The update brings not only smooth-as-butter animations, iOS 5 compatibility, and extreme stability, which the older versions did lack, however it also comes with a new view dubbed live view. Live view allows applications that aren’t suspended by iOS to be moving around in real time while in the background and being viewed through CardSwitcher. This is most notable with games where the environment is always moving. Since iOS multitasking suspends most applications, live view will only pertain to the last-opened application before launching CardSwitcher. If you’re using Backgrounder, which keeps iOS from suspending applications, then all of the applications in the background will show in live view.
Cardflow multitasking as been removed (not to be confused with card view) to make way for a new type of graphical interface called the grid. Pictured above, the grid view places applications in a 2x2 grid with ‘X’ buttons for closing the applications. If you give the grid a little pinch, you can expand your view to a 3x3 grid, which is extremely useful for when you have numerous applications open at once:
Once installed, CardSwitcher puts a preferences pane in the Settings application with many kinds of customization settings; the first being an Activator action so you can invoke CardSwitcher on demand separately from the App Switcher (by default, CardSwitcher replaces the App Switcher when you double-press the home buttom). Under that is the option to sync your CardSwitcher multitasking with the App Switcher by having CardSwitcher truly close applications when you quit them from CardSwitcher. The last category has to do with the interface – from here you can choose between card or grid view, choose to have the wallpaper or a black background behind the CardSwitcher interface, or the ability to show or hide the ‘X’ buttons. Applications can be closed one of three ways: 1. Swiping up on them; 2. Swiping down on them; 3. Tapping their ‘X’ buttons. The settings are shown below:
CardSwitcher works with any iOS 4 or iOS 5 or iOS 6 iDevice including the iPad. Coming in the future for CardSwitcher will be drop shadows for the applications to give it more depth in appearance and new multitasking interface types. This is a pretty awesome-looking multitasking tweak!
