7/29
iPadOS offers a suite of multitasking features that allow users to interact with two apps at once. Slideover allows an app to be used on top of another and is designed around situations where you need a second app for a short time. Split View allows apps to be put side by side, useful for when your workflow requires using two apps at once. Both work well enough in isolation, but the problem lies in how users engage these features.
When a user wants to utilize Slideover or Split View with a new app, they have to drag the desired app up from the dock. What if your app isn't in the dock? You can't multitask with it right now. Instead, you have to do one of two things. The first is the simplest: if it's an app you use often anyway, just add it to the dock. It'll be available any time you reveal the dock. The second is more practical but laborious as a solution for this problem: find and launch the app you want to multitask with and then return to the original app. Doing so will force the second app to show up in the recents section of the dock when you reveal it next.
Spotlight makes multitasking much easier. You can call up Spotlight globally, search for an app, and when you drag it out of the Spotlight interface, you can engage Slideover or Split View with it. It's great but it can only be used this way with a keyboard shortcut. This is clearly problematic if you want to speed up your multitasking usage without an external input device.
Users should be able to tap, hold, and then drag any open app onto another while in the multitasking view. Holding a dragged app over a stationary one should make it active again, returning it to full screen while the user is still dragging the first app. You'll find nearly the same behavior I'm suggesting if you drag an app off the dock on the multitasking view. Once the second app is returned to full screen, Slideover and Split View can be invoked as they are today. I’m confused iPad multitasking didn’t launch with this feature; it seems like a natural extension of existing iOS conventions. This doesn't solve the problem of needing any app at any time but it would offer a way to access many more recent apps than the dock can.
So, what can you do if you need that one app you downloaded two years ago in Slideover while you check your email? Adding a Spotlight search bar to the multitasking view—or hide it behind a swipe down like on the Home screen—could allow access to all apps on the device. Spotlight already supports dragging apps from its search results into Slideover or Split View configurations. Spotlight's existing behavior supports this, it's just not accessible everywhere that counts.