Every day we hear how the tablet business is not going well and shipments are decreasing for Apple and Samsung. Many expect the iPad Pro to be the saviour of the segment and breathe new life into the tablet market. And today we learn a bit more about Apple’s tablet plans.
Apple is working on two 12 inch iPads codenamed “J98” and “J99”, plus a few innovations related to slates, such as support for multi user logins and a dual app viewing mode. The info comes from sources briefed with the plans. The split screen applications for the iPad could even debut this June, during Apple’s WWDC event, while multi user login will come later on, probably in the fall.
The Cupertino company wanted to debut the side by side app support in iOS 8 on the iPad Air 2 last year. However, the feature wasn’t totally finalized and it was pulled from iOS 8. Now it has been postponed till iOS 9, with support for 1/2, 1/3 and 2/3 views, depending on the apps. When the screen is split, it can either display two different apps side by side or more views of the same app.
This allows you to work with multiple Safari tabs or Pages documents. The iPad J89 and J99 models are the larger WiFi and Cellular versions of the iPad Air 2, basically the iPad Pros. These devices will show the same iOS as the iPad Air and Mini, but with slight tweaks, especially for the Notification center and Siri. The slates are also rumored to get extra speakers and an extra port for a keyboard.
We’ll learn a bit more next month at WWDC.
