Obsidian + Safari Split View on iPad: The Complete Guide

You can use Obsidian and Safari together in Split View on iPad by long-pressing either app icon, selecting "Split Screen", and then tapping the other app — giving you a live browser and your notes vault side by side on one screen.

Once you have the two apps open together, the combination is genuinely hard to go back from. Obsidian is where your thinking lives; Safari is where raw information comes from. Putting them next to each other removes the constant app-switching that breaks concentration and causes you to lose your place in both.

Why this pair works so well

Most research workflows involve a loop: read something, switch to notes, write it down, switch back, repeat. Every switch is a small interruption. With Obsidian and Safari sharing the screen, that loop collapses into a single glance.

Here are a few ways people actually use this combination:

• Active reading and annotation. Open a long article or research paper in Safari, keep your Obsidian daily note or a dedicated page open beside it, and write summaries, quotes, or questions as you read — without ever leaving the page.
• Building a Zettelkasten from web sources. When you find a useful article, create a new note in Obsidian immediately, paste the URL, and write your own interpretation while the source is still visible. No tab-hopping, no forgetting where the idea came from.
• Drafting and fact-checking at the same time. Write a note or document in Obsidian on one side while keeping a search tab open on the other to verify names, dates, or technical details as you go.

The 50/50 split works well for reading-heavy sessions. If you are mostly writing with occasional reference checks, dragging the divider to give Obsidian about two-thirds of the screen keeps your workspace comfortable.

How to set it up with Splicon

The only problem with Split View is that setting it up from scratch every time takes several steps. If you haven't downloaded Splicon yet, Download Splicon free from the App Store — it turns any Split View pair into a one-tap Home Screen shortcut with a custom icon that shows both apps at once.

1. Open Splicon and search for Obsidian, then Safari. Select them as your pair.
2. Choose a split style for the icon — Splicon generates a combined icon showing both app logos side by side. Save the image to your Photos library.
3. Open the Shortcuts app, create a new shortcut, and add an "Open App" action. Set it to open both apps in Split View. In the shortcut settings, tap "Add to Home Screen" and select the Splicon icon you just saved from Photos.
4. Add the shortcut to your Home Screen and place it wherever you start your research sessions.

From that point on, tapping the icon drops you straight into the Obsidian and Safari split — no dragging, no hunting for the second app in the dock.

A note on sizing and positioning

iPad remembers the last divider position you used in a given Split View pair, so if you set Obsidian to take up more space during one session, it will default to that next time. Splicon's shortcut respects this, meaning your preferred layout persists across sessions without any extra configuration.

If you switch between an iPad Pro and an iPad Air, the layout scales proportionally, so the shortcut works the same way on both devices.

The Obsidian and Safari pairing is one of the more practical uses of iPad multitasking available — straightforward to set up, and genuinely useful for anyone who reads and writes as part of the same workflow.