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iPad A little unhappy with my new iPad

F

Fitsume

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 15, 2025
6
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I have always done a lot on my iPhone including running my business. I finally decided to buy an iPad just for a little bit more screen real estate. I don’t need much power so I figured the newest generation base model iPad would be fine.

One of the main things I wanted to do on the iPad instead of the iPhone is bookkeeping. This requires me to swipe between a couple different apps and Safari. In Safari I am logged into my bookkeeping software‘s website, which is web-based as you could assume.

I enter information into the forms on this website, I swipe to other apps to get that information. Invoice numbers, total amounts, fees, net amounts, etc. I copy the numbers and then swipe and paste them.

But on the new iPad that doesn’t work. Every time I swipe away from Safari and then return to it, all of the numbers are gone. The forms are completely reset. It’s reminding me of the older Safari where it used to get dark when you return to it when there wasn’t enough memory.

I don’t understand why a brand new iPad doesn’t have the ability to retain this information. It works perfectly fine on my very old iPhone 13 Pro.

Is there anything I could do about this? I tried to do split screen, but neither of the two other apps that I get the information from are supported. I would really hate to have to spend a lot more money on a better iPad just so that it could remember the numbers I paste it into a form. Everything else about this iPad works perfectly fine for me.
 
Sounds like the browser is refreshing when in the background? There are a few things that can cause that but it's not something you have a ton of control over.

iPadOS 26 supports "Windowing" where the app doesn't actually HAVE to support split screen in order to appear on the same window. I suspect that would solve the issue for you. Until you're ready to install that, I'd just leave bookkeeping up on the iPad and use your iPhone to gather the data you need & type it in.
 
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FreakinEurekan said:
iPadOS 26 supports "Windowing" where the app doesn't actually HAVE to support split screen in order to appear on the same window. I suspect that would solve the issue for you. Until you're ready to install that, I'd just leave bookkeeping up on the iPad and use your iPhone to gather the data you need & type it in.
Click to expand...
But iPadOS 18 does support split screen and slide-over on the base model iPad - perhaps that would work in this case? I think you have can even spit about 2/3rd/I/3rd, so yo can have Safari take the bigger share and switch between various apps in the other window.

Use multitasking on your iPad - Apple Support

Work with two apps simultaneously, drag and drop content between apps, and more.
support.apple.com support.apple.com
 
doogm said:
But iPadOS 18 does support split screen and slide-over on the base model iPad - perhaps that would work in this case? I think you have can even spit about 2/3rd/I/3rd, so yo can have Safari take the bigger share and switch between various apps in the other window.

Use multitasking on your iPad - Apple Support

Work with two apps simultaneously, drag and drop content between apps, and more.
support.apple.com support.apple.com
Click to expand...
Right but the app has to specifically support it. If he's just running an iPhone app on the iPad Slide Over isn't going to be an option. It was a lot of work for me to properly support Slide Over mode in my app.
 
Yeah it seems like neither the TD Bank app or the Square Invoices app that I use in conjunction with Safari to do my bookkeeping are supported for any type of screen sharing.

It’s just a little crazy to me that my nearly 4 year-old iPhone 13 can do this function flawlessly yet my new iPad doesn’t have the power to remember a couple of numbers.

Even after completely closing Safari and rebooting the iPad and using only one tab in Safari for my bookkeeping website, it still refreshes the website behind the scenes and deletes the numbers when I return to it.

This worries me for other reasons as well. I will often have to switch between apps to gather a little bit of information. Now I always have to worry about the previously entered information being deleted. I just had to go to my state’s website to file this quarters sales tax. That required me to switch between Safari and my invoicing app. I did it on my iPhone because I didn’t want to enter most of the numbers and then have it deleted when swiping to the other app to gather the last number needed.
 
FreakinEurekan said:
I'd just leave bookkeeping up on the iPad and use your iPhone to gather the data you need & type it in.
Click to expand...
That’s a reasonable idea. I thought to do that, but it would require me to fumble with two different devices. One of the reasons why I started using my iPhone for most of my business work is so that I could do it while sitting in my truck or while sitting in a comfortable lounging type chair on my balcony or backyard or living room. Holding two devices is a bit of a pain, and having to manually enter the numbers could invite mistakes.

I will look into the “windowing“ that you mentioned. Hopefully that could help me.
 
Fitsume said:
That’s a reasonable idea. I thought to do that, but it would require me to fumble with two different devices. One of the reasons why I started using my iPhone for most of my business work is so that I could do it while sitting in my truck or while sitting in a comfortable lounging type chair on my balcony or backyard or living room. Holding two devices is a bit of a pain, and having to manually enter the numbers could invite mistakes.

I will look into the “windowing“ that you mentioned. Hopefully that could help me.
Click to expand...
Universal Clipboard could help you here. Copy from iPhone and paste on iPad, for example.

support.apple.com

Use Universal Clipboard to copy and paste between your Apple devices - Apple Support

With Universal Clipboard, you can copy content such as text, images, photos, and videos on one Apple device, then paste the content on another Apple device.
support.apple.com support.apple.com
 
MisterSavage said:
Universal Clipboard could help you here. Copy from iPhone and paste on iPad, for example.

support.apple.com

Use Universal Clipboard to copy and paste between your Apple devices - Apple Support

With Universal Clipboard, you can copy content such as text, images, photos, and videos on one Apple device, then paste the content on another Apple device.
support.apple.com support.apple.com
Click to expand...
I appreciate the idea, but it would still be a massive amount of extra work to have to put down the iPhone and pick up the iPad and then vice versa a few dozen times to enter in some transactions. It’s much faster doing it all on the iPhone.
 
Fitsume said:
Yeah it seems like neither the TD Bank app or the Square Invoices app that I use in conjunction with Safari to do my bookkeeping are supported for any type of screen sharing.
Click to expand...
I don't know about square invoices, but you can just open the TD Bank website in another tab in Safari and log in that way and just switch back and forth between tabs.

I'll check my TD Bank app to see if I can use it in split screen - it's definitely an iPad app - though I have an M3 iPad Air, so it's not directly comparable.
 
doogm said:
I don't know about square invoices, but you can just open the TD Bank website in another tab in Safari and log in that way and just switch back and forth between tabs.

I'll check my TD Bank app to see if I can use it in split screen - it's definitely an iPad app - though I have an M3 iPad Air, so it's not directly comparable.
Click to expand...
I’m curious about something, I set this iPad up using my iPhone so it automatically loaded all the apps that I have on my iPhone. Until you mentioned it I never thought about whether those apps are iPhone apps or iPad apps. Do I have to go through and see if there’s an iPad app and download that for each one of the apps that I have on this new iPad? Or does Apple intuitively do this for me?
 
Most apps are universal these days, there aren't many iPad specific downloads anymore. The App Store builds and delivers the correct one for your device.
 
Fitsume said:
That’s a reasonable idea. I thought to do that, but it would require me to fumble with two different devices. One of the reasons why I started using my iPhone for most of my business work is so that I could do it while sitting in my truck or while sitting in a comfortable lounging type chair on my balcony or backyard or living room. Holding two devices is a bit of a pain, and having to manually enter the numbers could invite mistakes.

I will look into the “windowing“ that you mentioned. Hopefully that could help me.
Click to expand...
I'm running the iPadOS beta, the windowing feature is quite nice! I don't necessarily recommend running beta, especially on a primary device, but I do think this will be a useful feature for you.
 
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