iPadOS 26.1 beta 2 restores Slide Over multitasking back to iPad

Apple released iPadOS 26.1 beta 2 to developers today, and it comes with a major returning feature: Slide Over multitasking is back on the iPad. Here’s how it works.

Revamp of Slide Over works alongside new windowing system, but with a key limitation

When iPadOS 26 launched, it introduced a brand new, more powerful windowing system for apps. As a result, it did away with the prior Split View and Slide Over multitasking options.

But some users, myself included, found the absence of Slide Over a type of feature regression.

Split View is easy enough to replicate with Apple’s new system, but there was previously no way to easily pull apps in and out of view like Slide Over offered.

Now, iPadOS 26.1 developer beta 2 has restored Slide Over multitasking to the iPad.

And it works alongside the new windowing system.

When viewing an app’s window resize controls (inside the green traffic light option in the top-left corner), Apple has added a new ‘Enter Slide Over’ option.

This button resizes the window to a typical Slide Over size, and lets you work inside any apps in the background without hiding the Slide Over app from view.

You can also, of course, swipe the app to the right to hide it out of view, pulling it back in when you need it. And you can now resize the Slide Over window to your liking, which is a new benefit.

There does appear to be one big feature missing though, at least in beta 2: you can currently only have a single Slide Over app at a time.

In iPadOS 18, Apple let you keep a whole stack of apps in Slide Over mode that you could easily switch between. That doesn’t appear to be possible in this new iteration.

Here’s hoping that changes in the beta process.

For anyone who’s been missing Slide Over in iPadOS 26, it seems Apple has at least a partial solution coming very soon.

Are you excited to get Slide Over back in iPadOS 26.1? Let us know in the comments.

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