Slide Over’s Return Receives A Hero’s Welcome
Jason Snell at Six Colors wrote this week about a big addition coming to iPadOS 26.1, now in beta: Slide Over. Indeed, one of the tentpole features of the OG multitasking system introduced in iOS 9, Slide Over is soon returning to iPadOS. The functionality was removed in iPadOS 26.0, a decision longtime iPad-loving friends of mine such as Harry McCracken at Fast Company lamented. Maybe it’d return someday, he wished.
Return it shall, according to Snell.
“In iPadOS 26.1 beta 2, Slide Over is now an explicit part of the new multi-window multitasking view,” he reported on Monday. “To enable it, open a window and resize it so that the three ‘stoplight’ buttons appear, tap and hold on the green one, and choose Add to Slide Over. Or choose Move to Left (or Right) Slide Over from the Window menu. Or type option-globe, left or right. All of those will work.”
He continued: “When Slide Over is invoked, the current window will be resized and stuck in the corner. You can grab the top of it and slide it off-screen, and it’ll vanish—only to reappear when you swipe your finger from off the side of the screen back on. You can stick the window on either side, and it’ll hang out there, regardless of whether you’re using full-screen windows or have a bunch of windows. You can even resize the Slide Over window when it’s on screen, and it’ll stay that size—unlike the old implementation.”
Notably, Snell writes Slide Over works only in multi-window mode. Nonetheless, he’s absolutely right when he adds it’s possible to use fullscreen apps in the new windowed mode. “Nobody’s going to force you to make those windows smaller,” Snell said.
Reading Snell’s story got me pondering my own iPad usage. Just over a year ago, I was gifted a 13” M4 iPad Pro (with 1TB storage and cellular) for my birthday. Apropos of the new multitasking capabilities in iPadOS 26, the biggie iPad is ideally suited as a laptop replacement for travel. I’m no longer as bullish on iPadOS-as-productivity as I once was, mainly because I’ve come to prefer macOS for work nowadays. To be clear, this is not so much a philosophical difference—indeed, iPadOS 26 is terrific if grossly overdue and I maintain the iPad is the most accessible computer Apple’s ever created—as it is my personal preference changing over time. Thus, the iPad has been relegated to content consumption duty on the couch. Like my iPhone Pro Max fatigue, the 13” iPad Pro, however thin and light and sporting a gorgeous OLED screen—I’ve discovered the biggie tablet is considerably not conducive to lounging. With the exception of watching movies and TV shows, the 13” model is awkward to hold for extended periods—a sentiment beautifully illustrated when rotating from portrait to landscape orientation.
Given this shift in mentality, I’m excited to hear the M5-powered iPad Pros are purportedly on the way. Presuming the rumors become reality, I’d love to downsize to the 11” iPad Pro so as to better suit my tablet usage. While I’m not ashamed to admit my lack of iPad productivity (I do have the Magic Keyboard as well) is partially due to coping with perpetually living in the throes of severe anxiety and depression—i.e., I don’t touch grass as often as I should—I nonetheless have noticed my penchant for using the iPad as a passive device for relaxation, particularly at nighttime. The truth of the matter is, for this case, the 13” Pro is annoyingly unwieldy all things considered. The 11” iPad Pro gets all the goodness of iPadOS 26—the reimagined multitasking system and everything else—including the much-ballyhooed return of the dearly beloved Slide Over feature.
See also: Don’t miss Federico Viticci’s take for MacStories on Slide Over’s resurrection.
