Report: Apple will take another crack at iPad multitasking in iPadOS 19

It would be Apple's first overhaul of iPad multitasking since 2022's iPadOS 16.

Apple is taking another crack at iPad multitasking, according to a report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. This year's iPadOS 19 release, due to be unveiled at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9, will apparently include an "overhaul that will make the tablet's software more like macOS."

The report is light on details about what's actually changing, aside from a broad "focus on productivity, multitasking, and app window management." But Apple will apparently continue to stop short of allowing users of newer iPads to run macOS on their tablets, despite the fact that modern iPad Airs and Pros use the same processors as Macs.

If this is giving you déjà vu, you're probably thinking about iPadOS 16, the last time Apple tried making significant upgrades to the iPad's multitasking model. Gurman's reporting at the time even used similar language, saying that iPads running the new software would work "more like a laptop and less like a phone."

The result of those efforts was Stage Manager. It had steep hardware requirements and launched in pretty rough shape, even though Apple delayed the release of the update by a month to keep polishing it. Stage Manager did allow for more flexible multitasking, and on newer models, it enabled true multi-monitor support for the first time. But early versions were buggy and frustrating in ways that still haven't fully been addressed by subsequent updates (MacStories' Federico Viticci keeps the Internet's most comprehensive record of the issues with the software.)

Stage Manager was Apple's first crack at a full overhaul for the iPad's app multitasking; the original implementation dated back to iOS 9, the first release to allow a pair of iPad apps to run side by side on the screen at the same time. Apple gradually improved this multitasking mode in subsequent releases, and it's still the way multitasking works on older iPads and the $349 11th-generation iPad.

But features like Split View and Slide Over were designed for iPads with weaker processors and as little as 2GB of RAM; by the time the iPads began shipping with the same M-series processors that Apple used for the Macs, it was clear that the hardware was capable of more.

A hallmark of our iPad Pro reviews, from the original in 2015 all the way up through last year's M4 models, is that iPadOS and its apps aren't making the best possible use of the hardware, especially for the prices Apple charges. The new software update could fix that, making the iPad Pro and Air feel more like the laptop replacements they're clearly capable of being. It could also feel like another half-measure. Either way, we'll know more in just a few weeks.

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