In iPadOS 27 an AirPlay display follows whichever app you touch most recently, instead of staying on the presentation. Reported on October 20. Apple has not said whether it is a bug or the new design, and there is no fix yet.
If you present from an iPad over AirPlay, iPadOS 27 changed what the room sees. The external display now follows whichever app you tapped most recently. Switch away from your slides to check a figure, and the figure goes up on the projector with you.
AppleInsider reported the behaviour on October 20 and said its own staff reproduced it. It happens when you have more than one window open, and it happens whether or not Stage Manager is turned on.
What changed
In iPadOS 26, the external display stayed on the presentation while you worked in something else. You could hand control to another app deliberately by swiping up and picking it from the Dock. That was the mechanism, and it is the one that is gone.
In iPadOS 27 there is no handover step. The display mirrors the frontmost app, so the act of leaving your slides is also the act of putting whatever you opened on screen.
What each app does when you go back
Recovery is not consistent, which is the part that bites in a live meeting.
| App | What happens when you return to it |
|---|---|
| Goodnotes | Restores its presenter view |
| Keynote | May have exited the presentation entirely |
| PowerPoint | You have to restart the presentation before you can continue |
So the cost is not only the glimpse of the other app. With Keynote and PowerPoint it is also the thirty seconds of getting back to the slide you were on, in front of the room.
Why it matters on a client call
The reporting comes from a classroom. Teddy Svoronos, who teaches with an iPad, said the change means “my students see all my notes on who I want to call on, or poll results that should be hidden from them.”
Swap the students for a client and the list of things on the second screen gets worse: the pricing sheet you have not shown yet, the internal thread about the account, the version of the deck with the comments still in it. Anyone who presents from an iPad has a private window open during the meeting, because that is what the second window is for.
This also reaches screen sharing by habit rather than by mechanism. AirPlay to a projector in a room and sharing a window on a call are different code paths, but they are the same moment in a working day, and the same muscle memory — tap over to the other app, tap back — is now the risky one.
What to do about it today
There is no fix and no setting. What is left is procedure:
- Close the private window before you connect. Not minimised, closed. The display follows the app you touch, so an app you cannot touch cannot appear.
- Put the notes on a second device. A phone or a paper copy is the reliable version of a presenter view right now.
- Rehearse the switch once. Connect, open your deck, tap away and tap back, and watch the external screen while you do it. You will find out in ten seconds what your app does, and whether it drops the presentation.
- Present from the Mac if the material is sensitive. macOS keeps a presentation on the external display when you switch apps, which is the behaviour the iPad just lost.
What we do not know
Apple has not commented, and nobody has established whether this is a regression or an intentional simplification of how iPadOS drives an external screen. That distinction decides whether this is worth waiting out. iOS 27.2 and iPadOS 27.2 reached release candidate on October 19 and are expected within days (our report); if the behaviour survives that release, it is the design.