and if you're swiping left to right from the first app to say the forth app. If you're on the far left of your open app ribbon, you have to swipe three times to jump through apps (which are going to slow things down a tiny bit as they're opening) before you swipe all the way over to the forth. On Z10, you swipe up and see all four and straight into the forth. It is flowy. And it is quicker, especially since they are displayed by recency. Plus, you can swipe up and into the other apps in a very fluid motion. The up and in almost feels like a single motion. Don't think it's counter intuitive to flow at all.

What I do find sort of unflow like is the context menu, where you have to stop flowing and have to tap and hold to invoke the context menu. Deleting an email is too long. I just want to swipe on an email to delete it... not tap, hold, get pop up context menu, and tap again to delete. Too many steps and I'm sort of putting a pause in my flowing motions.

I complete agree with most of what you said, however there is a quicker and easier way to delete an email:
Touch the email and then double tap the bottom right hand corner. Done. Super simple and quick.

Flow itself is totally counter-intuitive. There is nothing that can be achieve with the bizarre "swipe half way up then all the way over to the right" movement that couldn't be achieved with a press of the 'blackberry button' or something. Although what I find more counter-intuitive is the inconsistency - sometimes you have to swipe panels closed, other times there's an obscure 'back' button tucked away somewhere and swiping doesn't work.

I also thought from the adverts that if you swipe from the left of the screen to the middle you could 'peek' at what is behind the current app but I tried it on the display model in the shop and it didn't work in any of the apps.