The iPad clocked nine this year and it’s finally gets its own operating system, leaving iOS behind. It’s unsurprisingly called iPadOS and comes with a lot of new features mostly focused around productivity.
Table of Interests
iPadOS
Here are some of the interesting features in iPadOS:
Widget Support on Home Screen
Firstly – the homescreen has been redesigned to display a tighter grid of icons and support widgets.
Improved Slider
The Slideover, which is Apple’s take on floating window apps,lets you swipe from the bottom and launch a second app in window mode. Split screen has also been improved and you can launch two instances of the same program.
Multi-window on iPadOS
Apple has implemented a bunch of gestures in iPadOS that let you control the split screen mode and launch it from within a single app, but it does look like learning all of them will take you a while.
iCloud file sharing and thumbdrive support
Next up, iCloud Drive gained folder sharing and even SMB file sharing. The iPads will also support thumbdrives, with the contents showing in the Files app. Support for ZIP files is also coming down the road.
The updated Safari browser
Safari has been optimized, too, getting a dedicated download manager and 30 keyboard shortcuts, putting it much closer to its desktop counterpart.
Copy and paste get their own three-finger pinch gestures, while Undo is performed by a three finger swipe, so you don’t have to shake the iPad any more.
Apple Pencil Not Forgotten
Finally, the Apple Pencil got some love too – its latency will drop from 20ms to just 9ms, while its tools palette has been expanded and made available to third part apps.
