It has been long-rumoured, but Apple has finally confirmed that the latest version of iOS will bring multitasking to the iPad at its WWDC keynote earlier this morning.
There will be three ways to run multiple apps on the iPad – Split View, Slide Over and Picture in Picture. The names pretty much describe what they are. Slide Over lets you slide one app on top of another. Split View is identical to its counterpart on the Mac – letting you run two apps side-by-side, and resize each window. Picture in Picture lets you run a video on the screen, and drag the screen around the screen so you can do a task while watching something.
With the exception of Split View, all the new multitasking features will be supported on the iPad Air, iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 2 and iPad Mini 3. Split View will only be supported on the iPad Air 2.
Apple has also redesigned the app switcher, with the major change being that the app carousel preview window is larger. The new app switcher will be available on both iPads and iPhones when the new iOS 9 update comes out in the Spring.