Apple’s iPadOS 15 introduces a more intuitive multitasking experience to iPad. iPadOS 15 introduces a multitasking experience that is even more intuitive, making features like Split View and Slide Over easier to discover, easier to use, and more powerful.
iPadOS 15 makes working with multiple apps easier than ever. A new multitasking menu appears at the top of apps, letting users go into Split View or Slide Over with just a tap. Users now have quick access to the Home Screen when using Split View, making it easier to get to the right app. Using the new shelf, they can also multitask with apps that have multiple windows like Safari and Pages, as well as quickly preview emails.
The experience with an external keyboard allows users to get more done with all-new keyboard shortcuts and a redesign of the menu bar. Users can quickly set up and switch between Split View and Slide Over with new shortcuts for multitasking right from the keyboard.
Multitasking can be done the same way as it was before, but there’s also a new multitasking menu that streamlines the multitasking experience, offering quick-tap options for entering into Split View or Slide Over with two apps. In the App Switcher view, you can also get into a quick Split View mode by dragging one app’s window onto another, which is handy.
Apple also added a “Shelf” feature for managing multiple windows of the same app, so if you have multiple Safari windows, you can use the Shelf to swap between them for multitasking purposes.
MacDailyNews Take: Of course, as with everything else, these new multitasking features will have a learning curve, but, once mastered, these new features make multitasking on the iPad more intuitive.
This is Apple’s post-debacle spin, the “powerful new” multitasking is woefully inadequate. External monitor support, applying the flexible, windowed approach to their core apps as they’ve done with Notes and an updated Files app would have silenced 90% of the criticism. The iPad Pro has been officially relegated as your 3rd or 4th accessory device after the iPhone, Mac and Macbook (possibly even less important to Apple’s plans than the Apple Watch) Craig Federighi’s “universal control” demo made that clear.
David Johnson at AppleNewsNet said it well before WWDC: “I want Apple to bring the iPad Pro to software feature parity with the Mac. Apple doesn’t need to turn the iPad into a Mac. It just has to respect the fact that the iPad Pro is a real computer on the same level as the Mac. As of this moment, the iPad Pro software utterly disrespects the hardware, and the people who use it. Apple needs to do an apology tour for the iPad Pro software. And it needs to start at this year’s WWDC.”
The real issue is if Apple is just wasting time with using split screen multitasking vs “windowed” mode. The changes are in the right direction as long as they finish them (i.e. shelf). Windowed mode is what I think people are “really” saying when thinking multitasking. The real problem to me is all of the “multitasking” capability is controlled by the developer NOT Apple. When Apple doesn’t enforce the standard we end up with NO standard. Hence the real reason why multitasking fails. Its either all or nothing and right now we are more in the latter.