Popular iPad Multitasking Feature Makes Comeback in iPadOS 26.1

Apple has reintroduced a popular multitasking feature in the public release of iPadOS 26.1, which was rolled out to compatible iPads on Monday.

Slide Over, which allows users to quickly access a floating app window on top of their main workspace, is back after being removed in the initial iPadOS 26 release. The feature now works alongside the new window-based multitasking system introduced in iPadOS 26, letting users maintain multiple open windows while still being able to swipe in a Slide Over app for quick reference.

Users who have updated to iPadOS 26.1 can activate Slide Over by long pressing the window resizing icon that looks like traffic lights (revealed in fullscreen mode with a finger drag from the top of the screen) and selecting "Enter Slide Over" from the popover menu.

The change should come as welcome news for iPad users who relied on Slide Over for quick multitasking. There's a catch, though – iPadOS 26.1 currently limits users to just one Slide Over app at a time. That's a departure from previous versions of Slide Over that allowed cycling through multiple apps.