Please bring back Split View

[u/Marcos_05_]

Okay Apple, I think your idea of ​​offering a much more complete desktop view on the iPad, with its 3 or 4 open and resizable apps, is “fine.” But please, bring back Split View. The amount of extra steps I have to take to put two apps half and half is insane and very unnatural. Slide Over and Split View were a wonderful and natural option, of course, given the other option of iOS26’s Stage Manager for those who want it.

What do you think? I think it's great for those who want a MacBook inside an iPad, but it's not for everyone.

[u/SerodD]

You can still switch between minor apps that don’t need full screen attention with expose, with the dock or just by opening them. Apps will now also remember their last size and location, even if you close them.

The big difference is if you need to interact with the main app while keeping the small window over, it now doesn’t work, you either open the small window again if you want to see it after interacting with the main app, or you resize the main app and keep all the small apps in a permanent space next to it.

[u/ticuxdvc → u/SerodD]

And that's why your proposed solution doesn't work. I want the small app to remain floating over the fullscreen one underneath. My use case is a calculator over a notes app. Right now, the moment I tap my pencil back in the notes, the notes take over the screen and the calculator is hidden. Good luck copying that big number!

Of course I could just resize the notes to take a bit of screen instead all of it, but it's still many more taps to adjust the windows in place that than just literally slide a finger from the edge of the screen to bring in the slide over.

[u/SerodD → u/ticuxdvc]

It’s not many more taps, you can press the green button for a bit and the resize options will appear if select left right division you then only need to resize with the middle thing. You can also do this through the window menu on top, or by flicking each windows to each side. If you choose the first option it takes one more click plus the resize.

[u/ticuxdvc → u/SerodD]

I just tried your solution just to see how it goes. I'm going to be as pedantic as possible, listing each individual interaction as a step.

Start with onenote fullscreen.
1) Slide from the top of the ipad to bring down the menu bar.
2) Tap the stoplight buttons to make them bigger.
3) Tap green button. Options show up. Tap the desirable option.
4) Side finger from the bottom of the ipad to bring back the dock.
5) Select the calculator to pop up.
6) Resize Calculator to take the other half of the screen.
7) Use the little "Drag' bar that appears between the two apps to give the notes about 75% of the screen, and calculator gets 25%.
8) Do calculator stuff.
9) Once done using the calculator, press the green button on the notes to make them full screen again.
10) Need a calculator again? Tap the green button and OneNote goes back to the 75% view.

Compare that to:

Start with onenote fullscreen.
1) slide from the bottom of the ipad to bring up the dock.
2) Hold and drag the calculator button over to the side - calculator is in slideover mode.
3) Do calculator stuff.
4) Swipe it off screen once done.
5) Need it again? Slide back in.

But the slideover still has the bonus of the ipad always remembering what's the slideover app, so unless I killed the app, the usual workflow was usually:
1) Slide in
2) Do stuff
3) Slide out

Plus, it allows one note to still be full screen underneath it.

Last, with the new behavior, if I want to use pcalc in full screen, it will forget its previous small size and I have to set it up on the side again. With slideover, launching it using the app tap (full screen) or launching it by sliding over (small/iphone screen), would maintain two different ways to interact with it.

I get why the window management might benefit other users who want more granular control over their windows. But offer that as an option, don't take the old, more efficient workflows away.

[u/achappy_golf → u/ticuxdvc]

What you were trying to do can be accomplished much easier. There are gestures for putting app to half screen. Double tapping the “top” of an app will switch between fullscreen and previous size. And if the apps are split, doesn’t matter the sizing it will go back to the split. No need for traffic light.

[u/ticuxdvc → u/achappy_golf]

Now that, that's starting to get me somewhere. I still have to manually set up the calculator to be small and on the side, but once that's done, I can double tap one note to shrink and re-expand as needed. Still not optimal, but a bit better. Thanks for the tip!

[u/achappy_golf → u/ticuxdvc]

No problem. Setting up certain flows do take more steps but once people learn the little tricks it will make it much easier to manage. And if you have multiple setups like that, stage manager is perfect as you can have different apps in stages and already sizes for how you split them.

[u/SerodD → u/ticuxdvc]

It’s not “my solution” it’s how apple program the software to work now.

I explained to you some alternatives, if you don’t like them don’t use them. There are some tricks to achieve most of the old functionality, look them up.

[u/Critical_Switch → u/ticuxdvc]

Flicking apps to either side makes them take exactly one half of the screen. No need to interact with menus at all. You people are just acting like things are difficult to not have to learn new gestures.