Interview with Apple execs Bob Borchers and Sebastien Marineau-Mes about changes to multitasking in iPadOS 15, SharePlay, Universal Control, Quick Note, more
for the whole OS! Federico Viticci / @viticci : So, uhm, the Shelf in iPadOS 15 is just a tray of open windows for the current app. It's not the “Shelf” we always imagined to drop stuff like a clipboard manager. But they still called it a Shelf. #WWDC21 https://twitter.com/... Benjamin Mayo / @bzamayo : Best iPad multitasking improvement right here https://twitter.com/... Steve Troughton-Smith / @stroughtonsmith : A few years ago we were begging for scraps, like basic keyboard events. Now, iPadOS goes incredibly deep on keyboard, mouse and game controller, after a decade of basically ignoring these things. Whatever it was that breached the dam, it's very much appreciated @ijustine : I think I'm going to learn to code on my iPad. I wonder if I remember anything from my coding days AN ETERNITY AGO. I also started our podcast on an iPad so I don't make empty threats. Steve Troughton-Smith / @stroughtonsmith : I think the level of app complexity enabled on iPad now would shock you, if Apple were to produce versions of Final Cut or Logic, or even Xcode, to showcase it. Very much a platform on the cusp of something great, in a way it hasn't been up to now Francisco Tolmasky / @tolmasky : I sometimes kid that growing up is begrudgingly admitting over the years that your mother was right about more and more things. It kind of feels like the iPad matures in the same way: all those silly outdated “Desktop affordances” seem to have a habit of finding their way back in Steve Troughton-Smith / @stroughtonsmith : Oh wow, the keyboard focus debugger for iPadOS 15 is killer. I love it https://twitter.com/... Francisco Tolmasky / @tolmasky : So in some sense, this tweet is correct. We now have all the pieces to awkwardly shove a Desktop Final Cut Pro clone onto the iPad. Same processor, same peripherals, even a menubar. Too bad in the process we gave up the opportunity to find anything that would make it special. https://twitter.com/... Francisco Tolmasky / @tolmasky : Which is an increasingly bizarre stance when you consider that the history of the iPad is kind of just repeated concessions to the Desktop way of doing things. E.g. after 9 years of hinting at a revolution... they just added mouse support & sold us a laptop conversion kit for $349 https://twitter.com/... @tailosivetech : I'm gonna miss this layout of iPadOS 14... the new home screen on 15 feels so much worse https://twitter.com/... @stevenpotato : New #Safari tab design on #iPadOS15 (9.7-inch, 50-50 Split View) is completely unusable. https://twitter.com/... Quinn Nelson / @snazzyq : The best part about iPadOS 15 is that there's a home screen weather widget now, but when you tap it it still opens https://weather.com/ because there is no native weather app. @raywongy : Apple Pencil is great. But I don't know a single person who makes these kind of handwritten doodle graphic documents on iPad. Who are these people?!? Where are these people? Do they exist? Who are they making them for? Are there teachers who accept these documents? https://twitter.com/... @om : Both iPadOS & MacOS Monterey are Apple's most stable beta OS releases I have ever downloaded. 24 hours later, I feel like they have always been on the iPad Pro 12.9 & M1-based MB13 Pro. So many subtle (but important) tweaks. It will make it worth upgrading in Fall 2021. #WWDC21 Dieter Bohn / @backlon : Also heartened that Apple rejects the Laws Of Thought, esp the law of non-contradiction as defined by Aristotle: “one cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time.” Glad to see this usually uptight company embrace postmodernism Dieter Bohn / @backlon : 1. Congratulations to the iPad for being the only computer that can be used outside. 2. Congratulations for trolling me, personally, with the tagline “Your next computer is not a computer.” Good ad. https://www.youtube.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Reporting ahead of WWDC pointed to better iPad multitasking and widget placement; Apple then formalized that direction with larger widgets, App Library, and improved multitasking. The executive interview explains the design intent behind a broader iPadOS 15 workflow update rather than a single isolated feature.
The subsequent public-beta coverage put multitasking, SharePlay, and the revised Safari interface into hands-on testing. Years later, Apple was still discussing the limits of Stage Manager’s interface, underscoring how persistent the iPad multitasking problem has been.
First-order effects
- iPad users receive a more explicit set of tools for managing active app windows, organizing the Home Screen, and capturing information with Quick Note.
- Apple makes iPadOS 15’s productivity pitch span device interaction and collaboration: Universal Control extends work across Apple devices, while SharePlay brings shared activity into the operating system.
Second-order effects
- Apple’s iPad software proposition becomes more dependent on coherent workflows across iPad, Mac, and Apple services, rather than on any one iPad feature alone.
- Public-beta testing becomes an early pressure point for Apple’s multitasking design, because the changes affect foundational navigation and app-switching behavior across the iPad.
Third-order effects
- The coverage points to Apple treating iPad multitasking as an iterative interface problem: each release can add capability, but the interaction model must remain understandable on a touch-first device.
- If that pattern holds, differentiation between iPadOS and macOS will rest less on feature parity and more on how Apple adapts multiwindow work to distinct hardware and input methods.
The trend: Apple is steadily turning iPadOS into a broader work surface by layering collaboration, cross-device control, and more capable window management onto a touch-first interface.