Widgets on the home screen and dark mode. Looks like someone at Apple was listening.
iPadOS is Apple’s unfortunate name for… well, the iPad OS. It’s still based on iOS (formerly iPhoneOS), so I recommend giving the article on iOS 13 a read first. In fact, Apple’s even calling this iPadOS 13. In an attempt to make the iPad an even better laptop replacement, Apple gave the iPad some new features to improve your productivity and finally take advantage of the iPad’s larger screen. Apple’s preparing the iPad for a post-PC world. Is it ready yet?
In This Article:
iOS 13 Features
iPadOS 13 is based on iOS 13, so you can expect the same features here. That means dark mode, signing in with your Apple ID, updated Reminders and Notes applications, a new photos application with AI-curated highlights, video editing, faster app launching, faster Face ID, and more. These are all features that are going to be great on the iPhone and even better on the iPad.
But what’s unique to the iPad?
Home Screen Widgets
It’s not exactly they way we wanted to see it done, but iPadOS 13 does have home screen widgets. They might actually work better than we expected. It does this by allowing you to slide over your widgets from the left side of the screen. Your icons will get closer together (as they should be), and you’ll be able to pin your widgets to the home screen. Scroll through them just as you would in the usual notification center widgets. It’s almost like having a small iPhone screen right there on your iPad.
Because you can pin this on your display, it makes them more useful than the widgets in macOS’s notification center because they’re always visible on the home screen. You can use them for fast app shortcuts, quick looks into your information, note taking, and much more. This really makes your iPad into a powerful utility.
Slide Over and Multi-Window Multitasking
Slide Over adds an iPhone-like window over the app you’re currently using. It’s often used when users want to quickly look at something, but don’t need it to take up screen real estate by entering split view. In previous versions of iOS on the iPad (now iPadOS), this was an expansion on the split view mode. You pulled an app up and you’d make it a floating window instead of docking it. This wasn’t very useful.
However, now, Slide Over will work basically like an iPhone. In fact, Apple compared it to having something right there so you wouldn’t have to pick up your iPhone. Slide over the window and you essentially have a tall iPhone X. You can swipe through apps and engage multitasking on it. It’s basically an emulated iPhone, but with the screen real estate of your iPad for multitasking and app switching on it.
Split-Screen Improvements
Right now, I have two Firefox windows open. One has three tabs from Apple’s documentation on iPadOS. The other has my editor for the posts I’m working on right now. They’re side by side on my widescreen monitor. You can probably see where this is going. With iPadOS, you will be able to have two windows open for the same app. They’ll be docked, using split screen, but you’ll be able to have two Notes open, two websites, two documents, etc. Obviously this is an extremely useful feature, and it’s surprising we couldn’t do it until now. Many of the iPadOS features fall under that “How did we deal without this?” category.
USB-C Support for Drives and Cameras
Apple added a USB-C port to the iPad Pro, ditching Lightning. Thanks to that, we can get a lot more functionality out of it, including HDMI input, USB input, card readers, headphone jacks, and more. In fact, one company, Hyper, made an iPad version of their popular all in one USB-C docks. It’s a must-have for iPad Pro owners.
But with iPadOS, the USB-C port on your iPad is about to get far more powerful. You’ll be able to attach cameras, external hard drives, and flash drives to your iPad. You can then access them in the Files app, just as you could with the Finder on a Mac. This truly brings file management to the iPad. It has taken Apple many tries, but it’s finally here.
New Files App
With that improved file management, Apple’s going to need a better file manager. The new Files app can use shared servers and directories, so you can easily collaborate or upload to shared services.
But the real upgrade to the files app is the column view. This brings the popular column view from macOS to the iPad. You can sort files by date, name, kind, tags, and even size. The new Files app is what it should have been from the start: Finder for your iPad.
Desktop-Class Safari
The iPad isn’t an iPhone. You shouldn’t see mobile views while using it. However, many websites would automatically choose the mobile view when you tried to use your iPad with them. This looked awful. Many people used third party browsers that could spoof the user agent to fool websites into thinking the device they were using was actually a desktop computer. Now Safari can do the same. It’ll request the desktop view, even spoof websites that try to cram it into a smaller tablet view.
Also a staple of desktop browsers: a downloads folder. Now in Safari you can download files, which will be in your Files application, and visible in the downloads drop down in Safari. Now you can save anything from websites just as you would on your desktop.
Gestures
Text Editing Gestures
You’ve been able to use keyboard shortcuts on your iPad for some time, but if you weren’t using a keyboard, text selection, copying, pasting, and undo/redo controls were lacking. Hell, the undo gesture was shaking your iPad. This might work on the iPhone, but it’s incredibly awkward on the iPad.
iPadOS brings new gestures for these text controls. There’s copy, a three finger pinch over highlighted text, as though you’re picking up the text with three fingers. You then do a gesture by spreading three fingers, almost as though you’re dropping that text back down somewhere. Then there’s undo and redo. These two gestures are the same, but in different directions. A three finger swipe from right to left will undo, the other way will redo. Presumably, in countries where the text is written from right to left, these gestures will be mirrored.
Screenshot Gesture
There’s also a new screenshot gesture for use with the Apple Pencil. If you drag up form the lower left corner of the screen with the Apple Pencil, you can take a screenshot. From there, you’ll go right into markup editing mode. It’s a small feature, but with the iPad moving to Face ID and ditching the home button, it makes taking a screen shot with the new iPad Pro a little easier.
Mouse Support
https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1135653636145590273
Apple didn’t mention it during the WWDC keynote, but they have added mouse support to iPadOS. This is an accessibility feature, as expected, and makes use of both USB mice and bluetooth mice. For people with limited mobility, this makes the iPad more accessible. For anyone else, it means you could attach a keyboard and mouse to a USB-C hub, then create a docking solution for your iPad at home. Your iPad could essentially become a tablet on the go and as close to a Mac as it can get at home.
Other Improvements
There are many other smaller refinements to the iPad through iPadOS 13. Apple improved performance considerably, including performance of the Apple Pencil. On the iPad Pro, latency was down to 20ms, already ahead of the rest of the industry. However, with the iPadOS 13 update, that will be down to 9ms of latency. Those who have tested it say it feels completely natural, like writing on paper.
Apple also upgraded their font support. Now you don’t need to do profile management just to install new fonts. You’ll be able to install them from anywhere, making your design flow a breeze. Graphic designers are going to love how much easier this is in iPadOS 13.
Apple added as new keyboard to iPadOS as well… the iPhone keyboard. Now you’ll be able to use the iPhone keyboard on your iPad as a floating keyboard. It’ll support one handed use and swipe text, so you won’t have to use two hands to type on your iPad anymore. For someone on the go, or working on public transport, this could be useful. Though I believe its use cases are limited.
iPadOS 13: Ready to Replace Your Laptop?
iPadOS 13 may be the thing that finally gets people to leave their laptops at home. Sure, you’ll still need it for more complex document editing, or writing, or coding, but the iPad is truly coming into its own now. It’s no longer just a blown up version of the iPhone operating system, it’s uniquely iPad. Furthermore, it can strengthen the capabilities of a mac, by acting as a graphics tablet.
I own a 9.7″ iPad Pro. I’m about three generations of iPad behind, at this point. However, I haven’t seen a reason to upgrade until now. Thinking of using an iPad as an additional monitor and a graphics tablet makes me think it might be time for a larger iPad, maybe the 12.9″ one? Of course, writing and software engineering doesn’t give you the kind of money that lets you just buy products for review, so I think I’ll sit on this for another year. Still, if you’ve been thinking about getting a new laptop or a new iPad, this fall may be the time to make up your mind: the answer, for many casual users, is a new iPad.