iOS8 to add split screen multitasking to iPad?

Word on the street is that Apple are planning to add the ability to run two apps side-by-side to iOS8 for iPad – for the first time enabling possible direct interaction between apps.

According to the usually reliable 9to5Mac the plan is to match the functionality offered by Windows tablets to “snap” apps to either side of the screen – so you can run two at once.

For example, you could conceivably watch a video and make notes on it simultaneously – or be on a Skype call whilst browsing your tweets. There’s even talk of being able to drag compatible data directly between apps – so you could edit a photo in Photoshop Express, and then drag and drop it into Microsoft Word for iPad, straight into the document that you’re editing.

This has been a long sought-after feature – so much so that fans have produced ultra-realistic mock-ups of how it could work – like this here:

And coincidentally this week a few app for hacked “jailbreak” iPads has been released. OS Experience, which is available on the Cydia store, treats each app like a Window on a desktop operating system – allowing apps to be dragged around, positioned and scaled however you want. Perhaps Apple could build something like this?

Either way, we expect we’ll hear more on this at next month’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), when they should be lifting the lid on what iOS8 has in store.