“With iOS 9, Apple is taking the iPad seriously as a productivity device in a way that it never has before,” Dan Seifert reports for The Verge. “The iPad is growing up, and Apple is setting the stage to make it an even more powerful device in the very near future.”
“For the first time, you will be able to run more than one app at a time on the iPad’s display, letting you keep an eye on Twitter while writing email or reading an article,” Seifert reports. “Apps can be split across the screen equally or in a 70-30 split, depending on your preference. Both apps are fully interactive at the same time, and you can drag and drop images and other content from one side to the other. Apple says this feature will be supported on the iPad Air 2, and it will presumably be a highlight of whatever iPad Apple announces this fall.”
“iOS 9’s upgrades make sense in the context of the various pushes into the enterprise Apple has recently made. A deal with IBM has iPads being distributed to thousands of enterprise users that tend to be a bit more demanding than the average consumer,” Seifert reports. “They also set the path for the long-rumored iPad Pro, a larger device that Apple has yet to officially announce. Split-screen multitasking makes the most sense when you have a big screen to split up, and the larger iPad is rumored to have a screen in the range of 12 inches.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: This bodes well for iPad sales this Christmas and beyond!
It also puts our future mobile Mac purchases in jeopardy. With iOS 9, we can envision the possibility of working with just iPad while on the go. Currently our backpacks carry both 11-inch MacBook Air and iPad Air 2 units. While we can certainly post articles with our iOS 8-powered iPads, and do so on occasion, we certainly still reach for our MacBook Airs first. This may change soon.
SEE ALSO:
Why Apple’s new split-view multitasking feature is exclusive to its best iPad – June 13, 2015
Split-view multitasking: Hands on with Apple’s iOS 9 beta on iPad Air 2 – June 9, 2015
Interesting… My iPad has always been a very good productivity device, and this is before iOS 9.
I realize ONE person’s request doesn’t make/break a feature, but I surely requested the whole “video sits atop the rest of the screen” function, so I could surf or play games while watching a video… and the video could be dragged around as necessary to see other parts of the screen.
So, seeing as my request (and probably millions of others) has come to fruition, I cannot wait. 😀
The iPad is limited in utility. They are great for reading and tolerable for editing using a separate keyboard like Zagg. But, for real productivity involving serious input, comparing it to a laptop or desktop is like fitting a square peg in a round hole. The limitation with all of the non-computer devices is the method of input. Dictation will never catch on with the masses or in business. The disruption to coworkers would be intolerable and the accuracy is not 100%. I see friends and relatives using dictation to send messages. But, it is flat out goofy. The keyboard is King…not memory or anything else purported to be the stumbling block by MDN. I don’t see that changing any time soon. The key to iPad and iPhone continued success is the system that starts with the computer. But, if Apple lets up on stellar development of OS X, Apple will go back to their market “dominance” of 1995.
At last drag and drop between Apps this is game changer for the iPad it has always frustrated me that something made for fingers wasn’t available while something made for cursers i.e. menus was there in its place as a very poor clunky way to move things around and then the need to go in and out of apps to even make use of that if they were moved on the same iPad.
This will open the door for a much much better way of working that is exactly the fundamental change I have been saying this past 18 months to make it worth while for me to upgrade. This gives all sorts of options for helper and companion apps too I suspect that we can’t imagine as yet.
Keeping an eye on Twitter while you check your email is not what I’d call “serious productivity,” especially since Twitter itself is a stupid waste of time.
It won’t be a serious productivity device, for the blind at least, until voiceover gets way better bluetooth keyboard commands and improvements, a way to search a document for spelling and grammar mistakes, the ability to read formatting changes when they change and whenn apps get keyboard commands and the ability to assign keyboard commands to elements in a stuburn app that doesn’t have them.
Sent from my iPhone
>