Ahead of WWDC 2021, there was a report that suggested that Apple would introduce an improvement to the way the iPad handles multitasking. Sure enough with iPadOS 15, Apple has announced a couple of changes that don’t necessarily introduce new ways to multitask, but rather it builds on the existing options and improves on them.
This comes in the form of a new multitasking menu where when you tap the top of the screen, you get the option of using the app in full screen mode, split view, or slide over. Users will also be able to more easily select which apps they want to work with at the same time, which is an improvement over the current method which requires a lot of dragging and dropping and isn’t always the most intuitive.
There is also a new Center Window feature that lets you hover an app over your existing apps that makes it easier to see compared to slide over. Apple has also introduced a new app switcher where you can create multiple split view spaces and swap between them easily. For example, you might have one split view space that combines Safari and Notes, and another that combines the Mail and Calendar apps.
We haven’t tried out these new features for ourselves so it’s hard to say how truly effective they are, but they sound interesting and hopefully it will make the iPad more of a productivity device than it was before.