Multitasking On the iPad With iPadOS 15

Apple has tried to make multitasking easier in iPadOS 15. While there are more straight-forward ways to do some things, it is actually more complex than ever. Learn the basics ansd then practice them to master multitasking on the iPad.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at multitasking in iPad OS15. 
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So Apple has revamped multitasking in iPad OS15. This was really needed because multitasking was difficult to navigate. Just try to figure out how to create SplitView, Slideover, and go between different windows was very difficult in iPad OS14 and earlier. While it is different in OS15 it's still rather complex. So let's say, for instance, that you're in Pages and you want to have SplitView between Pages and another app. Now previously there was a bunch of gestures you need to learn. But now with iPad OS15 there's this simple little interface here, these three dots at the top. You tap those and now you get the opportunity to go Full Screen which is the mode we're in now, SplitView, or Slideover. Now the important thing to realize with these three options is the build-in rectangle. That represents what's going to happen to the app we're looking out now. So for SplitView you could see that the app is going to go to the left and we're going to choose one to the right. But for Slideover the app is actually going to become the slideover app. 
Let's focus on SplitView first. If I tap here you can see the app does go to the left, briefly, and then it goes off-screen and now it lets us choose a new app to be on the right. Previously you had to settle for whatever was in your Dock at the bottom. Now you can go and select any app you want using any of your Home screen pages or the Dock. So let's go and select something like Notes. Just tap that and it's going to end up being the app that's on the right. So that works with SplitView we could use the line here to actually adjust SplitView and give more space to one or the other app. Keep in mind going into SplitView depends on the app. Some apps don't support it. Other apps will support it but only at 50% of the screen or 33% of the screen and all of that. So what you can actually do here, moving the middle, depends on the app's you're using.  Now notice each of these apps has the three dots at the top again. So I could select here and I could say let's take Pages back to Full Screen. You could also exit by simply dragging this line. If I drag it all the way to the right it knows that I'm trying to get rid of Notes and go back to Full Screen Pages. 
Now we can also take one of these into Slideover mode. So if my intention was just to go to Slideover I can start with SplitView and now go to Slideover. You can see it gives Pages back full screen mode and now Notes is in Slideover mode. Slideover works similar to how it did before. I can grab the top here and drag this over to the left or to the right. I could also kind of drag it off the screen. I get this little indicator there you saw for a second and if I put my finger right there it appears again and I can pullout Slideover like a drawer. I could also put Slideover away by dragging the bottom line up until it goes away. Now you can have multiple things in Slideover. So, for instance, let's go and pick Clock and have that in SplitView and then I'll put it in Slideover. Now when I drag up and I wait a little bit you can see Slideover shows there are actually two windows in Slideover. It's easiest to think of things in two layers. One is the main screen layer and that's where you have Full Screen apps and SplitView apps. Then the layer above that is Slideover and Slideover has these slideover apps. So now that I put two apps in Slideover mode I can swap between the two of them like that. It's already a bit confusing I know. It will be a little clearer if you use the App Switcher. To use the App Switcher drag up from the bottom and now you go to the App Switcher and you could see all of the different windows I've got open and I can jump to anyone of those.  So here's Setting, here's Photos, here's Pages. But to the right I'll see all of the Slideover windows. So you can see the Slideover windows are definitely different. They are these long vertical things than the main screen ones. Here I could dismiss one of these Slideover windows if I want to if I tap it to jump to where I last was. In this case Notes over Pages. 
Now note I could use App Switcher to do some of this. So in App Switcher I still have the Dock here. Let's say I want to have Pages in SplitView with Safari. I could drag Safari from the Dock into Pages here. Then when I'm on the screen I could do Slideover or I could go all the way to one side and do SplitView. Then when I go back to the App Switcher you could see here I've got Pages and Safari in SplitView. I can actually drag one out to return it to Full Screen mode for Pages.
Okay ready for even more. In addition to Full Screen, SplitView, and Slideover there's a fourth mode. Center View. So you can use Center View only on some apps. Here you can do it in Notes. If you tap and hold on a Note you'll get Open In a New Window. So for the app you're looking for this option. You could do it say in Mail with a message as well. Tap that and then it goes to Center View. So now this is a window that's kind of over everything else. It has its own multitasking controls here. You could see I can go between the four modes. I can make this window a Full Screen window. I can make it SplitView, Slideover, or Center mode which is where it is now. So let's say I wanted to take this Slideover I could. I could tap here and go back to Center. I could tap here and go Full Screen with this one window. So if I went Full Screen with the one window what happens to the other Notes window? Well, if you go back into Slideover View you'll see that there are now two Notes windows. So what happens when you have two windows like this? Well, if you launch the app just from the icon you'll see what's called the Shelf at the bottom. It shows that there is more than one window. I can tap each one to switch between the window. Now how do I intentionally open up more than one window? Well, for instance for Pages we already have a window open for Pages. But if I tap and hold Pages here if an app is capable of multiple windows you'll see Show All Windows. Select that and it will show you all the windows for the app. Just one in this case. Then I can use the plus button here to create a new window. Let's open up the school's newsletter here. Now when I'm in the App Switcher you could see I've got two Pages windows open. If I just go to Pages now from the Home Page you could see I now have the Shelf and I can now choose which one I want to go to. Also if I use four fingers and swipe back and forth on the screen I can actually swipe back and forth between all of these apps in the App Switcher. I can see all of those here in the App Switcher. 
Note that you can still use the old ways of multitasking as well. So I could, for instance, bring up the Dock here. Use the Dock to bring an app into Slideover View or SplitView like that. If you're confused a little I don't blame you because there are a lot of different ways to handle multitasking. Apple just added a bunch of new ones on top of the old ones. But I think, at least now, it's a little clearer of how to enter SplitView and exit SplitView using that button at the top. The App Switcher really makes it clear what's going on and you could easily control things from there. 
Now watching this tutorial is just the first step. What you really need to do to learn how to use this is to practice it. So before you need to use it create a Pages document, try to bring Notes in, try to bring the Clock in, use the Slideover, use SplitView, use the App Switcher. Get used to it and then you'll be able to use multitasking when you need it.

Comments: 2 Responses to “Multitasking On the iPad With iPadOS 15”

Robert H Aucoin

3 years ago

I noticed in your Home Screen on the iPad had in the lower right-hand corner a widget as part of the contents of that bar. That happened to me automatically when I opening a widget from the apps screen. However, I cannot get rid of the widget in the bar at the bottom. How do I get rid of it?

Gary Rosenzweig

Robert: Not sure what you mean. I'm not showing widgets here. Do you mean the App Library icon in the Dock? That's at the bottom right (ish). There's a setting in Settings, Home Screen & Dock, for "Show App Library in Dock" if you really want to get rid of it. Very handy though.

Comments Closed.

Multitasking On the iPad With iPadOS 15

Comments: 2 Responses to “Multitasking On the iPad With iPadOS 15”

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