Reveal the Dock

The Dock is always visible on the Home screen, but is hidden when viewing an app. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to reveal it. In some apps, you must first swipe up to reveal an arrow , and then swipe up again to reveal the Dock.

Tapping an app in the Dock switches from the current app to the app you tap.

Adding and Removing Dock Apps

To add an app to the Dock, enter jiggle mode by touching and holding an empty spot on the Home screen, and then drag the app icon to the Dock—see Move Apps. Items added to the Dock are removed from the Home screen. You can also drag in apps from the App Library.

Removing an app from the Dock works the same way: drag the app out of the Dock. Note that you cannot do this in an app—you must be viewing the Home screen.

Flick Down for Special Characters

iPadOS makes typing alternative characters more efficient, by allowing you to “flick” down on a key to type an alternative character instead of having to cycle through keyboard layouts.

Look at each keyboard key. Tapping the key inserts the black character. Most keys also display a light gray character above the primary character. To type these, flick down on the key instead of merely tapping it. Think of it like flicking down a light switch.

If you flick slowly, you’ll notice the light gray character sliding down and becoming the key you’re typing (Figure 74).

Split the iPad Keyboard

The standard iPad keyboard is fine if you’re resting the iPad in your lap, but if you’re holding the iPad in your hands and typing with your thumbs, it can be impossible to reach the middle keys. Thankfully, iPadOS lets you split the onscreen keyboard so you can type with your thumbs:

• Touch and hold the Hide Keyboard key, and then tap Split (Figure 75).

  

• Or, touch and hold the Hide Keyboard key and immediately drag it up.

Either way, the keyboard splits and moves up to the middle of the screen.

To put the keyboard back together, either drag the Hide Keyboard key down, or touch and hold the Hide Keyboard key and tap Merge or Dock and Merge. Merge merely puts the keyboard back together while Dock and Merge puts it together and sets it back at the bottom of the screen.

Shrink the iPad Keyboard

In iPadOS, you can shrink the keyboard down to a floating keyboard roughly the size of an iPhone keyboard, which is ideal for one-handed typing (Figure 76). Also, the floating keyboard allows the use of QuickPath to type by swiping between keys—see Save Time Typing. You can even swipe between keys with an Apple Pencil.

There are two ways to shrink the keyboard:

• Pinch in with two fingers on the big keyboard. This doesn’t work on the split keyboard.

• Touch and hold the Hide Keyboard key, and then tap Floating.

You can move the floating keyboard to anywhere on the screen you want by dragging on the gray bar at the bottom of the keyboard. To expand the floating keyboard, pinch out on it with two fingers.

Access Multitasking Views

There are a three ways to access your iPad’s multitasking views: buttons, gestures, and the App Switcher.

Use Split View

When using two apps in Split View, there are two controls to pay attention to:

• Resize and close Split View panes: A black line divides the two panes. In the center is a gray bar that you can touch and drag to the left or right to adjust the size of the panes. You can drag the divider all the way to the left or right to make one pane full screen and close the other (Figure 79).

  

• Alter and rearrange Split View panes: Both panes display a Multitasking Controls icon at the top. Tap the button in either pane to make that pane full screen or turn it into a Slide Over window. You can touch, hold, and drag the button to swap the position of the panes, i.e., move the left pane to the right and vice versa. You can also touch, hold, and drag the button down and then move it over to turn it into a Slide Over window.

Use Slide Over

Slide Over shrinks an app down to a narrow window that floats over a fullscreen app, on either the right or left edge of the screen.

One reason you may want to use Slide Over rather than Split View is that you can have multiple Slide Over windows that persist between apps. For example, let’s say Mail is your main app and you open Notes in a Slide Over window. If you switch to Safari, you can pull that Slide Over window back on screen to refer to your note.

Again, there are a few controls to know:

• Move and alter Slide Over windows: To move a Slide Over window, touch, hold, and drag the Multitasking Controls icon. The Slide Over window attaches only to the right or left edge of the screen. If you drag the Slide Over window to the extreme left or right it turns into a Split View pane.

  Just as in the other views, tap the Multitasking Controls icon to see options to convert the Slide Over window into a Split View pane or full-screen app.

• Switch between Slide Over windows: You can open up multiple Slide Over windows, but you can view only one at a time. They stack up on top of each other, and to switch between them, swipe up from the bottom of the Slide Over window and release. If you have multiple Slide Over windows open, they spill across the screen. Tap one to switch to that Slide Over window.

• Dismiss and recall Slide Over windows: To get the Slide Over window off your screen, swipe it all the way to the left or right. If it’s on the right edge, touch, hold, and drag the Multitasking Controls icon and flick the window to the right. If the window is on the left, flick it to the left. An arrow briefly appears on the edge of the screen to indicate which edge is hiding the window. To recall the Slide Over window, swipe in from the outside edge from which it’s hidden. So, if you flicked it off to the right edge of the screen, swipe from outside the right edge of the screen to the left.

Manage Windows with the Shelf

iPad multitasking is messy. It’s easy to lose track of how many windows you have open and it’s hard to figure out how to close them or open new ones. Apple has introduced a feature called the Shelf, which shows thumbnails of all of an app’s open windows so you can easily close them or switch between them (Figure 80).

There are two ways to reveal the Shelf:

• Open or switch to an app with multiple open windows.

• Tap the Multitasking Controls icon when multiple windows are open.

While the Shelf is displayed:

• Tap a window to switch to it.

• Tap New Window to create a new window in that app.

• Swipe up on a window in the Shelf to close it (it can’t be the current window).

Initiate Stage Manager

Enable Stage Manager by tapping its button in Control Center. If Stage Manager is not visible in Control Center, enable it in Settings > Control Center.

What happens next depends on whether you’re currently viewing any apps. If you’re on the Home screen, nothing happens until you open an app. If one app is open, its converted to a Stage Manager window. If you’re viewing two apps in Split View, they’re both converted to Stage Manager windows in an app group.

You can touch and hold the Stage Manager button in Control Center to see options to show or hide the recent apps area and the Dock. The left checkbox enables and disables the sidebar and the bottom checkbox controls Dock visibility (Figure 83). You probably want to leave both on while you’re learning Stage Manager.

Understand Stage Manager Basics

Let’s talk through a scenario to help you understand how Stage Manager works. Let’s assume you trigger Stage Manager while on the Home screen.

With Stage Manager enabled, the next time you open an app, it appears in a new window and the Home screen disappears. You can move the window by touching, holding, and dragging the top-center of the window. You can also use a mouse, trackpad, or Apple Pencil.

To resize a Stage Manager window, drag the curved tick mark on the bottom corner of a window (Figure 84). You can see another example near the bottom of Figure 85.

Also note the Multitasking Controls icon at the top of the window. Every other function can be found by tapping it.

After you open a second app in Stage Manager, the first app is moved to the recent apps area on the left side of the screen. Every time you open a new app in Stage Manager, the current app is moved into that area (Figure 85).

Tip: Don’t forget that the last icon in the Dock is App Library, which lets you access all of your apps without returning to the Home screen.

The recent apps area can contain five apps or app groups at one time, and once you exceed a total of five apps (one open and four recent), the oldest app at the bottom is replaced with the next one up.

Think of it as a secondary Dock that only handles app groups. Tap a thumbnail to return it to the forefront and move the current app group to recent apps area.

Create App Groups

As I mentioned at the start of the chapter, an app group lets you have up to four windows on screen at one time. An app group is treated just like a single app in the recent apps area, so if you switch to another app or group, they are all minimized together into the list of recent apps, displayed as a collection of app icons, and if you tap that entry, all the app windows in the group are returned to the forefront.

There are a couple of ways to add an app to an app group:

• Tap the Multitasking Controls icon and then Add Another Window.

• Drag an app icon from the Dock onto the existing window.

Use Stage Manager with an External Monitor

If you connect your iPad to an external monitor—via USB-C or Thunderbolt—you can use your iPad much like a traditional desktop with Stage Manager (Figure 86).

Here are a few notes on using Stage Manager with a monitor:

• You must have a keyboard and pointing device connected.

• The iPad screen must remain awake. It doesn’t work in “clamshell mode.”

• Resizing windows works more like on a Mac. Instead of a black tick in the corner, place the pointer over either of the bottom corners and it turns into resizing arrows.

• The windows on the monitor are completely separate from those on the iPad, so you have twice as many total windows.

• You can drag apps and files between screens.

• To move a window to the other display, click the Multitasking Controls icon at the top of the window and choose Move to Display.

• Adjust the display arrangement in Settings > Display & Brightness > Arrangement. Drag the respective displays around to match their relative physical locations.

• Also in Settings > Display & Brightness > Arrangement, you can choose to mirror your iPad’s display to the monitor instead.