If you type with your thumbs while holding an iPad in both hands, or if you want take the new Show/Hide keyboard button out for a spin, check out the new Split Keyboard feature. To begin parting the Red Sea, drag using your thumbs outward from the middle of the keyboard to split the sections. To put the keyboard together again, put a thumb on each section and push them together.
This is one of the best features in iOS 5, but I don’t understand why there’s a preference and you have to specifically split the keyboard with a gesture. What would be the benefit in switching off the preference?
In Mail on the iPad, in portrait view, swipe left to right with two fingers to display the mailbox list, which slides as a panel from the side of the screen.
I don’t know why the list doesn’t appear as a popover, as it used to — perhaps Mail will become the iTunes of the iPad: the place where Apple experiments with interface.
It’s be nice to see some guidelines and consistency, but I like the sliding panel. Popovers seem better suited to tools and inspectors than to navigation.
