I bought an iPad Pro 12.9” for university and it’s been an amazing tool. There is one issue that gives me no end of annoyance. The fact that changing slide over apps is so slow and limited to apps in the dock. I often want to open apps in Slide Over that I haven’t opened in a while.

For example, in Chemistry I often need to have the teachers Power Point on one half of my screen and empty note on the right. Throughout class I need to use other apps like PC Calc and Periodic Table. I’d like to use both as slide over apps but it’s faster to keep only 1 as a slide over and just switch to the other. This is OK but it could be better.

I propose 2 simple changes and 1 more drastic change that I think would greatly improve Slide Over.

Solution 1 — Slide Over has it’s own app switcher on the bottom

Note: The bar across the bottom of PCCalc

This way you could easily swipe between recent Slide Over apps.

This is probably my least favourite solution.

Solution 2 — Slide Over Has It’s Own Mini Dock

I like this solution because it allows you to easily switch back and forth between specific apps quickly. I only have 2 apps for this example but I envision it as having up to 4.

Solution 3 — A Slide Over Widget Pane

These widget panes could be set up for different situations with different sizes depending on the widget. This one could be my ‘Chemistry’ Slide Over Scene but you could have others that you could switch between.

To take this idea even further apps could make widgets for Slide Over. So the ‘Scratchpad’ under the periodic table could be from Notability (The app in the background). When I close this screen there would be an easy way to add what I wrote on the scratchpad to my current note.

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Thanks for reading.