iOS 27 may finally bring this long-awaited feature
It's been long enough.
WWDC26 is just around the corner, and it is expected to bring major upgrades to iOS with iOS 27, along with OS 27 updates for iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. While iOS 27 may not be the giant leap forward in terms of visual design like we saw in iOS 26 with Liquid Glass, it certainly is poised to receive many new features that finally bring it up to speed with the rest of the phone market.
This will manifest in the form of many new features, such as finally receiving the Apple Intelligence features that were promised so long ago with new Siri features and deeper integration into your iPhone. Apple Intelligence will also extend into the Health app, with a new subscription possibly dubbed "Apple Health+". The new subscription will use AI to help analyze data like fitness and wellness tracking, sleep, and vitals to offer personalized health insights.
The biggest feature in my opinion, however, has to do with multitasking. Multitasking on iPhone has been a point of contention for years now, with staggered support and a losing position to Android in this space.
Even when Apple released their first ever big screen smartphone with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, the best features they could offer for the extra real estate was a new horizontal home screen layout. This feature was eventually removed and no support or similar features exist in current versions of iOS.
Despite this lack of progress on iPhone, Apple continues to make strides towards better multitasking and usability on iPad. Originally in iOS 9, Split Screen came into view, along with Picture-in-Picture mode, and Slide Over, a feature where mini versions of apps can hover over other ones, with a floating view. Then, over the years, this evolved into Stage Manager, and now, full windowed apps.
Recently, however, Apple has been slowly but surely integrating more and more multitasking tools, often from iPadOS, into iOS, like Picture-in-Picture mode in iOS 14. This is still not enough for iPhone power users, it seems, as Apple is expected to add what is essentially a split-screen feature into iOS 27.
The new feature is supposedly meant for Apple's upcoming foldable iPhone, which brings up a major problem for Apple. All of the apps on iOS are meant for a tall, narrow display like on current iPhones, not for displays like the large, landscape, 7.8 inch inner display on the upcoming iPhone Fold. The new information, reported by MacRumors, suggests that Apple will rework the systems for expanding apps into landscape mode to accommodate for the extra screen real estate.
In this information, it also states the existence of split screen apps for iPhone Fold, as Apple will use this opportunity of reworking app sizes to allow for apps side by side on the bigger screen. This feature will hopefully bring back a real productive feeling for the iPhone.
Apple's rumored Split Screen feature for iOS 27 looks to be a great new feature, and one that will help the iPhone Fold stand out. We will have to wait and see what Apple does soon.
