I've mentioned it before in this thread, but swipe manager is not a real fix.

The real problem i think is one of redundancy: the app launcher already is a task switcher. The switcher itself becomes mostly a place where you need to close tasks, yet it occupies one third of the basic interaction of the phone (i.e. one of the three virtual desktops).

In general use, people just want to start and switch apps, and switching to another app could just as well be done via the launcher. So the task switcher in my opinion should never be one of the primary desktops.

Maybe the list of running apps should just be listed as icons in the roll-down screen you get when clicking on the status bar. Pressing and holding an icon could throw a [close / cancel] popup. If really needed there could also be a small button there to view the open apps in a thumbnail view (such as the current task switcher).

The philosophy of the OS is one of real multitasking instead of 'smart backgrounding', ok i get that. But how many apps really need to stay fully active in the background? Very few in practice i think. So also in that regard it would make more sense to smart background every app by default, and give a manual method to keep an app truly active in the background. This would reduce the number of icons that need to be shown in the status screen, and would remove the need for this dedicated task switcher screen completely. Imo it's a win-win-win situation:

- simpler and more efficient desktop interaction with 2 screens
- more battery efficient (only manually selected apps stay active)
- more control (active apps list can be reached from every screen by clicking status, instead of having to swipe to the task switcher screen first).

Tl;dr the task switcher should not be dedicated part of the main interaction of the phone. 2 virtual desktops (homescreen + app launcher) would be a much more efficient approach for 90% of the normal use cases.