I didnt know you could do it with spotlight! My eyes have been opened.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPad iPadOS removes the seamless ability to drag-and-drop apps into split screen multitasking
- Thread starter symphony
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I didnt know you could do it with spotlight! My eyes have been opened.
This is crazy. I remember them demoing this feature when split screen first appeared years ago, and then when it launched that Fall I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I posted on forums (even here) and people said the feature had been dropped, but apparently i just never did it right?Hi Mabus51,
although the dock was certainly the most intuitive way to do it, you are incorrect: what you described, is how it works in 13. With 11 and 12, you could just drag an app from the home screen (say notes), open another one (say safari), release and...boom, you had a note and a safari window side by side. It was actually quite simple to do and much more functional than having a dock full of folders and an almost empty home screen (which basically defeats the purpose of having a home screen). It also used to work from spotlight, and that now doesn't work as well. What's funny is that this year at the keynote, apple even promoted new ways to launch apps into split screen.
The fact that they seem to have removed the ability to launch an app into splitview from spotlight search is honestly insane to me. It’s not like it conflicts with a new gesture or functionality they built in...they just removed it. Is it correct to say now that the ONLY way to initiate split view is if the to-be-opened app is in the dock?
iPad OS: Removing ways to multi-task for no apparent reason.
I haven't installed iPadOS yet, but I know multitasking view is still available in iOS 12. Dragging a third of the way up from the bottom of the screen takes you to it. If you continue dragging up you go to home screen (same as a quick swipe up).
I see no reason why that wouldn't continue to work in iOS 13 / iPadOS.
Uhm...Interesting. This doesn’t seem to work for me. When i press “done”, the icon position gets reset back to the starting point. (See video)
Shared Photos
share.icloud.com
yeah, somebody passed you a wrong information. I have been using it every day for two years. =)
Last edited:
You misunderstood what he wrote =) . he meant to say that, on iOS12, going to the home screen is easier and faster, compared to 11, making multitasking from the home screen even more convenient, than when originally introduced.
Last edited:
I’m on the 2018 12.9 Pro.
Every day’s a school day - I was not aware of this!
Put your "most frequently used Apps for multitasking" into the dock & get on with enjoying the remainder of our limited time left on Earth.
Ehm...yeah, not much choice but to do that, I guess.
Anyway, I am interested in hearing more about melancholy’s workaround. It does not seem to work on my system, but perhaps we have something configured differently?
Ahh, yeah on second reading I can see how the original post could be understood that way, too.
Are you referring to dragging and dropping apps from Spotlight?
If so, I can still drag-and-drop apps from Spotlight and drop them into split view on my 2018 iPad Pro on iOS 13.1.
Uhm...Interesting. This doesn’t seem to work for me. When i press “done”, the icon position gets reset back to the starting point. (See video)
Shared Photos
yeah, somebody passed you a wrong information. I have been using it every day for two years. =)
When you tap ‘done’ are you also letting go of the app you picked up?
I get the same outcome as yours if I let go of the app after pressing ‘done’.
You wanna pick up the app, tap ‘done’ while you’re still holding on the app (it’s a two-handed procedure), then you drag that app into another app you want to multitask with, then drop it as a split view.
Thanks for the message. I tried a few more times and got it working. It seems like the press that allows you to move the app icon around is a lot more touchy than before and that the spotlight search screen needs to be manually closed while you’re holding the app (instead of it disappearing when you grab the app like in iOS 12). I hope Apple refines this over time and makes it how it was or a little more consistent but this will work for now, thanks.
There also seems to be a bug that sometimes long pressing on an app icon in spotlight brings up the old 3D Touch interface but it’s small/all greyed out or doesn’t come up at all.
Hi melancholy. 🙂 Nope, I do it with two hands as well...time to reset my iPad and try with a clean system? I guess so!
Presumably this only works when initating spotlight search with the Smart Keyboard or has Apple now allowed users to drag & drop when search is initiated from notification centre/widgets using the swipe gesture?
Thanks
I just flicked through the thread so forgive me if I'm repeating what others have said. Multitasking from the home screen and Spotlight have an unwelcome extra step for each this year: -
Home Screen: Pick up an app by dragging it then hit home (or swipe up on the buttonless iPads) to exit "wiggle mode". Now, with the first icon still in hand, you can tap another to start it then drop the first on top of it.
Spotlight: Drag off an icon from the search results and hit Cancel with another finger. Now you can drop the icon as before.
Home Screen: Pick up an app by dragging it then hit home (or swipe up on the buttonless iPads) to exit "wiggle mode". Now, with the first icon still in hand, you can tap another to start it then drop the first on top of it.
Spotlight: Drag off an icon from the search results and hit Cancel with another finger. Now you can drop the icon as before.
you mean the Haptic Touch section? If so, I believe that such option is iPhone-specific.
Thanks for pointing out that a swipe up cancels wiggle mode (I hvave always only used the top-right button in the past). However, it doesn't work on my iPads. When i press the home button (iPad Air 2), or swype up (12.9, 2018 iPad Pro), icon position gets reset (yep, i'm holding them with my other hand, but as soon as i exit wiggle mode, they get back to their positions). Might be a bug on my side or yours, depending on apple's intentions here...but why removing such a useful feature, or making it so convoluted?
^oh damn i didn’t know that, but weirdly "3d and haptic touch" appears in search result but not in the setting itself. I also used the feature a lot... i dont know if it was intended i thought so since it was just natural... hopefully they make it so dragging wont trigger rearrange apps in the next update. Seems like an oversight. from the design would think you need to click ‘rearrange apps‘ to do it...
edit: so I tried swiping up, it just brought me to opened apps screen and opened the app where my finger holding the first icon hovered in just 1s. i had to bring up the homescreen again to pick the correct destination app to split screen, really cumbersome... I also think apple is really unhelpful in helping the users use their ipads more efficiently, we don’t know if dragging from homescreen was intended or not. People either discovered it by accident or watched others do it. If it’s not intended, well that sucks because apple made it sound like ios is intuitive and dragging from homescreen was great bc it was intuitive and supposed to work even if apple didnt tell you how
edit: so I tried swiping up, it just brought me to opened apps screen and opened the app where my finger holding the first icon hovered in just 1s. i had to bring up the homescreen again to pick the correct destination app to split screen, really cumbersome... I also think apple is really unhelpful in helping the users use their ipads more efficiently, we don’t know if dragging from homescreen was intended or not. People either discovered it by accident or watched others do it. If it’s not intended, well that sucks because apple made it sound like ios is intuitive and dragging from homescreen was great bc it was intuitive and supposed to work even if apple didnt tell you how
Last edited:
I agree! It was part of the new “drag things everywhere” post iOS11 policy (that has been expanded in 13, btw) and it just made sense...
Very weird. Works as described using home button on my side and gwhizkids confirmed it working on his buttonless iPad. No idea what's going on there but hope you get it sorted out.
w
First thing, i’ll try to reset my iPad Air 2. I did all the beta cycle, so some setting might be messed up. Will let you know how it goes on a fresh 13.1 system 🙂
Really hope Apple fixes this. Especially spotlight with a keyboard which was the fastest way to find an app and just drag it to the side. Really annoying change
