Quick Tip: Move Multiple iOS Apps at Once

One day, when I’m much older, I’ll be able to tell the youth of future generations all about how difficult it was to move things around on my iPhone and iPad. We had to move apps from screen to screen one at a time.

“You kids don’t know how good you have it!”

And they’ll probably shout something like, “Look at that old fart with his antiquated memories. Go suck a lemon, old man!”

I’m hoping that the future will bring back both eloquence and out of fashion insults.

Those memories of past phone difficulties don’t have to haunt us today, however. We don’t have to live a life plagued by only being able to move a single app at a time. We’ve got “multitasking” now!

Let’s move it!

Bringing drag and drop capability to iOS had the added benefit of allowing those of us with iPhones to gather up multiple apps or items and move them around between the home screens of our phones.

Using Drag and Drop on iPad

It’s a feature I’d been wishing for pretty much since the day I got my first iPhone — the 3GS all the way back in 2009. Moving one app around at a time got old pretty fast.

Now that it’s here, I want to make sure everyone knows how these tricks work so they can use their devices in the most efficient and productive way possible.

So let’s get into it.

1. We’re going to begin by holding down an app on our home screen like we always do whenever we want to move its position.
2. Drag the app you’ve been holding a little bit. We need to let the system know that we want to move things around.
3. With another finger, tap on the other apps you want to move along with the first one. This will add the other apps to your stack.
4. Without letting go of the app stack, you can move it around or even open up folders with a separate finger.
5. When you’ve found where you want to place the stacked apps, take your finger off the screen. They’ll fall into place and take up the space they need.

Once you’re satisfied with the placement of all your apps, you can swipe up on the Home indicator, tap the “Done” button in the upper right hand corner, or push the Home button, depending on your device.

We’ve come a long way since the early smartphone days. I mean, can you believe that the first couple iPhones couldn’t even shoot video or use cut/copy/paste?

How did we ever survive?

Things are only going to get better from here. Technology is always marching forward. Sometimes the changes are big. Sometimes they’re relatively minor, but make your daily life more productive.

Now I’ve got to get back to my lawn so I can yell at some neighborhood kids like an old man.

Stack it up, cats!