Apple this week unveiled its new iPhone lineup, including the first ever foldable iPhone – the iPhone Duo. While the Duo itself is a fantastic device, it does leave me wishing that Apple did better for the iPad.
Ever since the release of iPadOS 26 last year, I’ve missed the earlier days of iPad multitasking. Sure, windowing is cool – but I don’t want that all the time. With iPadOS 26, you’re either all in on windowing, or you can only use apps in full screen. Apple did re-introduce split screen and slideover in later versions, but the features still require you to utilize the windowing system.
With iPhone Duo, multitasking feels much more elegant. You can put an app into half of a splitscreen, whilst still seeing your full home screen to select another app. You can also save apps as a pair for swapping into later. iPhone Duo also offers something no iPad offers, the ability to splitscreen a video with an app. On iPad mini, which is very similarly sized to iPhone Duo, this could be excellent.
And yet, iPadOS 27 still takes an all or nothing approach to multitasking. Even on the iPad mini where windowing is far too convoluted.
I like the windowed multitasking just fine on my 13” iPad. I do use the Magic Keyboard but I don’t feel like that makes a huge difference.
iPhone Duo offers a vision for how nice multitasking could be on the iPad. I’m not saying we should take away windowing, but if Apple has already engineered a simpler multitasking system, why not bring it to the iPad. At its core, iPadOS is still iOS, and while not everything can automatically scale to the iPad, it shouldn’t be a massive undertaking.
Personally, I’m incredibly excited for the iPhone Duo. Apple nailed the software implementation in a manner that nobody was really thinking about, but in hindsight its such an obvious direction for the future of foldables. I just wish Apple didn’t make iPad multitasking borderline hostile towards those of us who aren’t using a Magic Keyboard.
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Michael is 9to5Mac’s Weekend Editor, keeping up with all of the latest Apple news on Saturday and Sunday. He got started in the world of Apple news during the pandemic, and it became a growing hobby. He’s also an indie iOS developer in his free time, and has published numerous apps over the years.
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