“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