14 DAY TRIAL // Word has it that Apple will be bringing multitasking support in iOS 9, and while the company hasn’t yet confirmed such a feature of the next version of its iPhone and iPad operating system, several reports online are already detailing the way this new option would work.
As my colleague Alexandra Arici reported to you earlier today, Apple’s new multitasking support will allow iPad users to run two or more apps side by side, thus making it easier, for instance, to read an email while watching a video.
It’s not yet known if the same feature is designed for iPhones too (maybe iPhone 6 Plus, thanks to its bigger screen), but the iPad is very likely to get it, thus becoming a much more productive tablet.
First rolled out by Microsoft in 2012
To Microsoft users, this multitasking concept should really sound familiar, mostly because the company introduced it in 2012, when it officially rolled out Windows 8.
The new modern operating system, designed for PCs and tablets, allows users to run two or more Metro apps side by side, just as Apple plans to do in iOS 9. In Microsoft’s case, users are enabled to manually resize any of the apps running in multitasking mode, so they can continue working with a specific app without a big impact on productivity.
Specifically designed for tablets but also available on PCs, Microsoft’s multitasking feature for Windows 8 was created as the essence of the Surface tablet, a device whose purpose is to help users remain productive wherever they go.
With this new feature, Apple is going pretty much in the same direction, so expect this new feature to work in a way similar to how Microsoft’s multitasking option does in Windows 8, but there’s no doubt that the Cupertino-based firm would add its very own twist and probably bring some slightly different settings here and there to make it look original.
This feature was previously projected to launch in iOS 8, but according to people close to the matter, it wasn’t ready for this particular version and several refinements were still needed. So in iOS 9, Apple users would finally get side-by-side multitasking on the iPads, nearly three years after Windows.
