Multitask with ease on iPad

Multitasking has had a massive power-up in the latest iPadOS

- CARRIE MARSHALL

THE MULTITASKING IN iPadOS 26 is vastly improved, and unlike iPadOS 18’s Stage Manager, it’s available to everybody whose iPad can run iPadOS 26 — and that means it’s available on some iPads that are powered by A-series processors.

The first big change will appear when you update your iPad: you’ll be asked if you want to enable multitasking, or if you’d rather have apps run in full-screen mode only. Instead of the previous options, which gave you full screen, Split Mode and Slide Over, there’s now a choice: multitasking, yes or no?

If you enable multitasking, your apps will open full screen, as they’ve always done. But now, instead of the three little gray dots at the top of the app's window for your multitasking options, things are much more Mac-like: you have the traffic light-colored circles at the top left of the window to hide and resize; you can move the app around the screen by tapping and dragging the top of the window; and manually resize a window by tapping and dragging a corner.

BEHIND THE SCENES