iOS 8 Beta Download, Rumors: Developer Discovers Split-Screen Apps Support

It’s currently not possible to jailbreak an iOS 8.2 beta device (unless you want to get malware), but TaiG says it has a jailbreaking tool ready for when iOS 8.2 is finally released in its non-beta form. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Apple’s latest mobile operating system could finally be catching up with the competition.

App developer Steve Troughton-Smith tweeted that Apple’s iOS 8 software development kit has a built-in code that allows users to run multiple apps simultaneously on one screen. Troughton-Smith wrote that apps can now be displayed in in “one-quarter size, one-half size, or three-quarter size.”

Apple was expected to announce split-screen app support at the recent Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), but the Cupertino company never did.

It is not unusual for Apple to leave out some of its new iOS tweaks, given that each new update brings hundreds of them.

Regardless, side-by-side app support is one that users have long been crying out for, and if it does become a reality when the public version is released sometime in the fall, iOS users will certainly rejoice.

iPad users will certainly benefit the most from side-by-side app support as the iPad’s bigger screens makes it vastly easier to multitask. It is not too inconceivable to imagine pulling up the email app while running a video conferencing app side by side.

Apple are late to the game at this point with regard to side-to-side app support, as Google’s Android OS already has such a feature for various Google, Samsung, and LG phones.

As features in beta build are some times dropped from the final build, however, the split-screen feature could very well never see the light of day, at least for the iOS 8.