How to Run Multiple Apps on Screen on a Jailbroken iPad

One of the biggest requested features on the iPad is the ability to run multiple apps on the iPad screen at one time, using windows like a MacBook Air or a Windows PC.

Apple won’t allow any real windowed apps and hacks into the App store, but jailbroken iPads can use Quasar, a new iPad app that delivers true windowed multitasking.

That means more than two browsers side by side or a text editor and a browser side by side. Quasar allows users to run multiple iPad and iPhone apps at once, side by side.

Watch Quasar in action in the video below to see how you can run multiple apps side by side in a window style.

Quasar does more than put two apps side by side, the app allows users to use apps like Windows, rotating, resizing and rearranging apps across the iPad’s screen, just like on a notebook.

The demo doesn’t show how the iPad keyboard plays into the action, so users will find the most use in consumption apps or with an external iPad keyboard.

The Quasar app uses the home button and iOS multitasking gestures to control the windowed apps. Users can close the windows, but leave apps running to avoid cluttered iPad desktops.

The app works with the Notification Center and handles links to external iPad apps correctly. iPhone apps run at iPhone resolution on the iPad when using Quasar, but they work in landscape mode and users can run multiple apps.

In order to use Quasar the iPad must be jailbroken. Users with an iPad on iOS 5.1 or an iPad 2 on iOS 5.0.1 can follow these guides to jailbreak.

• How to Jailbreak iPad iOS 5.1
• How to Jailbreak iPad 2 on iOS 5.0.1

There is no jailbreak for the iPad 3rd generation or the iPad 2 on iOS 5.1 at this time.

Once jailbroken, users will need to buy Quasar for $9.99 in the Cydia app store to start using multiple apps and windows on the iPad.