By Jason Snell

August 10, 2016 2:01 PM PT

Google Docs, Sheets get iOS 9 split screen (finally)

Note: This story has not been updated for several years.

Many iPad users (including me) have been complaining for a while about the slow pace of progress by Google in supporting iPad productivity features in Google’s iOS apps.

Today brought some great news. Updates to Google Docs and Google Sheets add split-view multitasking to those apps at last.

This is a big deal for iPad users. Now it’s possible to update a Google document or spreadsheet while also viewing Safari or using any other multitasking-capable app you can think of. I do a lot of podcast planning in both Google Sheets and Google Docs, and the inability to share time with a second app has been frustrating for quite a while. (We switched from Google Docs to Quip for Upgrade for exactly this reason.)

In any event, I’m glad that these apps have finally added solid support for iOS 9, only 11 months after it was introduced.

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