iPadOS

 

The Shelf is a new part of the multitasking experience on iPadOS 15 and it lets you quickly jump between different windows of an App you’ve got open.

Here’s how it works.

Okay you can see here that I’m in Keynote and I’ve got one of my #QuickLessons files open.

However I’ve actually got a few different files open in Keynote, and if I swipe up from the bottom to bring the old multitasking view up you’ll see that I’ve got Keynote open four or five times.

Now I can just jump between them here if I wanted to, but there’s a new slightly quicker way on iPadOS 15.

I’ll jump back into my original Keynote document a second and what I’m going to do is I’m going to press the new three dot button on the top toolbar.

That will then give me the option to resize the Keynote window, but also at the very bottom of my screen I now get what’s called the Shelf.

Now this will only appear if you’ve got multiple versions of the same App open at once, but for me with Keynote I’ve got five or six versions open and at the bottom you can see them all there.

I can tap and it will instantly jump between them without having to go in and out of the multitasking view each time.

When I’ve chosen the document I want to work on I can tap on it and then I can start working immediately.

There’s another way to bring the Shelf up as well, and that is by swiping up the toolbar at the bottom to bring the Dock, and then tapping on the App Icon you’re using.

For me if I tap on Keynote this will bring up the Shelf again and it will show me those windows just as before – but as well as jumping between them we can drag and drop those windows to create Split Screen views as easily as this.

I can even drag a new window on top of on the other half of the screen to change what’s in that Split View at the bottom.

On the Shelf there’s a New Window option on the right hand side and if I tap on there I can open up another Keynote document and again it will add it to the Shelf automatically.

And I can jump between it just like before.

But you may also notice on the Shelf that we’ve now got that new Split Screen view that I just created.

Tap onto here and that will take you right back to where you left it.

Finally if I decide I didn’t want that Split Screen view anymore all I need to do is drag that middle divider to one side and that will then split apart those two Keynote windows – and just like that they’re now back in the Shelf as separate apps.

This is a really quick way to navigate between different documents in the same App and as iOS 15 rolls out hopefully more and more apps will support this.

For now it’s limited mainly to theApple built-in apps.

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And while you’re here there are a couple more videos on the screen now that you might like about iOS and iPadOS 15.

 

A year after its launch on iPhone, the App Library is now on iPadOS.

Here’s a quick guide to how it works.

As you can see, this is what the App Library looks like on the iPad.

If I tap on an empty space to go back to my Home Screen you’ll also see a new button on the right hand side of the Dock.

Tapping on here brings up the App Library at any time.

However, just like on the iPhone, you can also swipe your Home Screens all the way to the right hand side and the very far right page will bring up that App Library for you as well.

For those unfamiliar with how App Library works, all of the Apps on the iPad are grouped automatically into categories such as Entertainment or Education or Productivity.

Some of the App Icons are full size and if you tap on them that will open the App straight away for you.

But other App Icons down in the bottom right hand corner of each folder are slightly smaller.

For example if I look at the Education category and then tap the four small Apps in the bottom corner I’ll get all of the Apps in the Education section.

Then I can tap onto one like Swift Playgrounds and it’ll open it normally for me.

The great thing about this is that it means you can free up a lot of space on your Home Screen and you haven’t got to have every single icon visible all the time.

Tap and hold on any App to enter Jiggle Mode and then at the bottom where you’ve got the little dots indicating the number of pages – tap onto there.

You now get this brand new screen where you can view and adjust your pages of your Home Screen really, really quickly.

At the moment you can see clearly I’ve got four pages of Apps on my Home Screen but if I untick the bottom two pages and then come out of Jiggle Mode, I’ve now only got two pages of Apps visible.

I’ve basically hidden those other two pages.

They’re still there and if I go back into Jiggle Mode I could re-enable them if I wanted to, or I could press Delete in the top left corner.

Don’t panic! We’re not actually going to delete all of those Apps from the iPad – instead we’re going to remove that page and then all of those Apps will still be accessible in the App Library.

When I come out of Jiggle Mode I’ve still got the two pages I’ve chosen to keep, but if I go into my App Library I can pull up any of those Apps really quickly and really easily.

My last piece of advice about using the App Library to tidy up your Home Screen is that you can do this on individual Apps.

You haven’t got to get rid of a whole page in one go, so choose an App you want to get rid of and tap and hold it and then press the Delete button in the top.

Now you’ve got a new option.

You can Delete the App (which will uninstall it and remove it completely) or you can remove it from your Home Screen.

This will delete the icon but keep it in the App Library.

And that’s it, you can now organise your Apps like you’ve never been able to before on the iPad and in my opinion it makes it so much more efficient to use.

You’re not scrolling through eight pages of Apps to find the one you want – you can jump straight into App Library and navigate to just a few taps.

If you’d like please do Subscribe to my Channel down below.

That will really help me grow and share my videos with more people. And while you’re here there are a couple more videos on the screen now that you might like about iOS and iPadOS 15.