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Check Out iPadOS 15's New Multitasking Features

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iPadOS 15 includes most of the new changes that were introduced in iOS 15, but there are also some iPad-specific features designed specifically for Apple's larger-screened iOS devices. One of these new features is an update to multitasking, which we've highlighted in our latest YouTube video.


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.

There are multiple keyboard shortcuts that are available for multitasking to make it easier to swap between windows without your fingers having to leave the keys. Many of the shortcuts use the Globe key on an attached keyboard.

These new multitasking features will take some time to get used to, but overall this seems to make multitasking more intuitive to use. Have you tried iPadOS 15? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Article Link: Check Out iPadOS 15's New Multitasking Features
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/06/09/ipados-15-multitasking/
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I don’t quite understand the pushback on this. The main issue with the iPadOS 14 way was the fact that there was next to zero visual indication of the multitasking functions. I have friends who had zero idea they could multitask on their iPads they used all the time.

The way I see it, this solves that issue?
 
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The problem is this isn't "new multitasking." All the issues and limitations of multitasking that have existed since iOS9 are still there.

This is certainly a UI improvement, and I like that there are more visual cues and less reliance on learning swipe-gestures. But this solves none of the reasons that people felt limited by multitasking on iPad.

Specifically, the maximum number of concurrent apps is still just two (three if you count the slide-over which has it's own usability challenges) and only in limited space configurations. But the bigger issue is there is no way to run a computationally or network intensive process in the background indefinitely. It is not true multitasking if important processes have to be kept in the foreground in order for them to complete.
 
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oneMadRssn said:
The problem is this isn't "new multitasking." All the issues and limitations of multitasking that have existed since iOS9 are still there.

This is certainly a UI improvement, and I like that there are more visual cues and less reliance on learning swipe-gestures. But this solves none of the reasons that people felt limited by multitasking on iPad.

Specifically, the maximum number of concurrent apps is still just two (three if you count the slide-over which has it's own usability challenges) and only in limited space configurations. But the bigger issue is there is no way to run a computationally or network intensive process in the background indefinitely. It is not true multitasking if important processes have to be kept in the foreground in order for them to complete.
Click to expand...
It's mostly optimizations of old features for sure, but it solves the issue of having to store all of the apps in the dock and not being able to merge two full screen apps into split view.
 
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szw-mapple fan said:
It's mostly optimizations of old features for sure, but it solves the issue of having to store all of the apps in the dock and not being able to merge two full screen apps into split view.
Click to expand...
Yea, that is an improvement but mostly an aesthetic issue. How I select the multitasked apps has always been a minor problem compared to what the multitasked apps can do. My issue is that iPadOS does not really allow multitasking in the sense that background processes can run to completion as needed. The visual aspects of it are sort of irrelevant.

Here are examples of multitasking issues that I am talking about:
- I have an app that can mass-edit the EXIF data on photos. It can do a few dozen in the blink of eye, but doing it to 1,000 or 10,000 photos all at once can take a long time - especially if the photos are on a network drive. But the OS doesn't let the app run in the background for very long. So if I want the app to run for 30 minutes straight, which is how long it might take for it to do what it does, I have to keep it in the foreground and the iPad awake.
- Similar to above, uploading a large amount of data to an FTP is a problem. The FTP app cannot run in the background for very long due to OS limitations, so eventually the OS sleeps the app and the transfer is stalled. I can't start the FTP transfer, send it to background, and mess around on Facebook while the FTP app does it's thing off-screen.
 
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Based on my viewing of the movies, I say it looks easy to use and will be useful to me. But ... I think I will wait until it is out of beta.
 
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