Apple has always delivered the best devices to their customers. From iPhones and Mac to iPads, Apple has never compromised two things on their devices. That is quality and performance.
As we all know Apple uses its iOS operating system in all of its devices. But this year Apple launched a separate operating system for its iPad series called iPadOS. By introducing this new operating system Apple has confirmed more features will be added to the iPad.
The ipadOS is not very much distinct from the iOS (the operating system used by apple in their other devices). Now the major difference that apple has made here is the concept of multitasking.
And that is what we are going to discuss in this article. But before just jumping into the main section of our topic, I want to give you some prerequisite knowledge on the brand new iPadOS. As this operating system is totally new in the market, so it is possible that a lot of people do not know about this.
The New Apple iPadOS
Developed by Apple Inc., iPadOS was initially released in the month of September in the year 2019. The initial release of this operating system came with the 13.1.3 version. With this operating system, Apple has only focused on the usability and performance of tablets and pads.
As I have said before the iPadOS comes with a lot of new exciting features. But the major one among them is the feature of multitasking. This feature was newly added to this operating system.
The new iPadOS is not much distinct from its ancestor’s operating systems. But apart from multitasking, there are a lot more features that are added with iPadOS like new home screen interface, safari, sidecar, storage, and many more.
How to use multiple windows on iPadOS?
So now you have an idea of what an iPadOS is and what are the new features, so we can focus on our main question that is how to use this new multitasking feature or multiple windows in iPadOS.
There are two major functions of multitasking on the iPadOS and which are “slide over” and “split-screen “. In this article I will talk about both of the functions. So just sit back and read this section till the end to get an answer to your question.
Slide Over
The slide over the function of the multitasking feature of iPadOS comes into play when you try to open a second app on your device screen even when you have another app already open. Let me clear the concept for you by giving you an example.
Suppose an app is running on your device and is covering the full screen. But you want to slide in another app to check some information or to send a message to someone. Now, this is where the concept of slide over comes into play.
The slide over function will create a layer of multiple opened applications on your iPad. In easy words, it can be said that the later opened app will be like a floating window and will open in the right-hand side of your screen in a smaller dimension.
Now if you press the middle button of your iPad and return back to the home page then the slide over application will be lost.
Pinned Apps
The pinned app feature is very much like the split-screen technique. That is if you try to two apps together on the same screen then the pined app function will open the second app to a size of one-third of the screen.
But you can adjust the display size of the apps and can fit both the apps in a 50-50 proportion. The thing with the pinned app function is that it does not overlay anything, so you have to make sure that both of the apps you are trying to open together should support the multitasking feature.
Slide over Actions
Now that you know how a slide over action functions on iPadOS, let us now an example of how this new function exactly works. In the example we will first open the Safari app in the full-screen mode and then we will open the Files app as a slide over the app.
So as per to open the safari just navigate through the home screen and open the safari app (generally available in the dock section). Now swipe up through the available actions and double tap on the option to open the slide over.
Now open the files app from the home screen. Here you will see that the Safari remains on the screen by taking most of the space of the screen and the files app is floating in the right-hand side of your display.
Now that we have two apps on our screen, so there are many tasks that we can do. This is down by using a screen function called “app controller”. One thing you have to keep in mind that you can only open those apps in a slide overview which you have saved in the slide over function.
Pinned App Actions
The action so the pinned app function is totally different from that of the slide over app function. Just like I have said before there is no concept of slide over in case of pinned app function.
In this example also we will work the two apps that we have used before to describe the slide over technology that is the safari app and files app. Now in order to open the two apps in a pinned app way or in the form of split-screen, we need to do some steps.
So go back to the dock and select the two apps, safari, and files that you want to open in split-screen mode and choose the Pine Files to the Right from the Actions Menu. Now here the VoiceOver will say, “Safari on the left, Files on the right”.
Again just like the slide over function we have an app controller for both the apps on the screen. But there is a new feature here in the pinned function and that is called “Split View Divider”. This is the thin bar that is there on the screen to separate the two apps.
In the End
So we can finally say that the multitasking feature by the new iPadOS has made it easier for the users to work on two apps on the same screen. A split-screen option is very much needed in every touchscreen device.
In the above blog, I have described each and every multitasking function of iPadOS in detail and have given you some basic examples of how these functions actually work. I hope that you find this article helpful enough if you are using the new iPadOS.
