One of the biggest benefits of working on a desktop or laptop computer is the ability to run multiple applications at once and switch between them with ease. For a long time, iOS devices lacked this type of feature, meaning you were limited to working within a single app at any given time. As the iOS software evolved, Apple somewhat addressed this problem with what they called quick app switching. Essentially, double-clicking the Home button brought up a tiny bar which showed you all the apps that you’d recently been using. It was nice, but it wasn’t true multitasking, as whenever the operating system needed to free up some memory some of those previously used apps would be booted out of the memory, meaning that even if you switched back to them they’d have to launch from the beginning over again rather than bringing you right back to where you were working. What’s more, even though switching between apps became much easier, you still couldn’t truly use multiple apps at the same time. Well, with iOS 9 that all changes. Apple has finally introduced true multitasking support for both iPad and iPhone devices.

The demo of multitasking was impressive. There’s a new app switcher that looks very similar to the one used in OS X on the Mac, and it also makes use of multitouch gestures. You’ll be able switch from one app and into another and switch right back again, and if you want, you can even pull both apps together into one window to be used at the same time, which Apple is calling SplitView. You can even minimize a window down into the corner to, for example, watch a video as it plays while you continue to work inside the app you’re currently in. The only downside to multitasking is it won’t be available on all devices. SplitView in particular will only be available on the iPad Air 2. It’s disappointing so many devices won’t be able to handle the new multitasking functionality, but this is definitely a step in the right direction and will be a huge benefit for all iOS devices to come.