Taposé's Split Screen For The iPad: A Visual Tour

Taposé (pronounced "tap-oh-ZAY"), a new note-taking app by Zanther, Inc., addresses a problem a lot of iPad users probably wish they didn't have to endure: switching back and forth between two full-screen apps in order to copy and paste items. Taposé lets you split the iPad screen into two side-by-side panes. It comes with five apps that work in the dual panes: Journals, a note-taking app; Web, an integrated browser; Maps, a subset of Google Maps; Contacts, which accesses the iPad's contact list; and Calculator. You can display any two apps at once, or work with two views of the same app. Unfortunately, version 1.0 of Taposé has a beta roughness about it with too many limitations to be useful. I wouldn't rely on it for creating polished business documents.

Theoretically, Taposé Journal pages can contain a mix of media ranging from your drawings, photos, and typed notes to items you pull from the Web, the Contacts app, and the Maps app. Unfortunately, there are lots of limitations in what you can copy and what the copied item can do once it's in your Journal page. Maps, for example, lack most of the features of the Maps app. Some websites don't work right in Taposé's browser. For instance, I was not able to log in at Twitter.com, where I wanted to copy tweets for pasting into my Journal.

Taposé 1.0.0 might have too many problems right now to be the go-to note-taking app. However, it does promise a better way to be more productive on an iPad. If nothing else, it gives iPad users an idea of what they'll miss if they don't partake of Windows 8 and its snap feature for viewing two full-screen Metro apps in two side-by-side windows.