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Apple Releases iPadOS 26.2 With Multitasking Improvements

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Apple today released iPadOS 26.2, the second major update to the iPadOS 26 operating system released in September. iPadOS 26.2 comes a month after iPadOS 26.1.

ipados-26-1-slide-over.jpg

The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPads over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software Update.

iPadOS 26.2 continues with the multitasking improvements that were added with iPadOS 26.1. You can now drag and drop apps from the Dock, Spotlight Search, or the App Library to different multitasking views, including Slide Over.

Apps can be dragged to the far left or far right to enter Slide Over mode, or to the left or right to enter a tiled view. There's also an option to drag an app to the middle to open up a larger or smaller window, with visual indicators to make it simple. It's an easier way to manipulate apps than the prior controls accessible through the window buttons. Apple's release notes for the update are below.
Multitasking
- Multitasking gestures to quickly tile windows or place an app in Slide Over by dragging app icons from the Dock

Apple Music
- Favorite Songs playlist appears in Top Picks on the home tab
- Offline lyrics for downloaded songs so you can view them without an internet connection

Podcasts
- Automatically generated chapters make it easier to navigate episodes
- Links to mentioned podcasts let you see and follow other podcasts mentioned in the episode you’re listening to directly from the player and transcript

Games
- Filters in the Games library let you find games by category, size, and more
- In-game challenge score banners provide real-time updates when someone new has taken the lead
- Improved support for connected controllers such as Backbone and Razer

This update also includes the following enhancements and bug fixes:
- Additional Lock Screen time customization option lets you further adjust its appearance, giving the Liquid Glass material more or less opacity
- Alarms for Reminders help you stay on top of urgent tasks, and provide snooze and Live Activity support if you’re not ready to check the reminder off
- AirDrop codes offer an additional layer of verification when using AirDrop with unknown contacts by providing a code on the receiver’s device that the sender must enter to complete the transfer
- Apple News Section links in the sidebar of the News app offer easy navigation to popular topics like Sports, Politics, Business, and Food
- Multipack accessory pairing in the Home app lets you use the same setup code to easily enroll multiple accessories when sold together
- Flash for alerts in Accessibility Settings offers the additional option to have the device screen flash when you receive a notification
- Tables in Freeform can hold text, images, documents, and drawings, with cells that intelligently resize to fit, bringing structure to the infinite canvas
- Fixes an issue where pre-release albums in the Apple Music library were not immediately playable at their release time
- Fixes an issue where a Privacy and Security setting may incorrectly be marked as managed by an enterprise organization.
Click to expand...

More info on iPadOS 26 is available in our roundup.

Article Link: Apple Releases iPadOS 26.2 With Multitasking Improvements
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/12/12/apple-releases-ipados-26-2/
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I’ve been enjoying the visual changes in iPad OS 26 for the most part, but what the h—- is this new animation in 26.2 when exiting the App Library? Who thought that was a good idea?

Edit: see my subsequent post #8.
 
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This is what is in Settings>Accessibility & under Settings>General>Trackpad (I’m not using a mouse):
 

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So in playing around with the funky App Library animation I referenced a couple of posts ago, it appears to be a bug associated with not having the App Library folder in the Dock. If you have the App Library icon in the Dock, when you exit the Library it minimizes to the icon in the Dock. What I was seeing without the Icon being present in the Dock was the same closing animation, except instead of going to the Dock it went to a random spot on the TOP of the HomeScreen, paused there briefly, and then slid off the top of the screen. Annoying and weird.
 
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jonnyb098 said:
What are you referring to?
Click to expand...
If you don’t have the App Library icon in the dock, when you swipe out of the App Library, all the App Library folders collapse into a heap in the top left corner that momentarily glitches over to the top right of the Home Screen.
 
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Shin-Ra said:
If you don’t have the App Library icon in the dock, when you swipe out of the App Library, all the App Library folders collapse into a heap in the top left corner that momentarily glitches over to the top right of the Home Screen.
Click to expand...
That's a little weird looking but I've honestly never noticed before, and I wonder if it isn't somehow by design. When you swipe into the App Library, the folder appear to enter and spread out from the top left corner. So when you swipe out they collapse and disappear into the top right corner. There is some logic to it. Someone must have thought it cute. I can't say that I like it, but I'm not going to obsess over it.
 
Might finally update now. I use Slideover and Split View all the time so I've been sticking to OS18.

Edit: I’ve updated and messed around a little, I’d say with these changes the multitasking workflow feels pretty close to iPadOS18. I’d still like to see a few things return from the previous multitasking experience:

- When 2 windows are open side by side, and you close one, the remaining window doesn’t resize itself into full screen. I could see conflicting opinions on this behavior but maybe a toggle could be introduced to automatically resize an app to full screen if it is the only app on screen.

- If you put an app into SlideOver and close it, it doesn’t reopen in SlideOver, it opens into the last window size you had before you put it into SlideOver. Remembering if an app was last in SlideOver and reopening it that way could also be a toggle, I could see this being reintroduced along with being able to swipe through multiple apps in SlideOver in a future update.
 
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Taq'aix said:
still no split screen??
Click to expand...
Not like the original no.

There is the Windowed Mode which attempts to mimic some of split screens functionality. But it feels like a competitor product trying to copy iPadOS.

For example, when you drop an app icon from the dock to one of the split windows, it doesn’t actually match the current split ratio. It will just default to 50% of the screen, ignoring whatever is running on the existing two split windows.

Previously you could also swap the left and the right window arrangement super easy. Now that’s not possible.

All that Apple had to do was have the original iPad behaviour as a view option called classic. And then have your windowed and stage manager modes, along with the new single full screen app view which is great for children.
 
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Just noticed this happening on my iPad 11 Pro M4. While in Settings, I press and hold in a black area where there are no buttons, etc., and the screen starts going berserk. Notice my finger does not move. Some of the times I do it, the control center pops down and goes through different panels pushing buttons on it's own.

EDIT: it does something similar if I push and hold on the home screen in an empty area.


 
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Taq'aix said:
still no split screen??
Click to expand...
Yeah, I cant believe how much I miss that. Maybe on the 13 inch versions the current windowing replacement is fine, but it eats massive amounts of precious real estate on the 11 inch ipads, and is awkward to use to boot. It’s like the worst of macos combined with the worst of ios
 
seek3r said:
Yeah, I cant believe how much I miss that. Maybe on the 13 inch versions the current windowing replacement is fine, but it eats massive amounts of precious real estate on the 11 inch ipads, and is awkward to use to boot. It’s like the worst of macos combined with the worst of ios
Click to expand...

Honestly even on the 13" it doesn't make sense. It really does feel like the worst of both worlds. All those demos showing 4 windows open at once are glazing over that they're unusuable at that size.

Touch Window Management is also clunky, Slideover in previous iOSes got it right that any Window in a Touch UI should be always on top and easy to hide & show.

At least they brought Slideover back but the main windowing system is kind of a pain to use.
 
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The more I play around with the the windowed mode of iPadOS 26 the more I wish I could go back to iPadOS 18 lol.

The iPad is not a MacBook. I found multitasking in 18 to be a good enough and it fit within the confines of the product. It was far more touch-friendly. I still find myself accidentally grabbing a fullscreen window in 26 when trying to pull down Notification Center. I thought the problem was maybe that I wasn't using it with a keyboard & mouse so I slapped it back into my Logitech keyboard case and I liked it less. The gestures on iPadOS haven't changed so even though the windowed mode is reminiscent of macOS it doesn't behave like macOS. It feels awkward even if you try to wipe Mac muscle memory from your mind.

This wouldn't be a problem if Apple hadn't removed the already functional multitasking they had in 18. Split-view is fine in 26 but I find it awkward still. Slide Over is a shadow of its former self.
 
All these “complaints” about window management in iPadOS 26 are so funny. Load of complaints when iPadOS 18 didn’t do enough and now I find complaints that it’s too much 😁

On a more serious note, working with iPadOS 26 and a Magic Keyboard is really nice and becomes more and more like a MacBook.
Working with touch, you just don’t want to use to much windows, perhaps two if you switch a lot between them.
 
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