WWDC 2024 highlighted iOS 18, iPadOS 18, tvOS 18, visionOS 2, watchOS 11, macOS Sequoia and plenty more, but Apple already has one eye on next year's updates.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman revealed in this week's Power On newsletter that the tech giant has begun work on iOS 19 (codenamed Luck), macOS 16 (codenamed Cheer), watchOS 12 (codename Nepali) and visionOS 3 (codenamed Discovery).

While Gurman notes it's "far too early to tell what the actual features will be" for any of the platforms, he does suggest that this is about the same schedule the company has stuck to for a while.

So why is it news?

Right on schedule

While Gurman dubs the four platforms in question "major", which may disappoint iPad die-hards (hey, we are getting iOS 18 features in iPadOS 18 without a year wait in between!), what's interesting here is that Apple may not finish rolling out many of its features from the current cycle of OS upgrades until well into 2025.

After all, Apple intends to withhold Apple Intelligence features from EU users in response to anticompetitive accusations, while key features from across multiple platforms like iPhone mirroring on macOS Sequoia also may not arrive this year.

That could mean Apple needs to more carefully consider it's rollout as the tail-end of iOS 18 and the start of the eventual iOS 19, along with other platforms, become closer and closer.

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Apple announced iPadOS 18 during the opening of WWDC week on June 10 and immediately made the first beta available for developers to download. Now, the second beta is also available for download and it improves a big change to how iPad owners download apps.

Much like is already the case on the iPhone, Apple's iPadOS 18 beta 2 release adds support for third-party app stores and more for the first time. The move comes as Apple seeks to comply with the European Union's Digital Markets Act and while the iPad was previously exempt, that is no longer the case.

As a result, Apple has rolled out changes that will allow iPad owners in 27 EU member countries to install third-party app stores when the software is made available publicly later this year.

Beta changes

Apple confirmed the news in a post on the company's developer website, saying that "The changes for apps in the European Union (EU), currently available to iOS users in the 27 EU member countries, can now be tested in iPadOS 18 beta 2 with Xcode 16 beta 2."

Apple also noted that support for third-party web browser engines will also be offered via iPadOS 18, removing the need for apps to use Apple's own WebKit.

The iPadOS 18 beta is currently only available to developers while a public beta is expected to kick off starting in July. The final release is then likely to be made available globally in September, but these changes will only apply to people in one of the 27 EU countries.

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iPadOS 18 was announced earlier this week at WWDC 2024, and it comes at a very interesting time for the iPad. Just last month, Apple unveiled the M4 iPad Pro and the M2 iPad Air both with incredible hardware that is far too powerful for the streamlined tablet operating system it currently runs on.

The latest attempt to harness the hardware of the best iPads, iPadOS 18, is set to release later this fall. I’ve been using the early Devolper beta version of the new update for the last few days on my M2 iPad Pro to see if it finally unlocks the full potential of everyone’s favorite tablet.

There’s a lot to talk about, from the arrival of the Calculator app (and that mad Math Notes addition — more on that later) after over a decade since the iPad’s launch to the new customization features on the Home Screen. 

However, the biggest addition of them all isn’t present in the first developer beta, so we’ll need to wait until later in the year to truly understand what the iPad is capable of when Apple Intelligence arrives. With that in mind, here are my initial thoughts on iPadOS 18 after a few days of use.

iPadOS 18 first thoughts

Apple has made it very easy to download the iPadOS 18 beta, so I installed the new operating system on my iPad mere minutes after the end of the WWDC keynote on Tuesday. Since then I’ve been putting the software through its paces to see just what the update is all about. 

It’s worth noting that developer betas will impact performance and stability, and if you want to make sure that your iPad is free of problems, you might want to wait until full release. Having said that, my experience with the beta has been smooth and trouble-free — although, time will tell. Again, wait until full release in September just to be on the safe side.

I’ve wanted to be able to customize my iPad Home Screen for years and now I can finally take control over the position of apps. You can now move your icons and place them essentially anywhere on the screen which feels far more of a big deal on an iPad than the same feature on a smaller screen like the iPhone. I found that I could use screen real estate much better than before and it gives more control over your widget placement. There are also color themes for app icons for the first time ever allowing you to choose different tints — although I will say in its current form it can get pretty ugly as it pastes a blanket filter over everything, including the Photos widget giving your photos an ugly colored hue. More appealing is the ability to use Dark Mode for app icons, and it looks like Apple has made some lovely design choices here that pop off the screen. Additionally, you can choose between small or large icons with the latter removing any app names and it feels right at home on the larger tablet display — props for this one, Apple, but please let us add more apps to our grids, it’s 2024!

You can also adjust widgets by dragging the corner like you would a window on a Mac making widget management and placement far more intuitive than before. Elsewhere, Control Center has received a full redesign allowing you to swipe between different pages of widgets like Home controls and Apple Music. It’s nice to get more flexibility with the options in Control Center but this redesign isn’t as groundbreaking as I hoped it would be when I heard the rumors. Instead, it’s just a new coat of paint with a little more flexibility.

• iOS 18 compatibility: Will my iPhone work with Apple's latest software?

Calculator, finally

In the beta’s current state with the lack of Apple Intelligence features, iPadOS 18’s most impressive new feature is unironically the new Calculator app. Yes, it initially looks like a blown-up version of the Calculator app on iOS 18, perfect for doing some quick math. But it has an incredible new tool Apple is calling ‘Math Notes’ that makes the wait for a dedicated app on iPad totally worth it. 

Nestled at the bottom of the regular calculator, Math Notes takes math to a whole new level, something I wish existed when I was in high school. You can simply write an equation or a math problem and Math Notes will give you the answer, even going so far as to mimic your handwriting. You can even turn an equation into a graph and then make live adjustments that reflect in said graph, it’s seriously impressive. Best of all Math Notes works in the Notes app too which feels right at home on the iPad, meaning you can use your Apple Pencil to do math problems without ever opening the Calculator app. 

Coming later this year, handwriting on iPad will also improve thanks to Smart Script which uses AI to make your handwriting look more appealing and fluid. I’m excited to try this out as I find that my handwriting using the Apple Pencil is never quite right, so if it makes my scrawling appear more natural then it could be one of the biggest additions to the iPad in years.

The Tab Bar, Photos, and…

iPadOS 18 introduces a new redesigned tab bar for app design language and while I haven’t seen it often it looks good in the apps that do use it already. The new Tab Bar in Apple News floats at the top of the screen and is able to morph into the sidebar whenever you want it to with the tap of an icon. It’s a welcome design change for the iPad as it makes better use of the display, but like many of these new additions in iPadOS 18, it makes me wonder why Apple didn’t invest more time into transforming the capabilities of the tablet rather than a nice coat of paint and everything else from iOS 18.

Just like iOS 18, there’s a new Photos app that looks gorgeous on my 11-inch iPad Pro.  Having said that, I never had any issues with the old Photos app so it almost feels like Apple’s software design teams have done work for the sake of working. Yes, libraries are more organized, but I suspect that any iPad owner would’ve rather had these efforts put into, say, multitasking, rather than fixing an app that didn’t really need fixing.

Speaking of multitasking, you’re probably wondering what improvements Apple has made to make Stage Manager feel more fluid and powerful, in line with all the cool new accessories like the Magic Keyboard released alongside the M4 iPad Pro. Well, there aren’t any. Stage Manager remains unchanged from iPadOS 17, that’s to say far too barebones for a tablet that can cost upwards of $2,000.

The similarities with iOS 18 continue with improvements to Messages, like the added functionality of scheduling an iMessage and formatting with bold, underline, or italics. It's a much-needed addition but it’s hardly anything that’s going to get the heart racing. Tapbacks have also been redesigned, and you can now react with any emoji which is a nice change from the limited selection in the previous software.

Finally, Safari now has a better Reader experience that lets you consume content on the internet without the distractions of ads, pop-ups, and anything else that might get in your way. Reader looks great, but the real improvements in Safari won’t arrive until the introduction of Apple Intelligence later this year when summaries and Highlights, which surfaces key information like locations, become available.

No Apple Intelligence, no party

Using iPadOS 18 in its very infant form has been eye-opening, to say the least. It has given me a feel for how the operating system will run for any iPad that doesn’t have an M-series chip, which highlights just how minimal an upgrade this year’s software really is for most people. 

There are definite improvements peppered across the OS and Math Notes is seriously impressive, but I can’t help but feel like the iPad is yet again a forgotten sibling. Yes, the powerful M-series iPads will get access to Apple Intelligence and all that it has to offer later this year but even with AI improvements the iPad still feels like it has so much untapped potential. 

Adding the brand new M4 chip to the iPad Pro in early May was a sign of intent from Apple but after testing iPadOS 18 for a few days I still feel like that intent isn’t matched. For many, if iPadOS 18 had been a newly designed Files app and a better way to multitask that allows you to do actual work on the tablet then it would’ve been enough — instead, we get quality of life improvements from the smaller sibling’s OS and the promise of AI at some point in the future.

All the latest on the newly announced iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, watchOS 11, visionOS 2, and Apple Intelligence.

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Apple's WWDC 2024 keynote has come and gone, with several huge announcements to show for it. Apple Intelligence showcases the company's step into AI, while the next major software update for the best iPhones, iOS 18, is a huge step up from previous years — bringing lots of customization to your home screen, lock screen, and Control Center.

However, when it comes to iPadOS 18, I can't help but feel that iPad users have been shortchanged once again. Yes, it's great that there's some feature parity with iOS 18 and the upcoming features that Apple Intelligence brings for U.S. English users, such as the new Siri.

Yet there was no mention of improvements to Stage Manager, Apple's latest attempt at fixing iPad multitasking. Instead, the exclusive features of iPadOS 18 are a taskbar that aims to make navigation in apps much simpler and a new Calculator app.

Everything else, you'll also be able to use in iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia — which makes me wonder if iPadOS 18 is the worst software update to come out of WWDC 2024.

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Exit stage left

I want to be clear — the features that Calculator brings to the iPad, as well as the Math Notes that you can use with Apple Pencil and Notes, are fantastic. Users who struggle with sums and equations will benefit massively.

Everything else that's coming to iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia is also welcome — from the much-improved Messages to the new Safari on Mac, there's a lot to like.

Yet, for a major update called iPadOS 18, many users, myself included, were hoping for improvements to Stage Manager. Or at least, a new way of multitasking on iPad. In our review of the M4 iPad Pro in May, iMore's Editor-in-Chief Gerald Lynch remarked, "iPadOS is simply frustrating to use when attempting to do any significant multitasking work, and Stage Manager remains at the heart of this frustration. Though much improved over its debut, Stage Manager still too often wants to second guess you, whether that’s snapping app panes to specific places on the screen, or removing ‘stages’ when opening several new ones."

Fast forward to June 10, and we're in the same position with iPadOS 18. Stage Manager wasn't even mentioned at the WWDC keynote. Nothing has changed.

I find that baffling.

If there's anything else that the iPadOS 18 announcement tells me, it's that Apple has a clear vision for the iPad, especially for users who aren't content creators. The iPad is for those who want a bigger iPhone but something less than a Mac.

Once iPadOS 18 is made available later this year, you'll get a great Calculator app, new ways to send Messages with formatting improvements as well as a tab bar to help with navigating an app.

If you're expecting anything more, prepare to be disappointed. Or at the least, start to accept that the iPad is just not meant to be used as a multitasking powerhouse.

We're covering the WWDC 2024 event as it happens. Follow WWDC 2024 LIVE here. Or check out our roundups for all the latest on the newly announced iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, watchOS 11, visionOS 2, and Apple Intelligence.

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iPadOS 18 was unveiled at WWDC 2024 and will arrive on Apple's iPad lineup later this year. 

In many ways iPadOS 18 is quite a muted upgrade to iPad, it doesn't come with any drastic design overhauls, but there's a host of new features to get excited about. Most notable, of course, is the advent of Apple Intelligence, which is coming to iPad, iPhone, and Mac in the fall. You can already try some of the latest features in the iPadOS 18 beta, but lots of the biggest upgrades aren't due until next year. 

Apple Intelligence aside, the headline changes include a Calculator app, new Math Notes, and customization tools for the Home Screen and Control Center. There's also a new Smart Script feature that can turn your handwriting into more legible text, and plenty of features from the iPhone and Mac updates too. 

We'd expect iPadOS 18 to debut in the fall, but of course, you can try the beta out right now. Here's everything you need to know. 

iPadOS 18: Apple Intelligence

Let's start with the big one: Apple's foray into AI, Apple Intelligence. Some massive upgrades are coming to iPadOS thanks to AI, beginning with improvements to Siri.

Coming as a free update later this year, Apple Intelligence improves Siri in a number of ways. For one, Siri is now more deeply integrated into the system experience, denoted by the whole screen flashing with color as the digital assistant is conjured. From there, Siri can use Apple Intelligence to bring forward context-aware suggestions to your queries, using data searched around your device. Siri will be able to process more complicated requests, for one, as well as ones that relate to other messages, emails, and even events from around your iPad.

You can ask Siri about a feature when you don't know the name, and Siri will find the feature and talk you through how it works. Thanks to on-screen awareness, you'll be Siri will be able to see what's happening on screen and tailor its responses. There are going to be more new actions that Siri can take in third-party apps — the list really does go on.

But there's more to Apple Intelligence than just the Siri improvements. Apple has woven its new models around iPadOS, making it easier to use different functions no matter where you are. Apple Intelligences language model will enable some smart writing tools, which will help you and your writing around different apps. You could be sending an email around, and you want to make sure that it sounds good to the person who'll be receiving it — Apple Intelligence can reword your email depending on what you want it to sound like. In the mail app again, your emails can be summarised in the preview window, so you know what's in it.

Finally, there's new image manipulation and creation tools. You can use the Photo editor to make your photos look amazing, letting you enhance the colors and remove unwanted subjects from the background. Then, there's Genmoji which creates a new emoji based on prompts that you type in straight to the keyboard. There's loads more to the AI that will be coming to iPadOS 18, and this is just scratching the surface. If you want to learn more about Apple Intelligence, check out our hub.

Apple Intelligence is now available on iPad thanks to the iPadOS 18 beta, but only in a limited form. There are some features including transcription, Writing Tools, and Mail tweaks. However, the headline features haven't yet surfaced. 

According to a report in July, Apple Intelligence probably won't be available in iPadOS 18 at its initial launch. More likely, it'll be reserved for iPadOS 18.1 in October. 

iPadOS 18: Calculator app and Math Notes

On the surface, the new Calculator app for iPad (many years in coming, it must be said) looks just like the app that you'll find built into your iPhone. Dig a little deeper, however, and you'll find the math lovers (or people who hate math and don't want to have to do it themselves) dream.

There's a new part of the app called 'Math Notes', and there are some cool features built in. 

Ostensibly, it's a calculator that you use with your Apple Pencil, drawing your sums on the screen so that the calculator can work them out for you. Math students rejoice, your prayers may have been answered. Or not, given your professor might start confiscating everyone's devices now so that they can't cheat in the math tests.

Then, you can add variables into the equation, so that you can create more complex math solutions, and even generate graphs with variable results. Those variables can be changed in real-time so that the graph will change too — pretty cool if you know your hypotenuse from your acute angle. 

This will also be built into the Notes app — although there's more to the Notes app as well...

iPadOS 18: Smart Script and the Notes app

You know when you take handwritten notes, and all your writing looks awful? Yeah, me too. Thankfully, Smart Script is here to make everything better. It will use machine learning to get a good picture of what your handwriting looks like, and then tidy it up so that it's properly legible, but also so that it still looks like your own writing. This all happens in real time too, so you can watch and the iPad phantom changes your handwriting as you write. Spooky.

BUT WAIT! There's more: Smart Script will also let you scribble out unwanted text, as well as copy and paste your writing to other parts of iPadOS. You can even copy text into your document, and Notes will make it look like your writing. Sweet.

There are improvements for typed notes as well — you can now organize notes with drop-down menus, and highlight some of your notes in different colors.

iPadOS 18: More iPad customization

Just as with iOS 18, there are going to be a bunch of different ways to customize your iPad thanks to iPadOS 18. For one, there's a new dark mode that brings a whole new look to the OS, making it all dark and moody like a Norwegian murder mystery TV show.

You can adjust the tint of icons as well, either to match the prevailing color of your background or a color of your choosing. That could bring your device together in a very unique and visual way, and it's a welcome kind of customization for iPad.

In addition, there are new ways to customize your control center, letting you add different controls from other apps. You can have different panes for different controls as well so that you can together things like media controls into one pane, and then home controls in another. You can sort through with a downward swipe, or press and hold to swipe through them in one solid motion.

iPadOS 18: UI improvements

On the top of a range of different iPadOS, there will be a new 'Tab bar' which will make for easier navigation of different apps. You can sort through the various different tabs (which, of course, can be customized), or tap on the bar itself for a sidebar that pops out of the side of the screen.

This maximizes the space that the app can fill, for that true 'full screen' experience.

iPadOS 18: Photos

Another update coming from iOS 18, the new photos app is coming to iPadOS 18. That means all the layout improvements that are coming across, including the improved photo grid that dominates the app, and the new collections portion at the bottom of the screen.

Those collections are customizable as well, letting you choose what collections you want to surface first, before all the others. They are automatically built by the photos app as well, gathering together different photos of trips, people, and more so that you don't have to do it yourself. You still can create your own collections of course, but it's nice that the app will do it for you.

There are new autoplay features as well, creating fun slideshows of your memories when you swipe off the main photos page. This is called the carousel view, and you'll find it by swiping to the left on the Photos app in iPadOS 18.

iPadOS 18: Everything else

There were loads more from the show as well, like message improvements and a huge upgrade to Safari. The message enhancements are all from the iOS 18 fold, including RCS messages and message formatting. That means you'll be able to make your text bold, italicized, and more. Tapbacks have also been improved, with the option to use every single emoji out there — including the Genmoji that you've made yourself.

Safari has also been improved, with distraction-free browsing. That will allow you to see summaries on different web pages of the information that you need, such as locations, prices, contact details, and more. That could be on a hotel website or a restaurant site.

iPadOS 18: Release date

The iPadOS 18 beta is available now for both developers and the public. The latest developer beta, iPadOS 18.1, features the aforementioned Apple Intelligence upgrade. 

iPadOS 18: Compatible devices

• iPad Pro models from 2018 and later (3rd Gen)
• iPad Air models from 2019 and later (3rd Gen)
• iPad mini models from 2019 and later (5th Gen)
• iPad models from 2020 and later (8th Gen)

The iPadOS 18 compatibility list means that Apple is dropping support for three iPads that supported iPadOS 17. The 10.5-inch iPad Pro, the 2nd-gen 12.9-inch iPad Pro, and the sixth-generation iPad. 

We would also expect iPadOS 18 to support the upcoming iPad 11 and the iPad mini 7.

The iPadOS 18 public beta is now available alongside iPadOS developer beta 3. These new betas bring the world of iPadOS 18 to iPads earlier than the expected Fall release.

With Apple Intelligence features, the Calculator app, and new Apple Pencil powers, iPadOS 18 is set to be a massive release for everyone's favorite tablet. If you can't wait to try the features you can install iPadOS 18 today by following the simple steps below.

Here's how to install iPadOS 18 beta on your iPad.

iPadOS 18 beta is here and you can install it now

Beta software, also referred to as a preview, seed, or release candidate, is a version of software that’s still under development and not yet released to the public. This software is intended only for installation on development devices registered under your Apple Developer Program membership. Registered development devices can be upgraded to future beta releases and the public version of the software. Attempting to install beta software in an unauthorized manner violates Apple policy and could render your device unusable and necessitate an out-of-warranty repair. Make sure to back up your devices before installing beta software and install only on devices and systems that you’re prepared to erase if necessary.

iPadOS 18 brings amazing new additions to your iPad without the need to purchase a new device. So whether you own the M4 iPad Pro or an iPad Mini 6 you can make the most of the latest features. Some of the new features include the arrival of the Calculator app for the first time ever on iPad supercharged with a new feature called Math Notes. The iPad is also getting new AI features that will arrive in the beta later this summer. 

How to download and install iPadOS 18 developer beta

Installing iPadOS 18 on your iPad is incredibly simple. So simple in fact that you can do it in just a few easy steps. 

1. Open Settings
2. Tap General, then Software Update
3. Enable Beta Updates
4. Select iPadOS 18 developer beta 3

That's all there is to it. Your iPad will now update to the latest operating system. The process may take a little while to download and install, but you can keep going about your day until the installation process begins.

How to download and install iPadOS 18 public beta 1

The iPadOS 18 public beta is now available and brings a reasonably stable release to all compatible iPads. While we still don't recommend installing this on your main device, it's far more reliable than the initial beta that released in June. 

1. Open Settings
2. Tap General, then Software Update
3. Enable Beta Updates
4. Select iPadOS 18 public beta 1

The wonders of iPadOS 18 await

We've been waiting for a radical upgrade to the iPad's software for years and while Apple Intelligence isn't specific to Apple's tablet it will make a massive improvement to the work you can do on your device. Add in new ways to customize your iPad and amazing new handwriting tools in notes and iPadOS 18 is a huge step forward for everyone's favorite tablet.

It's worth noting that despite the availability of these betas, you should never install an iPadOS beta on your primary device and we advise against doing so. That said, the public beta looks to be a very stable release so far, so if you can't wait until later this year then why not give iPadOS 18 a try?

We're covering the WWDC 2024 event as it happens. Follow WWDC 2024 LIVE here. Or check out our roundups for all the latest on the newly announced iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, watchOS 11, visionOS 2, and Apple Intelligence.

The next generation of iPad software has arrived! Revealed at WWDC 2024, iPadOS 18 arrives for all of the best iPads, allowing you to do more on your Apple tablet with Apple Intelligence. Powering iPads in 2024 and beyond, iPadOS 18 will make even the newest iPads like the M4 iPad Pro and the iPad Air 6 better.

Apple's iOS 18 features many of the brand new iOS 18 features announced at WWDC 2024, including more customizable Home Screen options, updates to the Control Center, and a new Photos app. 

iPadOS 18: The headlines

iPadOS 18 features updated file browsing in apps like Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, as well as refined animations. 

In iPadOS 18, new SharePlay features include a new Screen sharing ability that lets you tap and draw on someone else's screen, or even remotely control their iPad or iPhone, for example, if you need to provide tech support. 

Freeform now includes scenes, and the Calculator app has finally arrived on iPad! It features unique support for Apple Pencil including a new feature called Math Notes. The new Math Notes feature lets you write out expressions, and the Calculator app can do the sums for you! The new Math Notes feature event lets you calculate variables, using Apple Pencil to change parameters in real-time, letting you explore math, graphs, and beyond. 

Handwriting in Notes is also getting an upgrade through Smart Script, the new feature improves the appearance of your writing as you write, powered by on-device machine learning. Apple says you can scribble your thoughts as fast as you can think of them, and the new Smart Script will make them more legible. You can also paste type text into a handwritten note, and iPadOS 18 will merge the formatting with your written text. 

iPadOS 18 - best enjoyed on:

We're covering the WWDC 2024 event as it happens. Follow WWDC 2024 LIVE here. Or check out our roundups for all the latest on the newly announced iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, watchOS 11, visionOS 2, and Apple Intelligence.

The European Commission has today announced that Apple's iPadOS operating system has been designated under the Digital Markets Act, a move that will likely force Apple to adopt all of its recent iPhone changes in the market on its tablet. 

The EU says that Apple has six months "to ensure full compliance of iPadOS with the DMA obligations. It follows a market investigation into whether Apple's iPadOS operating system "constitutes an important gateway for business users to reach end users and therefore should be designated as a gatekeeper," despite the fact that Apple's iPadOS ecosystem does not meet the quantitative threshold laid out in the DMA. 

The EC says it has found that "Apple's business user numbers exceeded the quantitative threshold elevenfold," and that "its end user numbers were close to the threshold and are predicted to rise in the near future." 

The EC further states it found end users "are locked-in to iPadOS," claiming that "Apple leverages its large ecosystem to disincentivize end users from switching to other operating systems for tablets." Finally, Apple is accused of locking in business users to iPad "because of its large and commercially attractive user base, and its importance for certain use cases, such as gaming apps." 

Big changes for iPadOS

The move means that Apple will likely have to adopt many of the changes it has made with iOS 17 and its best iPhones in the EU on its iPad lineup too. That could mean a move to alternative app marketplaces, as well as web distribution (sideloading), and new rules for music streaming apps, game emulators, and game streaming apps, too. 

In a statement, an Apple spokesperson told iMore “We will continue to constructively engage with the European Commission to comply with the DMA, across all designated services. Our focus will remain on delivering the very best products and services to our European customers, while mitigating the new privacy and data security risks the DMA poses for our users.”

iPadOS and iOS share many of the same attributes and infrastructure, such that implementing many of the changes made to iPhone wouldn't be too much of a technical challenge. 

Challenges from the EU to Apple's business model will also likely see iPhones in the EU forced to open up Apple Pay to other payment wallets such as Google Pay. Apple continues to make significant changes to iOS 17 in the market, despite the fact that iOS 18 is only weeks away from an unveiling at WWDC 2024 on June 10. 

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Apple's "Let Loose" event is just days away, and we're excited to hear more about the iPad lineup after a quiet 2023. Still, the Apple Pencil is also seeing a revamp, and we now know what that could entail.

The third generation of Apple Pencil could be adding haptic feedback according to a new report from Mark Gurman, who drops the tidbit into his Power On newsletter, alongside reporting on the potential arrival of the M4 in the iPad Pro.

While Gurman doesn't state how it could be used, it's easy to imagine a world where users can switch between different modes, adjusting the feel of the Apple Pencil to feel like a traditional pencil on a page, or something more or less accurate.

In my mind, it could be closer to the way a Dualsense, the controller on Sony's PS5, adjusts its triggers via haptic feedback to help road surfaces feel different, or add the feeling of tension when drawing a bow.

Of course, we've had other instances of haptic feedback in tech, but as a point of reference, it'd be an interesting shift that would make the Apple Pencil stand out from third-party alternatives.

What about the Magic Keyboard?

The Apple Pencil is one thing, but what about the Magic Keyboard that forms the other part of the iPad triumvirate with the tablet?

Reports have previously suggested (also from Gurman last year) that a redesign is coming to the premium tablet accessory, but details are relatively scarce outside of the addition of a larger trackpad that's said to be more laptop-like.

Gurman has also suggested the keyboard could be aluminum, making it closer in style to a MacBook and sturdier.

Time will tell, with the new iPad lineup and accessories being revealed in just over a week, followed by WWDC 2024 in June.

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• Apple reportedly in talks with OpenAI for iOS 18 chatbot
• I've replaced Siri with the ChatGPT AI on my iPhone
• Apple has realized what the iPad's best feature is after 14 years — and its Let Loose event will make it clear

It's no secret that Apple's "Let Loose" event is coming next week, potentially with an event in London, and will likely highlight Apple's iPad lineup of tablets.

While the current iPad Pro is packing the M2 chip, it appears Apple is about to move to skip over the M3 chip (its current generation of chip which as added to the MacBook Air just a couple of months ago) and introduce the M4.

That comes via Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, who notes in his Power On newsletter that the iPad could be positioned as Apple's first truly AI-powered device.

An iPad Pro with M4 would mark the debut of a new chip generation on a tablet, which is also something we've not seen yet. In fact, Apple's tablets can often be a generation or two behind - the iPad Air, for example, is still using the M1 chip at the time of writing.

The first domino in Apple's AI push?

Given Apple hasn't really known how best to position the iPad (and how there was no iPad hardware launch last year), it's certainly a surprise move.

While Gurman notes there is only a "strong possibility" that the iPad Pro will be the M4, it seems it'll help AI lean into AI.

"By introducing the new iPad Pro ahead of its Worldwide Developers Conference in June, Apple could lay out its AI chip strategy without distraction," Gurman suggests.

"Then, at WWDC, it could focus on how the M4 chip and new iPad Pros will take advantage of the AI software and services coming as part of iPadOS 18 later this year."

Given the Let Loose event is just days away and WWDC 2024 follows just over a month later, we could know a lot more about Apple's AI strategy in the next few weeks.

More from iMore

• Apple reportedly in talks with OpenAI for iOS 18 chatbot
• I've replaced Siri with the ChatGPT AI on my iPhone
• Spotify extends AI lead over Apple Music with AI playlists feature

If you're holding onto an iPad that doesn't have an M-series chip or a recent A-series one, you may want to consider upgrading. A new rumor has suggested that pre-A10X processors will be cut from the iPadOS compatibility list ahead of iPadOS 18.

MacRumors spotted a private Twitter/X account, which has previously shared build numbers accurately for iOS releases, had shared a list of devices that won't have the option of installing the latest iPadOS release, expected to be revealed at WWDC this year. 

The post, which has now been deleted, suggested Apple will end support for the A10X Fusion chip, iPadOS 18 would only be available on the following models of tablet:

• iPad Pro models from 2018 and later (3rd Gen)
• iPad Air models from 2019 and later (3rd Gen)
• iPad mini models from 2019 and later (5th Gen)
• iPad models from 2020 and later (8th Gen)

Is it good news for iPhone?

A deleted post from an unverified source is hardly reason enough to try and sell your iPad now, but it's definitely worth considering - and could be hard to swallow for anyone rocking what would've been a very expensive tablet not long ago.

Still, there could be some positive news when it comes to iOS 18, which one Apple insider has said could be one of the biggest in the company's history.

Macrumors has also reported that the same account shared an iOS 18 devices list which is identical to that of the iOS 17 one. If the list is correct (and we wouldn't bet the house on it just yet), you'll be able to run iOS 18 on iPhones as old as the second and third-generation iPhone SE, or the iPhone XR.

The full list is below:

• iPhone 15/15 Plus
• iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max
• iPhone 14/14 Plus
• iPhone 14 Pro/14 Pro Max
• iPhone 13/13 Mini
• iPhone 13 mini
• iPhone 13 Pro/13 Pro Max
• iPhone 12/12 Mini
• iPhone 12 Pro/12 Pro Max
• iPhone 11
• iPhone 11 Pro/Pro Max
• iPhone XS/Max
• iPhone XR
• iPhone SE (2nd and 3rd Gen)

Amendment (03/15/24): This article has incorrectly stated that iPads that would run iPadOS 18 were made incompatible, instead of being able to run it according to the report. It has now been updated to correct that (thank you, naddy69, for spotting this).

More from iMore

• iOS 18 could have these great new accessibility features — more font size support, better voice Shortcuts, and more
• iOS 18 to feature big changes, but an even bigger macOS overhaul will follow
• Apple expects iOS 18 to be the biggest iOS update in the company's history, says top insider

iPadOS is getting increasingly easy to predict these days. A new multitasking format here, a few of last year's iPhone features there, and you've got yourself an updated tablet OS that powers the best-selling tablet lineup in the world.

That's not to say we're not happy with it though — iPad as an ecosystem will always have its caveats vs, say, a Mac, but there's still plenty to like about it, and it genuinely improves each year.

As an example, look at Stage Manager. Apple's multitasking solution debuted with iPadOS 16 but felt hamstrung by a variety of constraints.

A new multitasking paradigm for power users it was not. Still, with the removal (or at least lessening) of many of its limitations, it grew into a much more useful experience for many.

With this in mind, here's a wishlist of the three features I want to see in iPadOS 18.

Multiuser support

We've been asking for this almost as long as the iPad has been around. Still, it feels like a major consideration for anyone looking to share an iPad with their family, or for educational purposes.

Despite this, though, there is no way to set up your iPad on a per-user basis, meaning you still have to share apps, logins, photos, and much more. That's a big problem if you want to use the tablet for work, with specialized apps and potentially confidential information.

Only you can decide whether this would be a big feature for you — but for this writer, I'd love to share my iPad with my partner so she can do some shopping or browse the web without digging out her laptop.

Will it happen? Time will tell, but it's long overdue.

Even better external display support

Credit where it's due, Apple has finally realized (perhaps spurred on by the move to working from home) that people quite like the idea of working on external monitors - and not only the company's own pricey options.

While we once had the option to mirror a display to an external screen, we can now extend the workspace on compatible iPads.

That's one of my favorite features, and one I really want to see from the iPad mini, but a major drawback is the lack of 'clamshell mode' support like you'd find in a laptop.

With iPadOS 18, I want to be able to plug in my iPad Pro and have the Magic Keyboard closed so I can still interact with an external monitor using a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse combo.

A big update to the Files experience

Look, file managers aren't sexy. It's not the kind of update that's going to make anyone rush out and buy an iPad.

And yet, an overhauled Files experience would make it much easier to use things like Final Cut and Logic which debuted this year. 

Imagine an updated Spotlight search that lets you grab an item and drop it straight onto a Final Cut timeline without jumping into the Files app.

With USB-C becoming the standard across iPhones, too, there's the potential for Apple to make it much easier to use peripherals across both platforms. 

As a writer, I need to create and save images to upload elsewhere, and what takes me under a minute on the Mac still takes much longer on an iPad. Once that friction is removed, there's every chance I'll move over full-time.

While I'm griping about the Files app, can we please get a fresh app icon? It's a small touch, but YouTuber Christopher Lawley noted just how boring it is recently and now I can't unsee how it's just very flat. A small issue, sure, but where's that Apple pizazz?

Apple announced iPadOS 17 way back on June 5 at the company's WWDC 2023 event alongside new software for the iPhone, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and Mac. And now you can finally install it on your own iPad at home.

The software has been in developer and public beta testing for months now and it's been improved beyond those early releases. But this is the first time that the general public has been able to install it.

As with all iPadOS updates, this one is completely free and incredibly easy to install. And with the new features it brings, we'd suggest doing that as soon as possible, too.

It's finally here

Like the iOS 17 update, iPadOS 17 brings with it plenty of improvements for people who use their iPad on the daily. Those include a whole new Lock Screen experience, one that allows you to customize things in a similar way to the iPhone. That includes new wallpapers, the ability to link them to Focus Modes, and more

The iPadOS 17 update finally brings widgets to the iPad's Lock Screen while interactive widgets are now also available on the Home Screen just like on the iPhone. That makes interacting with apps and services easier and quicker than ever before.

There are of course many, many more new features whether that's search filters in Messages or audio message transcriptions.

You won't need to rush out to buy one of Apple's best iPads to install iPadOS 17, either. The update can be installed on the third-gen iPad Air, 6th-gen iPad, and the 5th-gen iPad mini. The 2nd-gen 12.9-inch iPad Pro, 11-inch iPad Pro, and 10.5-inch iPad Pro are all supported as well, as are newer versions of all of those devices.

Installing the iPadOS 17 update is easy — just head to the Settings app, tap General, followed by Software Update to get started.

When Apple announced iPadOS 17 at WWDC in June there was a lot to take in. So it's understandable that some features didn't get the attention they might have deserved. One of those features just gave us a wonderful mix of the old and the new and we're absolutely here for it.

The feature in question is support for UVC (USB Video Class) devices, and it already sounded pretty interesting. The short version is that the feature will allow iPads to recognize webcams for use in things like FaceTime which could be cool if you want to use something other than the built-in camera.

Now, one person has taken that UVC support and connected an external camera that few of us would ever have considered and the result is amazing. That camera? The GameBoy Camera, a product that was first released in 1998.

From 1998 to 2013

The story goes that MacStories' Federico Viticci was putting iPadOS 17 through its paces, testing UVC support in particular. He connected a few other accessories which worked fine — UVC also allows support for video capture cards and more — but it was when the GameBoy Camera became involved that things really got interesting.

"I have an Analogue Pocket, which is an outstanding modern take on the Game Boy that can play original Game Boy cartridges," Viticci explains. "I also have the Analogue Pocket dock, which lets me play Game Boy games on a big screen by taking advantage of the Pocket’s excellent upscaling mode for Game Boy graphics." The scene was set.

The next question was obvious. "If I could use the Game Boy Camera on a Pocket and send the video feed from the console to the iPad Pro, would I then be able to do a FaceTime call with someone while looking like a character straight out of a Game Boy game?" The answer, it seems, was that he could.

The result was a FaceTime call with Viticci appearing in that familiar GameBoy -display green.

You can of course read the ins and outs of how this all went down over on MacStories, and it's well worth checking out. If only to see what FaceTime would have looked like if it launched in 1998.

First announced at WWDC 2023, iPadOS 17 is now available as a public beta. We’ve been trying it out, and while some features are in a far better shape than iPadOS 16, there’s still a way to go.

For those unaware, Apple has been trying to solve the issue of multitasking on an iPad, arguably since the debut of iOS 4.2 in 2011. At first, you could switch between full-screen apps by double pressing the home button, like an iPhone, but it wasn’t until 2015 that we got split-screen apps and slide-over.

Stage Manager was announced as a way to solve multitasking in 2022, but instead, it arrived in a very buggy state in iPadOS 16, while its snappable grid made it frustrating to place the apps wherever you wanted.

But in our time with iPadOS 17, we may finally be able to recommend the feature if you’re a heavy iPad user.

What else is new?

Of course, iPad gets last year’s big features, as is standard, so widgets have finally arrived on the lock screen. But instead, all of them are displayed on the left, and you can place as many as the column allows.

Being able to create new lock screens on a far bigger display like the iPad is very welcome - these new looks give a great impression on an iPad, especially when some photos hide part of the time.

But interactive widgets are arguably the biggest news here - on the home screen and lock screen, if there’s a widget with a toggle, such as Home and Dark Noise, the action will occur within the widget, without launching you into the app in question.

This saves a headache that’s never made sense since widgets were redesigned back in 2020 and makes widgets even more powerful.

But of course, it’s Stage Manager which has gained the greatest of improvements in iPadOS 17.

Setting the stage, with widgets on the side

To get to the point - Stage Manager in iPadOS 16 was a broken mess. Apps would crash when you would move them around the display, while its external monitor feature would barely work. And when it did, some apps would crash the whole iPad, forcing a restart.

Things didn’t get much better as updates arrived to iPadOS 16, and it’s a feature that was left off for many users due to its lack of reliability and confusing interface.

But for iPadOS 17, Apple has clearly heard the criticisms, and while it would have been great to have seen this in iPadOS 16.3 and not let these frustrations simmer for almost a year, it finally works great.

First of all, moving apps around the display no longer snaps them aggressively to an invisible grid. You tap and hold, drag an app, and when you let go, it stays in the same place - finally.

If you drag it to the dock or the edge of the display, you’ll get a minor bounce-back, but shaking it and letting go, keeps the app in a corner.

This one change gets rid of a huge frustration - and something that should have been here in iPadOS 16, mainly because you could do the same thing in macOS Ventura in 2022. I’ve found myself using Threads and Safari side by side, while a YouTube video plays and there hasn’t been one crash.

The same applies to when I connected the iPad Pro to a monitor - moving apps with the trackpad on the Magic Keyboard felt easier - it was similar to moving an app from one screen to another in macOS - it just worked.

A month on, I’ve found myself using Stage Manager when I want to use Ulysses, Safari, Threads, and Messages all at once, without the fear of it all collapsing into itself with crashes. It works, and even though I believe it would be even better with a bigger iPad with a 15-inch display, it’s a great start at last.

Righting the wrongs of last year

For years now, users have been wondering if they can ever work from an iPad full-time. I’m here to tell you that you’ve always been able to - but its software has restricted others from moving on completely.

From the introduction of external storage support in iPadOS 13 to Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro arriving in May 2023, to a non-buggy working Stage Manager in iPadOS 17.

Sometimes, Apple introduces features that hint towards what it’s working on - and Stage Manager, to me at least, gives a big hint that bigger iPads are on the way. The freedom it gives you now in arranging apps, alongside being able to use an external webcam and extend the display to an external monitor, means it’s heading towards the iPad becoming an even more powerful content-creation machine.

While iPadOS 17 is still in beta and we could see some features change before its launch later this year, we’re hoping that Apple keeps Stage Manager as it is, and perhaps even gives other iPads the ability to use it.

So far, so good Apple - perhaps let us use StandBy mode with our iPad minis next.

The latest Preview Build of Windows 11 brings improvements to Windows Ink that have been available on the iPad for years.

In Windows 11 Build 23481, Windows Ink is "being modernized to allow users to enable inking directly onto edit fields. In addition, we are improving the accuracy from the recognition technology and a scratch out gesture for when users need to make edits. The goal with Windows Ink is to let users use their pen and handwrite anywhere they can type on their Windows device."

Sound familiar? Scribble was introduced to the iPad in 2020 as part of iPadOS 14 and has been allowing users to enter text into text fields with handwriting ever since.

The new improvements to Windows Ink will arrive later this year for Windows 11 users and only supports English (U.S) for now. If you're on the Insider Dev Channel, the feature is currently in the process of being rolled out and should be available on your device soon.

Scribble more.

Scribble on iPad with Apple Pencil is so easy to use and well-incorporated into the operating system that I sometimes wonder why I don't use it more.

The ability to tap on a text box and input handwritten text without ever typing on a keyboard is incredibly practical and, thanks to iPadOS's great handwriting detection, very efficient too. 

It's great to see Windows 11 add these features to Windows Ink, as having the option to input text using handwriting on a tablet just makes far too much sense. It will be interesting to see how Windows 11's handwriting input works compared to Apple's Scribble and which one will take the crown as the best handwriting input on a tablet.

We don't have long to wait for these updates to come to Windows 11, and we might even see more improvements under the hood in iPadOS 17 that make Scribble an even better proposition. It's a fun time to love handwriting.

iPadOS 17.1 is finally here, bringing with it bug fixes, subtle changes and better AirDorp support. Originally available for developers and insiders to test out, the general public has finally gotten the full release so you are able to download it right now.

It has been a busy month for Apple, with both the launch of the latest iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro handsets but brand new watches also called for new software. If you have found yourself having some problems with your watch, watchOS 10.1 has arrived to fix it.

If you have an iPad, you're in for a treat as iPadOS 17.1 is an iteration of an already great bit of software. If you want to make sure your iPad is upgraded to iPadOS 17.1, here's everything you should know. 

Download iPadOS 17.1 on devices running iPadOS 16.4 or later

If your iPad is running iPadOS 16.4 or later, it should be incredibly easy to get the newest version, iPadOS 17.1, for your device. 

1. Open Settings on your iPad
2. Tap General 
3. Then tap on Software Update
4. You might see more than one available update, tap the one for iPadOS 17.1
5. Tap on Download and Install
6. You might need to enter your passcode
7. Then tap Install Now

It's that simple. And, if you already have updates set to download automatically, you might not even have to follow those steps at all. You may have already woken up to iPadOS 17.1 without realizing it. 

iPadOS 17.1 is here, and it's glorious

iPadOS 17.1 is the next generation of iPad software and it's incredibly exciting, representing a major upgrade to the way your iPad looks and works.

We can't wait to get properly stuck into iPadOS 17.1 and all of the changes it will bring. With the announcement of iPadOS 17 at WWDC 2023, we've had some time to test out the new lock screen, customization options, widget implementation, and new PDF features. iPadOS 17.1 only improves all of that.

Interestingly, the latest update to iPads seems to be making your experience more macOS-like too, with Safari updates and Stage Manager extras. Even the keyboard is being spruced up while there's the addition of a health app you're more used to seeing on your iPhone.

I’m three feet away from my HomePod and I want to hurl it across the room. “Hey Siri! Turn the dining table on!” I say, for the sixth time. Siri waits, and waits, and says brightly, “Do you mean the table lamp?” 

I’ve pretty much given up asking Siri to play songs – I tap my iPhone instead – and later, when I ask Siri to tell me the weather forecast, she’ll completely ignore me. That night I’ll ask Siri to set an alarm, and she will confirm it, and in the morning I’ll be late for work because my alarm won’t go off. 

When Phil Schiller unveiled Siri at the launch of the iPhone 4S in 2011 – yes, Siri is that old – he said, “For decades, technologists have teased us with this dream that you’re going to be able to talk to technology, and it’ll do things for us. Haven’t we seen this before, over and over? But it never comes true.”

Oh, Phil. It still hasn’t come true.

I loved Siri when it first came out, because it felt like the future: it was flawed, sure, but you could see where it was going. And then it just didn’t go. I really hope that's going to change at WWDC 2023 tomorrow.

It doesn't "just work"

I know it’s smarter, but Siri in iOS 16 doesn’t feel significantly better than the one first introduced in iOS 5. And that’s because it isn’t.

Don’t get me wrong. There have been improvements. More voices. Some third-party access. Siri Shortcuts. But as a personal digital assistant, Siri often sucks, and while that’s annoying enough in itself it’s an increasing problem for Apple in a world of large language models such as ChatGPT. Many of those apps give you wrong answers with great confidence, but at least they answer you. I can barely persuade Siri to play a song on my HomePods.

According to recent reports, the Reality Pro team was so unimpressed by Siri that they offered to write a replacement. Given the importance of voice to VR/AR, that’s incredibly damning.

And it’s not the only criticism that’s come from Apple experts. Just a few days ago The Information ran a piece on the AI experts who’ve jumped ship from Apple to Google because they feel that when it comes to language learning and digital assistants, Apple just doesn’t work; it’s Google, not Apple, that apparently Thinks Different.

So what’s the problem?

Siri is shonky

The problem is apparently pretty simple. Siri is shonky.

Back in 2018, The Information ran a piece detailing seven years of Siri in which it blamed the digital assistant for the disappointing performance of the first-generation HomePod. Apparently surprised by the popularity of Siri, Apple raced to make improvements – improvements built on code that the article’s sources described as “inflexible”, “brittle” and “patched up but never completely replaced.” In DIY, that’s known as a bodge job: it looks okay from a distance but it’s not made to last.

That was enough of a problem in 2018, but it’s even more of a problem now because so much more of our interactions with Apple hardware are vocal. Siri’s in your AirPods and your HomePods, your Apple TV remote and your iPhone, and soon it’ll be on your face courtesy of the Reality Pro VR headset.

And that’s just for the basic stuff, the controlling your smart home and adding things to your Reminders and picking songs on Apple Music stuff. We haven’t even dipped our toes into the overhyped but important waters of large language models such as ChatGPT yet.

So what's actually wrong with Siri?

The first and most obvious problem with Siri is that it’s incredibly slow. I was hoping that the iOS 16 updates, which brought new firmware for HomePods and other hardware, would fix it. But no. It’s still slow enough that every interaction has me wondering if Siri heard me at all, and it’s much slower than Amazon’s Echo. I know because I have one of them too, and my kids prefer using it because it doesn’t keep them waiting.

I know that’s a first-world problem – ooh! My voice-recognizing intelligent speaker takes a few seconds to control my digital home! – but it’s also an I’ve-spent-a-fortune-on-this problem. You wouldn’t accept an iPhone 14 that waited that long to respond to a swipe.

The second problem is that Siri’s voice recognition is still problematic. Maybe it’s because I’m not American – I’ve been using speech recognition since it was invented, and as a Scottish person I got used to putting on a fake US accent to get things like IBM’s ViaVoice to understand me – but I hardly have a thick Glaswegian accent and Amazon’s Alexa can hear me fine.

Part of the problem may also be that Siri sounds too good. Because Siri sounds human, there’s an expectation that it’ll be as competent as a human – so when it falls short, something tech often does, the frustration is amplified: you’re asking HAL 9000 to open the pod bay doors and it’s refusing to do it.

So how does Apple fix it?

What I'd like to see at WWDC

We’ve had years of reports detailing what appears to be a really dysfunctional operation around Siri, with multiple management changes and what appears to be a lack of interest and resources: Siri seems to this outsider to be considered a feature in iOS, not a core product. Apple even removed some Siri features in iOS 15.

I’d like to see that lack of focus change, and for Apple to set out its vision for Siri: what exactly is Siri for? Because if it’s just about controlling your Apple kit and your smart home, it’s fallen behind rivals quite considerably.

If it’s about answering all kinds of questions, it’s fallen behind there too. And if it’s about much more, potentially becoming the Jarvis to every Apple user’s Iron Man, then Apple needs to take Siri much more seriously. I’m hoping we’ll see signs of that at WWDC.

Apple recently released updates to iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and macOS in the past week (May 22), just before the mania of announcements at WWDC 2023 begin on June 5.

These are more subdued updates this time compared to previous releases of iOS 16, where iOS 16.2 introduced Freeform, while iOS 16.5 and watchOS 9.5 brought out the latest Pride wallpaper for 2023.

You can update by going to Settings > General > Software Update and tapping on 'Public Beta' to download 16.6 if you've signed up for the Public Beta beforehand.

The lack of new features isn't a surprise, with iOS 17 likely to be announced in just a couple of weeks, alongside the rest of the major updates expected at WWDC 2023.

However, there is one new feature that looks to be debuting with 16.6 that was announced way back in 2022 through a press release.

A new iMessage feature from 2022 finally appears

If you go to Settings > Messages on the 16.6 beta, you'll find an 'iMessage Contact Key Verification' section, but tapping it does nothing for now.

For those unaware, it's a feature announced back in December 2022, where an alert within the app will tell you if you're talking to a false contact, and this can be verified with the recipient to let you know if the person you're talking to, is genuine or not.

It's a useful feature from what Apple has described, and it's the only one from this press release that's yet to be made available for everyone. We wouldn't be surprised to see 16.6 debut by July with this, most likely once the public beta for iOS 17 is made available to those who want to try an early version of the next major iOS update.

With Apple announcing these kinds of security features, there's a good chance that we'll see plenty more announced at WWDC, and not just for iPhone. Seeing iMessage Contact Key Verification appear on macOS 14 and iPadOS 17 would be useful for those who own multiple Apple devices. WWDC is very soon, so we don't have much longer to wait to find out!

I’ve been writing about mobile Macs for decades now, and there’s a Mac that regularly appears in wish lists, patent filings, and the odd rumor: a touchscreen, cellular MacBook Pro. And the frustrating thing about it is that Apple already makes it. 

The iPad Pro is the MacBook Pro you’ve always wanted. Unfortunately, it’s running the wrong OS.

Don’t get me wrong. I love iPads and I mostly love iPadOS too. But I’d love the iPad Pro so much more if it were running macOS, not a mobile OS. Then I could run really serious apps such as the full-fat versions of all the key creative apps for photography, illustration, 3D art, and more. 

The iPad Pro is more than capable of doing that, as we can see from the surprise launch of Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro X for iPadOS, but it seems Apple would rather keep it as a big iPad rather than a more magical MacBook.

We already have enough horses

The current iPad Pro is a serious piece of hardware, with an M2 chip comprising an 8-core CPU and a 10-core GPU. That’s the same chip that’s in the 13-inch MacBook Pro, and the same chip that many Mac laptop users have powering their Logic Pro X, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, and other heavyweight apps.

There’s no doubt that the current Pro has the horsepower, and the next generation will have even more horses for heavy-duty work.

What the Pro doesn’t have is a fully-fledged, desktop-class, multitasking OS. Stage Manager is a step in that direction, but it’s clunky; rumors say there’s a big iPad-specific update coming in iPadOS 17 with better external display support, but it’s still Stage Manager.

I can see where Apple’s going with it, but I’m not sure it’s going to get there any time soon. And I’m not sure it’s the perfect solution for the pro users the iPad Pros are aimed at.

Put your Pro hat on

Let’s say you’re one of those pros. What do you want from your device? Me, I want Logic Pro X on a touchscreen tablet instead of having to add all kinds of keyboards and controllers to my M2 Mac. Sure, I can run Logic Remote on a plain old iPad and use it to remotely control the mixing desk.

But that’s two bits of Apple hardware to do one app’s job. I imagine Photoshop pros, and Premiere users, and others, would like something simple but powerful too.

And it’s not just the apps. It’s the file management – Apple’s Files app is fine for basic sharing but it’s not really cut out for the huge amounts of data that Pro apps generate and manage – and it's the multitasking between your core app and your helper apps and social media time wasters too.

The hardware is capable of all of this, and more: there’s the Apple Pencil support, which is particularly great in the latest iPad Pros, and of course, there’s also the cellular options: now the iPad Pro supports 5G mobile connections, mobile data is actually usable even for pretty big projects. 

The differences between the Mac and the iPad made sense when the Mac ran on Intel and the iPad was the easy computer for everybody. But the move to Apple Silicon – and Apple’s very aggressive development of that silicon; it’s come an incredibly long way in a very short period of time – and the increasingly blurred lines between macOS and iOS/iPadOS have taken away some of the rationales for those differences. 

I think the problem is that the iPad Pro is suffering from an identity crisis: it’s more Mac than iPad, but Apple’s trying to persuade it otherwise. But the iPad Pro isn’t made for or bought for your cherubic kids or game-playing grandmother; it’s a powerhouse for creative professionals. iPadOS was never made for that, and trying to make it a pro-level platform without sacrificing its beginner-friendly simplicity runs the risk of creating something that falls between both goals.

So will Apple make the iPad Pro run macOS?

I think it already has: somewhere in Apple Park I’m sure there are multiple unreleased iPads running multiple unreleased operating systems. Apple likes to cover all the bases. But for now, I think a macOS iPad Pro is unlikely: I think a touchscreen MacBook is probably closer to Apple’s heart. 

I don’t think the reason is technical, though, or practical, or even ideological. I think it’s financial. Every one of the paid apps you run on your iPad Pro gives Apple a cut of its purchase price or in-app subscriptions, and it’s a very large cut. 

That’s not necessarily the case on the Mac, where you can also install apps directly from the developers. But right now, the App Store is the only way to get apps on your tablet. The EU is compelling Apple to enable sideloading of non-App-Store apps for European consumers, but it’s a safe bet that Apple will do that in the most limited way it can get away with and won’t extend it to other consumers. 

For as long as Apple makes nearly a third of every app sold on an iPad, Apple is going to want to keep the iPad separate from the Mac. The iPad Pro is going to get more Mac-like in the years to come. But I don’t think it’s going to become a Mac for a long time yet.

Apple has brought out a video on how to use Stage Manager, its latest attempt at multitasking on an iPad. But it raises more questions than it answers in its two-minute runtime.

Multitasking on iPad has been a long-running saga for the tablet, ever since it launched in 2010. But even with Stage Manager debuting with iPadOS 16 last year, it's somehow made multitasking worse, and this video from Apple (embedded below) doesn't help matters.

The video has confused users who know how to use split-view, which is where you can run two iPad apps side by side while alienating those who use an iPad to consume content and have come across Stage Manager by mistake.

Over the last year, Apple has brought out some bug fixes for Stage Manager, but it's a plaster to an arm that's still losing a lot of blood. I use a 12.9-inch iPad Pro sparingly, but I never use Stage Manager due to its bizarre limitations.

This recent video, where Apple's in-house experts showcase how to use it, does nothing to change my mind. But it does, at least, give the impression that the feature is a solid, bug-free experience.

iPadOS 17 needs to fix Stage Manager

Watching the above video showcase switching between three windows, alongside using the sidebar to choose other apps, was odd to me. It again gave me the impression that Stage Manager brings no added benefit to the user, especially if you're using it on a smaller display than a 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

In my experience, dragging some apps to the side, or selecting others to bring them to the front, results in crashes, and I've even experienced times when two apps displayed suddenly snap into split-view without my input.

One of its most fatal errors to me is that apps have an invisible grid — you can't really place apps anywhere you choose on the display, and that is a big source of my frustration with it. So I leave it off and stick with split-view.

If you asked iPad users how they switch between apps and use a couple at the same time, there's a good chance that a majority of the answers would be of surprise that you can run two apps simultaneously at all. For example, my parents have an iPad Air, and when I showed them Stage Manager, they suddenly looked anxious — as if I transformed the tablet into something completely unfamiliar, and somewhat intimidating, for them to use.

That is un-Apple-like, and that alone only shows to me that it's a feature that needs a big redesign if it's to be a big part of iPad multitasking in the future.

I hope that once iPadOS 17 is announced at WWDC 2023, we see some big improvements to the feature, and it gives a much better impression to iPad users than what Stage Manager did when it first arrived in 2022.

In a parallel universe where Steve Jobs is still with us, he’s preparing for the big reveal of Apple’s AR/VR headset, most likely called the Apple Reality Pro. In his keynote he’ll make a wry joke about his own alleged reality distortion field, and then just like he did with the original iPhone he’ll summarise the headset in just three bullet points. 

And that’s the bit of the keynote he’s having trouble with. The iPhone was easy: “An iPod. A phone. An internet mobile communicator.” But the headset… what is it? What is it for?

That’s why WWDC’s reveal is going to be fun. I don’t think Apple knows what it’s for, and that’s why it’s fascinating.

It's just history repeating

We’ve been here before. When Jobs took the stage again to unveil the original iPad in 2011, there wasn’t the same clarity as there was with the iPhone. Was the iPad more than just a really huge iPod touch? With hindsight, of course it was. But when it first launched, and for a long time afterwards, it seemed like hardware desperately seeking software: it was really nice, but what was it actually for? 

Some early predictions – it was going to be big in ebooks, unseating Kindle from its place atop the e-reading throne - were way off the mark, and others didn’t see the future coming: today’s most popular free-to-install iPad apps are primarily video streaming, whether that’s Netflix, Disney+, YouTube or TikTok.

Something similar happened with the original Apple Watch. It’s interesting to look back at the first generation Apple Watch event because so much of the publicity around it focused on what it was rather than what it could do: there was a lot of talk around the Digital Crown and a lot less about the fitness and health features that would turn out to be more important, and live longer, than the Digital Touch that enabled you to send your heartbeat to someone else.

What Apple essentially did with the first generations of iPad and Apple Watch was to make them some sandwiches, tell them to wear sunscreen and send them off on adventures to see where they would end up. I think that’s a lesson learnt from the iPhone, which turned out rather differently from Apple’s original intentions: according to Steve Jobs’ biographer Walter Isaacson, Jobs was very opposed to having third-party apps on iPhone. According to CNBC, Apple’s App Store grossed between $70 billion and $85 billion in 2022.

The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to Apple

I’m reminded of legendary Apple fan Douglas Adams, whose Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy described the creation of a computer that would provide the answer to life, the universe and everything. You know this one: after many millennia, the ancestors of its creators were finally given the answer, and it was 42. It turns out that it wasn’t enough to know the answer. You needed to know the question too.

I’m pretty sure that the Reality Pro headset is Apple’s "42". It’s the answer to something, but right now I’m not convinced anybody knows what that something is. Could the killer app be VR FaceTime? Maybe. Or maybe it’s something a lot simpler, like being able to lie back and stream TikTok. Maybe it’s 3D sports where you can feel like you’re right there in the stadium. Or maybe it’s an alternative to having three giant monitors for your Mac. Maybe it’s all of these things, or none of them, or other things entirely.

Nobody knows anything

I don’t think anybody knows where the Reality Pro will end up taking us, and I think that’s fascinating. It’s fascinating because it means we’re almost certainly going to see something surprising emerge, something that with hindsight is going to seem incredibly obvious but isn’t right now – just like iPads being many people’s TVs, or iPhones having an App Store. They weren’t obvious at first either.

That’s what I love so much about tech. I love it when it surprises me, when it delights me, when it not only makes my life more interesting and entertaining but also creates new experiences I’ll soon wonder how I managed without. And that’s where I think the Reality devices are heading – maybe not with the first generation, but over a fairly short space of time.

I think the Reality is Apple’s next iPad, a device that establishes a new kind of computing – and yes, other people have made headsets, just as Microsoft beat Apple to tablets; but there’s one market leader in tablet computing and it isn’t Microsoft – that takes some time to emerge. If you go back and look at the OG iPad’s hardware, software and available apps it doesn’t feel like it’s from a decade ago; it feels like it’s from a lifetime ago. And in tech terms, it is. Just as the Reality Pro will be when we look back at it in 2033.

Although hopefully by then it’ll be a hell of a lot cheaper.

Apple released a surprise security patch for the iPhone on Monday, updating the smartphone's software to iOS 16.4.1a -- but the company offered exactly no other information about the security vulnerability.

The patch is part of a new protocol from the company called Rapid Security Response, and after testing them in the beta update channels, this type of update are now slowly rolling out to devices running iOS 16.4.1, iPadOS 16.4.1, and macOS 13.3.1.

For those unaware, these are much smaller updates that revolve around quashing exploits and vulnerabilities that hackers can try to use to steal your data from your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. "They deliver important security improvements between software updates," Apple said in a support article about the patch, and "may also be used to mitigate some security issues more quickly, such as issues that might have been exploited or reported to exist in the wild."

Apple did not immediately reply to iMore requests for more information about the security hole.

Previously, these sorts of security risks would have been part of bigger or minor software updates, but since these exploits need to be fixed quickly, this method is a much faster way of protecting your device.

If it hasn't appeared as a pop-up, go to Settings > General > Software Update > Automatic Updates on your iPhone or iPad, and make sure it's switched on. The update should then start to download and install.

If you're on a Mac, go to the Apple menu () > System Settings > Click General in the sidebar, then click Software Update to the right.

You should see the same Rapid Response Update as iPhone and iPad, ready to download and install as well.

What did this update fix?

Even though the Rapid Response Update is available to download with a link to this Apple Support page, it doesn't list the fixes that this update entails.

However, security fixes are usually listed on this page, so it may be a matter of Apple updating this page soon with what 16.4.1(a) fixes.

On the iMore team, we've all updated our devices with this update and reached out to Apple for comment as to what it's actually responded to.

Faster is always better

First announced last year, Rapid Response updates have been in testing ever since iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and macOS 13 Ventura were all released in beta for developers back in June 2022, and work has carried on ever since.

It seems as though Apple wanted to get this part right for all of its users, as it's obviously an important feature to download and install correctly every time a new exploit has been discovered.

This makes sense, especially when there are hundreds of millions of Apple devices out there. And with WWDC 2023 not too far away, there's inevitably going to be new betas for iOS 17, macOS 14 and everything else announced very soon. 

But while this arguably could have been rolled out years ago, it's good that Rapid Response is finally here for your devices. It will save time in downloading a huge update such as iOS 16.2 that brought new features and bug fixes for example, and will also save on your data usage when connected to cellular data or a Wi-Fi service.

The iPadOS 17 software update is expected to be announced during the WWDC23 opening keynote on June 5 and now a new report suggests that there are some notable improvements coming to one of the features added when iPadOS 16 arrived in late 2022.

An update that was designed to help give owners of every iPad something new to use, not just those with the best iPads, iPadOS 16 brought with it Stage Manager. That was also a feature that was brought to the Mac with macOS 13 Ventura, but it's the iPad version that we're focusing on here.

That's because a new leak claims that Apple is about to make some changes to Stage Manager that could help turn its tablets into even more capable laptop replacement machines, especially when connected to an external display like the Studio Display.

New features galore

It's worth noting right out of the gate that this latest rumor comes via the Twitter leaker @analyst941 who has a short history with these things. They successfully shared details about the iPhone 14 Pro and the Dynamic Island before the phone was announced in September 2022, but they've been very active in the build up to WWDC23. Time will tell whether their claims are accurate, but keep an open mind when reading on.

All of that being said, the leaker says that multiple Stage Manager improvements are coming including:

• External monitor webcam support.
• Audio output source settings.
• Stream Multiple audio/vid sources at once with Stage Manager on.
• Resizable dock (in external display settings only)
• Sleep iPad display; external display stays on.

Being able to connect an iPad to an external monitor and use its webcam could be a big deal for people who use their iPad during work, while the other changes appear more aimed at power users.

As for when iPadOS 17 will arrive, that WWDC announcement will likely be followed by months of betas. Then, a final version of iPadOS 17 is expected to be released to the world in or around September alongside iOS 17 as well as software updates for the Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV.

Rumors have suggested that a bigger iPad is in the works for 2024, with iPadOS 17 being made to be compatible with this new model, alongside some new features.

According to Twitter user @analyst941, which has accurately leaked Apple's plans before, a 14.1-inch iPad model powered by an M3 chip is slated to run with iPadOS 17, which will also be able to run two 4K Monitors at a 60Hz refresh rate at once.

Compared to the current iPad models that can only do this with one, it could be a big deal for those who use multiple monitors for video editing.

There have been constant rumors of a bigger iPad coming, and with Stage Manager launching in a rough state with iPadOS 16 in 2022, it at least showed potential for how a bigger display could benefit the feature, such as resizing a bunch of apps at once on a big canvas.

But with the confusing lineup that iPad already offers, could a bigger model muddle the waters even more?

Will this help clear the iPad confusion?

As we've said before, if you're looking to buy or upgrade a new iPad, you have so many choices that you could get confused after a few minutes.

So to add yet another model to the lineup could make you wonder if Apple has greater plans for the tablet at WWDC this year.

It's no secret that Stage Manager, the latest effort to redesign how multitasking works on iPad, hasn't been a great success. Even in iPadOS 16.4, using the feature can sometimes crash the home screen, causing a restart, while some apps will randomly switch between displaying in a smaller size and then disappearing completely.

But with rumors that the Health app is finally moving over to the tablet, alongside the redesigned Lock Screen from iOS 16, it could have a bunch of new features that could make the tablet easier and more enjoyable to use for power users.

Yet that doesn't solve the issue of how many iPads are available at once, alongside which accessories work with which model.

For example, the Magic Keyboard Folio for the iPad (2022) that has a function row doesn't work with an 11-inch iPad Pro. But the iPad Pro's Magic Keyboard for this doesn't have a function row, so you have to reach for Control Center to access some features such as brightness settings.

It's a confusing affair, so hopefully we see a simplification of the line by the time 2023 ends, and once a 14.1-inch iPad model arrives, it makes much more sense for it to arrive.

If Apple follows its own cadence we can expect it to announce the next big iPad software update at WWDC in June and now we've been told to expect a big change to the way the Lock Screen works.

According to that report, we can look forward to tweaks that will allow iPadOS 17 users to customize their iPad's Lock Screen in ways that simply weren't possible before.

In fact, we're told to expect the iPad to get Lock Screen feature parity with iOS 16 and then some — it's said that more changes are coming in iOS 17.

Customize all the things

This latest round of leaks comes via Twitter user @analyst941 who is thought to have also been the anonymous tipster responsible for outing the iPhone 14 Pro and its Dynamic Island in 2022. That was before we knew what the pill + hole-punch design actually meant for Apple's best iPhone.

Now, in a new post, the leaker says that we can expect the iPad to gain the same features as were already available in iOS 16. They then go a step further, adding that we can expect new features on top of the ones already offered to iPhone users when iOS 17 is announced as well. That backs up a similar leak that recently appeared on the Chinese social network Weibo.

If this all comes to fruition it will be a big change for the iPad. If so, iPadOS 17 will allow people to put widgets on their iPad Lock Screen for the first time as well as have Focus Modes automatically change the Lock Screen and vice-versa.

Apple is expected to announce iPadOS 17 on June 5, 2023, but it isn't likely to be made available to the public until in or around the middle of September. That's also when we expect Apple to release other big software updates for the iPhone, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV as well.

It might be time to move on from your aging iPad if rumors are true about which devices iPadOS 17 will support.

According to iPhoneSoft, the first generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro from 2015, alongside the iPad 5 from that year, will be unable to update to the upcoming version, expected to be announced at WWDC 2023.

It's normal for Apple to drop support for its previous products - the second generation iPad Air from 2014 was unable to update to iPadOS 16 in 2022 for example.

However, as Apple decided to open up Stage Manager to more iPad models in the run-up to iPadOS 16's release, we could see some features reserved for its more recent devices.

A tale as old as Apple time

Removing old devices from newer updates is nothing new - even before iOS 4 removed support for the original iPhone back in 2010, Apple made sure to remove older Macs from updating to its Mac OS X updates. It's all in the vein of making sure there are enough plates to spin without spreading itself too thin.

No company can maintain supporting a bunch of products - the probability of bugs hampering the user experience is too great. It's the same for developers - there is only so much an app can support without it buckling from running on every Apple device.

So while iPadOS 17 is rumored to be a smaller update this time, with refinements and bug fixes being the name of the game while its VR headset takes center stage, it could still be a good time to look into upgrading your iPad if you own one from 2015.

From the iPad mini (2021) to the iPad (2022), you could get a faster chip, TouchID on the power button, and many colors to choose from, with software support for a few more years to come from any of Apple's best iPads.

Freeform is Apple’s collaborative visual planning tool that helps you get a grasp on projects and share them with others to help get things done.

If the Freeform app’s overwhelming amount of blank space puts you off, fret not, iMore is here to guide you through the basics of how to and why you should use Apple’s latest brainstorming app.

The perfect planner

Using Freeform to get started with your project, like planning your summer vacation, gives you an ever-evolving canvas to keep track of what you want to achieve. With the ability to add visual media into your planning mix, the app has the potential to become the snapshot of your life that reminds you to keep on top of your personal and professional goals rather than give up as soon as you’ve written them down. As you continue to fill in your board, the ability to make Freeform whatever you want it to be is unlocked – the real magic of the app.

Getting started

Launching Freeform’s expansive canvas for the first time allows you to combine different tools and objects to bring your ideas to life.

1. Tap the new page icon in the top right corner to create a new board

If you’ve used Apple Notes before, the layout will feel familiar. From shapes to images, audio clips to videos, the menu gives you access to everything you need to plan your project.

Add a sticky note

1. Tap the square note icon
2. Double-tap to enter text
3. Single-tap brings up formatting options, including colors and styles

Add shapes

1. Tap the shape icon and choose a shape
2. Single tap the shape to reveal formatting tools. For example, you can edit line start and end points by tapping

Get drawing

1. Tap the markup icon
2. Select a drawing tool
3. Use your finger on iOS or Apple Pencil on iPad to annotate and draw

It’s worth adding that Mac users cannot draw or handwrite directly in Freeform, although you can drag and drop files from Finder as you please.

Insert media

1. Tap the image icon
2. Freeform allows users to insert from the Files app, add links, scan documents, and add photos or videos

Let’s collaborate

The real power of Freeform comes in the shape of collaboration, where you can edit in real time alongside up to 99 other collaborators.

1. Tap the share icon
2. Select who you want to invite
3. Click Send. It’s as simple as 1,2,3

Once the person has accepted your invitation, a couple of options appear within the app, including the ability to manage your shared board. In addition, if you need to chat about what to get done and how to do it, Apple makes having a call while you collaborate seamless by adding FaceTime video boxes to the corner of your Freeform workspace.

1. Tap the collaborator’s icon on the top menu
2. Tap Video
3. Tap Call

By tapping Manage Shared Board, you can edit your share options, including the ability to change permissions and remove user access.

Endless possibilities

There are tonnes of planning and collaboration apps out there on the App Store. What sets Apple’s Freeform apart is the accessibility to everyone that buys an iPhone, whether it’s the best iPhone on the market or an iPhone SE. Freeform makes it easy to collaborate as you please and can be used for anything, from planning your New Year’s resolutions to that new business you’ve had on your mind for a while – the use cases are endless.

There have been plenty of significant changes since the iPad debuted back in 2010, from the bigger iPad Pro with Apple Pencil in 2015, to external storage support with iPadOS 13 in 2019. But it still feels as though the entire line is confused, with accessories that work only with certain models and features that exist only on others, and even disparity between accessories, such as the function key row on the iPad’s Magic Folio Keyboard.

As it stands, before we see iPadOS 17 at WWDC in June, multitasking is frustrating, the entire iPad lineup is confusing as to which model serves which user, and an M2 chip in the biggest iPad Pro is not being taken advantage of. So with all of this in mind, here are three ways to improve the iPad.

Redesign the Lock Screen

While some expect lock screen widgets to arrive in iPadOS 17, it would be great to see Apple go further here. There’s so much real estate to play with, so let’s see a return of the time and date moved to the left with bigger lock screen widgets that are inspired by iOS 16 placed below this.

To the right of the screen, notifications and a bigger Live Activities widget could be placed. The wallpapers could also be animated, and could be opened up to developers - so the weather app, CARROT, could have wallpapers that show the weather in your area, from rain to sunshine.

The lock screen is the first thing you see when firing up the iPad every day, so seeing it as something more than simply a bigger version of what iOS offers would be a refreshing change for the iPad.

Simplify the line

Picture the scene - you’re thinking of buying an iPad for a friend or family member, and you roughly know what they use their iPhone for. But where do you even start for this tablet?

You have five choices, all with different cellular and storage options, alongside some color choices for a few models. Take a look, and tell me if you can honestly assign a distinct buyer to each one:

• iPad mini
• iPad (8th Generation)
• iPad (8th Generation)
• iPad Air
• iPad Pro

First of all, they all run the latest version of iPadOS, so you get external storage support, home screen widgets, improved Apple apps such as Mail, and new ones such as Freeform and the Weather app. So software differences are barely a consideration, and even performance across apps is only slightly different when going from the base models right up to the Pro options.

If you go for the cheapest, regular iPad (8th Generation), you won’t get the ProMotion feature that the iPad Pro line offers, nor will you get USB-C, the modern design, and only 4G if you pick the Cellular model, sure.

But if you’re deciding between the latest iPad (10th Generation) and iPad Air, it’s a much harder choice.

I could go on, but you could easily spend an evening deciding between an iPad mini, an Air, and an 11-inch iPad Pro and come out none-the-wiser as which is for you.

And then there are the accessories. The Magic Keyboard Folio aimed at the entry iPad is arguably better than what the Magic Keyboard offers for the iPad Air and iPad Pro, which is baffling. You get better viewing angles, and a function row key, so you can adjust the backlight for the keycaps, alongside shortcuts to enable multitasking and more. It’s a mess.

Instead, it should just go like this:

• Shop for iPad — all now powered by Apple silicon chips
• Choose the size, storage, color, and cellular options
• Choose an accessory if you want one
• Buy

This way, it gets rid of the confusing lineup, the confusing names, and the confusing approach as to which accessory works with certain iPads. It goes back to a tweet I remember from Apple, that there’s an iPad for everyone. Doing it this way, will not only prove that but will make it easier to discover which iPad suits you best.

However, all of this is only half the battle.

Introduce a ‘Pro’ mode when docked

After 12 years, the software is also confusing. While it’s the same across the lineup, except for Stage Manager being available on iPad Air and the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, most of it still looks like a bigger version of iOS, even with the change of name to iPadOS back in 2019.

There’s also a pattern emerging where it lags behind other products in terms of the release of software features - iOS 14 brought widgets in 2020, while iPadOS 15 brought the same, and bigger widgets, the year after.

The same currently applies to lock screen widgets . You can add a bunch to your iPhone’s lock screen since iOS 16 debuted in September 2022, but you’re out of luck with iPadOS 16.

And that’s before Stage Manager is discussed. In my experience, from testing it with the first public beta of iPadOS 16 in July 2022 to iPadOS 16.4, it’s a mess. It crashes, it doesn't take full advantage of screen real estate, and the apps snap to an invisible grid so you don’t feel like you’re in full control. The only plus is when you hook up the iPad to an external monitor, but again, it’s still prone to crashing.

So instead, let's see a whole new OS for iPad, but with certain features, like a redesigned Stage Manager, bigger widgets and more restricted until the iPad is docked to a keyboard. When it is, the home screen looks like a macOS desktop, with a Menubar at the top. This way, it clears up the confusion as to what you want to use the iPad for, while having it ready for the more powerful features for other users.

It's time to shine iPad.

It feels like the iPad is approaching a fork in the road, both for casual and power users. There’s no question that the industrial design of the iPad, right across the range, is its best attribute, but it’s everything else that lets it down. The confusing accessories, the many sizes and models without knowing what accessories work with each iPad... the list goes on.

It should go back to basics. When it first arrived in April 2010, it was one model with different storage sizes, and by the time 2012 came around, the iPad mini arrived. It was a simpler time, but it should go back to this. Pick the size, pick the storage, and more or less leave it at that. The differences between the current models in the line-up are many, but the advantages of one over the other are few.

So while WWDC 2023 could hopefully bring some much-needed improvements to iPadOS, it’s only half the battle as to why iPad feels like a headache. Apple is hopefully aware of this, so fingers crossed we’ll see some changes soon.

It’s hard to believe it’s been thirteen years since the iPad debuted, and that makes iPadOS one of Apple’s most mature platforms ahead of iPadOS 17.

And yet, it always feels a little like an afterthought – WWDC 2023 is coming, but last year’s event focused on the iPad for around 15 minutes at the tail-end of things. Sure, it started life as a larger version of its iPhone counterpart, but Apple still hasn’t quite found out how to make its tablet updates particularly sexy.

That may not change in 2023, either, with reports suggesting a lot of resources have been devoted to the long-rumored Apple AR/VR headset. So, what could iPadOS bring with iPadOS 17?

Here’s our wishlist for what we want to see from iPadOS 17.

New Home and Lock Screens

This is likely to lowest-hanging fruit for Apple, and we’d be very surprised if we didn’t see the lock screen features from iOS 16 follow a similar trajectory to the rollout of widgets in years prior. Expect to see them make the hop, skip, and jump to the iPad in some form (but please, let us switch out that camera shortcut for something more useful on an almost 13-inch tablet).

Aside from the new customization options, here’s hoping for the refined notification setup found in iOS 16 in iPadOS 17. It took some time to adjust, but now the iPad home screen can quickly become an anxiety-inducing hellscape.

Widgets are great, but even with the changes to the home screen layout in iPadOS 16 (which added a new zoom option), there’s a huge amount of space between Home Screen icons. Surely we can squeeze things in a little closer if we’d like, just like they are on the Dock.

We’re actually a little nostalgic for the Today view, which while replicable with widgets, was a nice slide-over look at the day ahead with some key information. It’s unlikely, but we’d love to see Apple bring something like that back.

Commit to multitasking

Oh boy, this is the big one. There’s no denying the iPad needed a new multitasking paradigm, because as handy as the small “...” button is at the top of apps, larger displays are much more flexible by their very nature.

And yet, Stage Manager’s grand debut was rushed, rough, and lacking in a lot of the fundamentals of modern computing. In a lot of ways, tucking it into Control Center felt like a tacit admission from Apple it wasn’t ready for its big debut.

Think about it this way – if you open a window on your Mac or PC, it’ll pop over whatever you have open already. With Stage Manager, it throws everything to the side, meaning you’re left spending more time managing than you are using the apps you have open. In Mail and want to fire off an email while referencing another? The new email window can throw the inbox screen onto the sidebar.

That sidebar in itself is a flawed solution because it’s way too big – even on a 12.9-inch display. That, plus a bizarre focus on regimented window structure, makes things much more difficult than just using a MacBook.

So, how to fix things? We’d like to see some sort of Mission Control, with access to Spaces – these could be mapped to a gesture on the touchscreen or with a connected peripheral like a trackpad or mouse.

You could even link those spaces and open apps to Focus Modes, which still feel half-baked on the best iPads compared to their iPhone counterparts.

Multi-user support

We’ve been banging this drum for many an iPadOS update, but it’s still almost impressive how Apple doesn’t seem keen to turn your iPad into a family device.

Ok, there’s an argument you won’t buy a second iPad for your spouse or kids if you’re all sharing one, but the same can be said of a laptop. In this writer’s case, I’d love to set up a child profile for my almost four-year-old, but as it stands, I’ve purchased a cheap Amazon tablet for long journeys instead.

The real winner, though, would be schools. Growing up with desktop PCs in classrooms was great, but multi-user support could make the iPad the kind of device that forms the basis of education in Apple’s apps like Swift Playgrounds to promote coding opportunities to a wider audience.

Given how long multi-user support has been on the Mac, and how it still works well with potential privacy-focused apps like iCloud Keychain and iMessage, it seems so bizarre it hasn’t made the jump to the iPad.

More of a reason for the iPad Pro to exist

This writer is the owner of an M2 iPad Pro, but couldn’t really tell you why other than it was a “justifiable work expense”.

The iPad Pro with M2 doesn’t do much that the M1 version can’t, but much of the same could be said about the A-series 2020 version, too. It’s full of power and rips through benchmarks, but in terms of tangible upgrades, it’s tough to spot the difference.

The M2 iPad Pro did add the new Apple Pencil Hover functionality, but that feels like a testing ground for some sort of context-specific menu to come later.

The truth is that, until the rumored iPad Pro overhaul in 2023 or 2024, an iPad Pro costs more (factoring in a keyboard and Apple Pencil) than a MacBook, but is much harder to recommend.

To fix that, we’d love to see Apple bring its own heavy-hitting ‘Pro’ apps to iPadOS 17. Final Cut, Logic, and even Xcode can run on M2, so why not?

Improve media creation options

The iPad remains a great media consumption device, but it’s still some way off a creative powerhouse – despite Apple’s assurances that the latest iPad Pro is essentially a portable movie studio.

Aside from introducing the professional-grade apps we mentioned earlier, the iPad lineup could do with more useful tools for content creation.

For one, USB-C should open up a host of peripherals and docks, but it can often feel like you need the latest iPad models to get the best file transfer speeds for external storage.

iPadOS could improve a lot with file management, too – it’s improved in recent years, but it always feels clunky to use, even with a mouse, and there’s no way to safely eject storage that’s connected, either.

Then there’s a big one – external display clamshell mode, so we don’t have to use both displays if we’d rather use the iPad as a more traditional computer.

iPad OS 17 – what we want

So that's our list of what we want from the latest version of iPadOS. The iPad remains one of the best choices if you're looking for a tablet, and easily outperforms almost every other large touch-screened device out there.

That just makes us want all these changes that bit more. Now we just have to wait and see what fresh iPadOS goodies come from WWDC.

Apple has released four new software updates designed to help make older devices more secure following a pair of exploits that are said to have been used in the wild.

The updates, which followed similar ones for more modern devices including the iPhone 14 and the latest M2 MacBook Air, are built with something much more classic in mind. The iPhone 6s is the oldest phone supported by the iOS 15.7.5 update. MacBooks all the way back to 2013 get the macOS Big Sur and macOS Monterey releases as well.

It's of course vitally important for Apple to make sure that its latest and greatest hardware is all up to code. But it's arguably true that the oldest device in use today could also be the most important to update.

New updates for old phones

Whether you're using the best iPhone you can buy today or are holding onto that iPhone 6s like your life depends on it, you need to be confident that you're using software that is as safe and secure as possible. This round of software updates ensures that's possible.

We don't need to look very far to see phones that don't get the same level of love and care from their software provider, and while Google and Android have gotten better over the years they still have a ways to go. The iPhone 6s went on sale on September 25, 2015. That means that it's coming up to eight years old.

How many eight-year-old Android phones are still getting security updates?

It's vitally important that phones of that age remain secure. They're often used by people who are less likely to follow good technology hygiene which could make them the most susceptible to falling foul of security flaws in the first place.

Your iPhone 14 Pro might be all up to date and secure, but is your grandparent's almost decade-old Android phone? Probably not. But an iPhone 6s? You betcha.

And these updates are important ones as well. Apple says that an "IOSurfaceAccelerator" flaw could leave an app able to run code with kernel privileges, which is bad. A WebKit bug also means that "maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution." That's also bad.

Both are fixed in iOS 15.7.5 and iPadOS 15.7.5. 

Macs aren't left out

It's a similar story on the Mac. The macOS Monterey and macOS Big Sur updates are both compatible with MacBooks that go all the way back to 2013 which is, according to my calendar, a whole ten years ago. The iMac from 2014 is covered as well. None of those machines support macOS Ventura, so they'd be left defenseless if it wasn't for macOS Monterey 12.6.5 and macOS Big Sur 11.7.6.

Apple says the two updates deal with the same IOSurfaceAccelerator issue as those iOS and iPadOS updates, but there's no mention of a WebKit issue. That's because Apple already released a standalone Safari update that fixes the WebKit issue on the Mac. Because of course it did.

The Apple silicon security conundrum

Apple maintaining security updates for at least a decade could become more important than ever thanks to Apple silicon.

That might sound strange, but bear with me on this.

With Apple silicon being such a huge boost for Mac performance it's entirely possible that people will hold onto their machines for even longer than they already do. And that's bad for security.

People have often justified the Mac's relatively high price because they keep their machines for longer than they might a Windows PC. But imagine a world where those Macs stay performant for even longer. Where an older Mac doesn't need to be replaced because it's beyond its best. All because Apple silicon is so darned capable.

In that case, Apple's insistence on shipping security updates for so long will be huge, and it's something that should be lauded more than it is. Especially when the company is so often accused of "planned obsolescence" and such.

In reality, it couldn't be further from the truth.

In a series of tweets over the weekend, prolific Apple leaker Ming-Chi Kuo spoke about a foldable iPad potentially arriving in 2024, which may mean we'll see no new iPad improvements in terms of hardware this year. 

To me, that's great news if it's true because, while iPad hardware continues to go from strength to strength, there's still some work to be done on the software side, which a break from new models could facilitate.

We saw the operating system of the iPad take a change of name from iOS to iPadOS in 2019, bringing external storage support and, with iPadOS 13.2, debuting trackpad support a few months later so you could connect an external mouse to the tablet.

However, we've seen subsequent releases fall behind the rate of innovation we see in iOS. It's understandable on one hand, as the iPhone is Apple's golden goose. But on the other, iPad users have had to wait an extra year for new features, such as widgets on the home screen in iPadOS 15, while they had long since arrived in iOS 14.

It feels as though Stage Manager, debuting at WWDC 2022, should have been a change in fortunes for iPadOS innovation — being a brand new feature with iPad its primary target. But it debuted in a buggy and confusing fashion.

So with the focus on software this year, Apple should drill into iPadOS 17, tweaking iPadOS to make its tablet line a content-creation — not just consumption — range for everyone.

Future fixes

In the past, I've used an iPad as my main machine, using it for everything from college work, to helping me write a book in 2020 during the pandemic. However, its multitasking features have always felt limiting to me, while trackpad support didn't feel as intuitive as it should have.

So when iPadOS 16 was announced at WWDC 2022 with a new way of multitasking in the form of Stage Manager, I was part of the crowd who was enthusiastic about this feature. You could have more than two apps display at once, and if you connected your iPad to an external display, you could have up to six apps at once. While this also debuted with macOS Ventura, Stage Manager on iPad looked like a major step up for multitasking.

But when it came to using it during the public beta season, I ended up feeling frustrated, and that feeling stayed with me even when it was released as part of iPadOS 16.1 to everyone in the fall of 2022. It was confusing when managing windows, and sometimes, the feature would crash entirely, with my iPad having to restart back to the lock screen.

As it stands for iPadOS, this new feature still feels confused. And again, a feature on iOS is ready to be used — lock screen widgets — while they're nowhere to be seen on iPad.

The Magnificent iPadOS Seventeen?

Let's see iPad take a backseat for 2023, and let's see its software debut with refinements across the board instead. 

As well as introducing a bunch of lock-screen widgets and great wallpaper collections  in iPadOS 17, let's get improvements in Stage Manager, such as getting rid of the invisible grid that snaps apps to certain places on the display.

This could be a huge improvement on its own here, as you're not restricted to where Apple wants you to place these apps in Stage Manager.

And while we're at it, let's see some of those widgets on iPadOS finally display your fitness info from your Apple Watch. Seeing those three rings on the lock screen or home screen on that big, beautiful iPad Pro display would be a great time saver, and just makes more sense instead of having to check your iPhone or Watch face for this.

Building on this potential, let's also see Control Center be part of the multitasking tray when you're switching between apps (in the overview when you drag up from the bottom of the screen), and not just have it show on its own. It looks odd on an iPad mini, and ridiculous on a 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Expanded Control Center features, such as more accessibility toggles, wouldn't go amiss either.

These will only make me use my iPad Pro more, and even consider an iPad mini in time. The tablet has a place for everyone, it just needs more refinement to make it that perfect middle-ground between an iPhone and a Mac.

While Apple's May iPad event brought us the brand new 2024 iPad Pro and the new iPad Air 6, references to iPadOS 17 and software upgrades were pretty much non-existent. Apple's new best iPad is all about the hardware of the M4 chip and that stunning new OLED display, but iPadOS 17 is still limited in several ways, notably by Stage Manager. iPadOS 18 is fast approaching, with WWDC 2024 just around the corner, so iPadOS 17 is very much in the home stretch. However, it will remain the iPadOS of choice until September or October, based on Apple's previous rollout schedule. 

Right now, users can still enjoy the offerings of the iPadOS 17.5, the most recent iPadOS software beta. Otherwise, prospective users can take a look below to see the current state of iPad software in 2024. Most recently, Apple has added new Lock Screen features, as well as customization options and widget implementation. iPadOS also features some macOS features including Safari updates, but generally, iPadOS 17 was a very muted upgrade. In 2024, the biggest upgrades to iPadOS 17 were the new versions of Final Cut Pro for iPad and Logic Pro for iPad. 

Naturally, users do still benefit from some of the big steps taken in iPadOS 16, namely Stage Manager. Looking ahead, iPadOS 18 could herald a pretty significant step forward thanks to support for Apple AI, which is expected to take the form of large language model support powering improvements on-device for various everyday apps. While Apple did emphasize some of the AI potential of its new iPad Pro and iPad Air at the Let Loose event in May, the company is keeping its card close to its chest ahead of WWDC. 

iPadOS 17: New features

Every new version of the iPad operating system brings a slew of new apps, features, and functions. Here's a rundown of the coolest features Apple added to iPadOS 17. 

iPadOS 17: New lock screens

New lock screens were one of the first big new features announced at WWDC. Much like the lock screen on iOS, you're able to customize the iPad lock screen with new photos and clocks. The clocks can be hidden by part of the background intelligently, plus you can change the font and layout of the clock too.

iPadOS 17: Widgets

Also new to iPadOS are widgets that you can place on the Lock and Home screens. These widgets look a lot like the lock screen widgets you see on iOS, but they're slightly larger in line with the bigger screens of the iPad range. The widgets are interactive too, so you can turn on or off HomeKit devices, interact with Health apps, and play or skip music in Apple Music.

Such widgets carry over to your Home Screen, being able to blend seamlessly into the background, and sit alongside your apps. They're interactive too with widgets like Photos, Music, and others to add to your Home Screen. They blend in with the look screen ones, so you gain a more seamless experience.

iPadOS 17: New Health app

Health has also come to iPad, with the bigger screen allowing for more metrics and graphs. The interface has been built with the bigger iPad screen in mind, with more information displayed on one screen.

iPadOS 17: PDF support

PDFs are now a baked-in addition to the latest version of iPadOS. You can more easily edit them on your iPad thanks to this. The format has also come to the Notes app so you can annotate them and collaborate with others too.

iPadOS 17: Final Cut Pro for iPad 2

iPadOS 17.4 supports Final Cut Pro for iPad 2, which was unveiled at the iPad event in May 2024. The second iteration of the tablet edition of Apple's popular movie-editing software, FCP for iPad 2 features support for projects on external drives, Live Multicam, and a new Final Cut Camera app. Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 also features new color-grading presets, text titles, soundtracks, and dynamic backgrounds. Finally, it adds support for some of the new features of the Apple Pencil Pro, such as the barrel roll and squeeze for Live Drawing.  

iPadOS 17: Logic Pro for iPad 2

Just like Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro also got a big upgrade for iPad. Logic Pro for iPad 2 features new AI-powered Session Players that let you add drums, bass, and keyboard to your tracks. A new Stem Splitter can help you chop up old recordings in their constituent parts, isolating vocals and instruments for remixing and remastering. Finally, new ChromaGlow models use AI and Apple silicon to help users add different saturation styles to tracks. 

Extra features: Stickers, Stage Manager and more

More iOS-like features are also coming to iPadOS 17. There will be new messaging Stickers as well as an expandable tray-like menu for the Messages app. FaceTime is also seeing improvements such as allowing you to connect to an Apple TV box and take calls on a bigger screen. 

Stage Manager has also been improved, with more flexibility to the position and size of windows. Freeform will offer new drawing tools, and some more new features including support for hover, tilt, and snap-to-shape. Spotlight comes to help users find information even faster with shortcuts to actions, enhanced visual results, and more.

There's a new autocorrect model for the keyboard too, in a bid to make it easier to type faster than before. Dictation is also more accurate thanks to the new speech recognition. Related to that, Siri can now be summoned without needing to say 'hey' first. Finally, AirPlay will follow user preferences to get to know when and where to connect to devices.

iPadOS 17: Latest beta

Released in early April, iPadOS 17.5 includes references to a new Battery Health menu on iPad that will show users their maximum remaining capacity and charge cycle count, just like the iPhone. Apple is yet to announce a public release of iPadOS 17.5. 

iPadOS 18: Rumored features

What will iPadOS 18 bring? AI is likely to be a big thing for Apple in 2024, although details on iPadOS 18 have been almost impossible to come by so far. But AI is the common thread right now, and Apple knows that Large Language Models (LLMs) and chatbots like ChatGPT have started to become more popular — putting Siri to shame in the process.

With that context, Apple is said to be working on a new AI upgrade that will bring significant upgrades to Siri. Reportedly called Ajax GPT, the new language is reportedly a cut above what even ChatGPT can offer. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has also hinted that 2024 will be a big year for Apple in terms of its AI initiatives. 

Also to be expected: Apple brought its new Journal app to the iPhone with iOS 17 last year, but the app was strangely missing from the iPad and Mac. That could well change in 2024. For all the details and what else to expect, see our iPadOS 18 complete rundown.

iOS 18 is expected to bring significant AI upgrades to Xcode, Messages, Keynote, Pages, as well as overhauls to the Mail, Photos, Fitness, and Notes app. The Calendar app is expected to get a new Reminders integration, and Safari is tipped for an AI boost including a Web Eraser feature that can hide chunks of a webpage. As with Apple's other yearly software releases, its likely many, if not all of these improvements will also filter through to iPadOS. 

iPadOS 17: Release date

As always, Apple announced the latest versions of its software platforms at its developer conference, WWDC, and released them toward the end of the year. iPadOS 17 was Announced at WWDC 2023; the first public beta of the software was released on June 6, 2023. iPadOS 17 was officially released on September 18, 2023 -- and since then, five new releases have brought additional features and bug fixes to the tablet platform.

Which iPads support iPadOS 17?

iPads tend to be supported for a long time. When Apple does remove tablets from the compatibility list, it tends to be a small number of them. iPadOS 16 only saw two devices lose support -- the iPad Air 2 (released in 2014) and the iPad mini 4 (2015). In other words, if you own one of the best iPads, you probably won't have to worry. 

There were 23 iPads support by iPadOS 16; the latest version of the software only supports 20. Here's the full list of iPads supported by iOS 17:

• iPad mini (6th generation)
• iPad (10th generation)
• iPad Air (4th generation)
• iPad Air (5th generation)
• iPad Air (6th generation)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (2nd generation)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (4th generation)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (4th generation)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (6th generation)
• iPad mini (5th generation)
• iPad (6th generation)
• iPad (7th generation)
• iPad (8th generation)
• iPad (9th generation)
• iPad Air (3rd generation)
• iPad Pro 10.5-inch
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (2nd generation)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation)
• iPad Pro 13-inch (M4)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (M4)

With the launch of iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, and macOS Ventura 13.1, Apple has brought forth a completely new app from the company — and it's all about collaboration.

Today, Apple officially launched the Freeform app, a new app from the tech giant that seeks to help with "creative brainstorming and collaboration." The app, which is now available on compatible iPhones, iPads, and Macs, allows users to "organize and visually lay out content on a flexible canvas, giving them the ability to see, share, and collaborate all in one place without worrying about layouts or page sizes."

Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, said in the press release that “Freeform opens up endless possibilities for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users to visually collaborate. With an infinite canvas, support for uploading a wide range of files, iCloud integration, and collaboration capabilities, Freeform creates a shared space for brainstorming that users can take anywhere.”

There's some deep integrations going on here

The app, while appearing the Notes app with some additional features at a first glance, actually has a lot going on under the hood with some deep integrations into Apple's other services.

Freeform supports a ton of file types including photos, video, audio, documents, PDFs, links to websites and map location links, sticky notes, shapes, diagrams, and more. Users have access to over 700 shapes whose color, size, and text can all be edited. Users with an iPhone or iPad can also take a photo directly from within the Freeform app, making adding an image to a board easy.

Apple says that up to 100 collaborators can work on a board together at the same time. Collaborators can be automatically invited to a board when the link is shared in an iMessage, and updates to the board will be viewable from within the Messages app. People can also be invited through a link or email if they don't have iMessage. 

FaceTime is also built right into the Freeform app, making starting a call with collaborators fast and easy. All of the updates made to the board are, of course, synced with iCloud, so you'll be able to catch the latest updates no matter which device you use.

The Freeform app is available now across the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It'll be interesting to see how many adopt it but, from seeing the integrations across Apple's services, they really took the time to make this one feature-rich right out of the gate.

The best journaling apps for iPhone and iPad are absolutely necessary if you want to get in the habit of regularly writing down your thoughts and feelings. Being like a digital form of therapy, getting the right app with the choices and options can be a bit of a problem, especially considering there are so many great choices out there. 

The joy of there being so many options is that you get to explore as many as you like until you find the perfect one. Are you looking to write your dreams every morning to remember what plagues you as you sleep? Maybe you are more interested in writing down the great moments you have with your friends. Either way, grab one of the best iPhones or best iPads and get them all written down. 

Here are some of the best journaling apps for iPhone and iPad we can find. 

The best journaling apps for iPhone and iPad

Journal

Journal deserves a mention in this list not just because it's a good journaling app but also because of what it will be one day. Being officially created and supported by Apple itself, its updates will often play into big iOS updates and it has compatibility with all of Apple's major apps. It can take images, videos, and voice notes you've made and start a journal, which you can then add to at will. 

If you're someone who wants to journal more but you don't quite have an idea to get you started, Journal is the perfect choice for you thanks to its smart implementation of other notes and pictures. It is missing some grander features right now and can be a little basic as a result but it's an excellent starting point that will only get better over time. 

Day One Journal

Day One Journal is my absolute favorite way to keep a journal. This beautiful app lets you create multiple journals and color-code them for easy organization. All of your journal entries can be formatted with rich text options, have photos, include activity, location, and even weather data of your site, and more. The latest update added audio recording capabilities, a new intuitive editor, a gorgeous Dark Mode, and other slick features.

Day One Journal is free to download, but you have a few limitations on the number of journals you can keep and how many photos you can upload. If you go for a Premium subscription, which starts at $3.99 a month or $34.99 a year, it unlocks unlimited journals, up to 30 photos per entry, audio recording, Dark Mode, 25 percent off of printed books, and more.

Momento

Momento is similar to Day One, except it's more about automation with your social network feeds.  The real magic lies in linking up your social media accounts, which populate each day's entries as you go. All your updates and posts are fetched and pulled into Momento, so it's like a digital record of your private and online lives.

Momento is free to download and use, but you'll be limited to three social accounts. You can add three more through in-app purchases or subscribe to Premium to get unlimited accounts. Premium starts at $3.99 a month.

Moodnotes

Keeping track of how you feel is just as important as remembering memories. Because some of us don't mind keeping track of our mental health and well-being.  The colorful interface is warm and welcoming, asking you how you're feeling. Pick an attitude that reflects how you are doing, and each one is represented with an emote and color. You can choose to add more details to the entry or just leave it as is.

If you opt for more details, the app asks why you feel the way you do. Doing this makes you think and reflect on why you feel that way. For negative moods, Moodnotes helps you identify traps you've fallen into and even gives tips on avoiding doing the same thing in the future.

Over time, Moodnotes keeps track of patterns in your moods and helps you get into the mindset of developing healthier perspectives. This app is most effective when used daily.

Journey

If you want something like Day One, but is available on pretty much every platform, then Journey is for you. Journey lets you create journal entries with text, photos and videos, location, activity, and more. Like the other journaling apps, Journey is free to download and use, but you'll get the most out of the app by becoming a Premium subscriber. This starts at $3.99 a month or $29.99 per year.

Like the idea of journaling but just don't have time? Then Daylio's micro-journaling method may be best for your needs. Daylio simply asks you to pick your mood for the day, and then add an activity to go along with it, presumably the one that makes you feel the way you do. This counts as an entry, and optionally, you can add some notes to it if needed, just like a traditional diary. But the core focus with Daylio is fast and simple micro journaling. As you use it more, it keeps track of your mood by showing the data in simple charts and graphs, and you'll see what your average mood is.

Grid Diary

If you tend to be someone who has trouble getting started with writing a journal entry from scratch, then Grid Diary is a good option. It uses journaling templates of inspiring questions to answer and has them all lined up in a grid. Pick the one you want to answer for the day, and then write your answer as a journal entry. 

For many, it's just hard to write, so having journaling templates is more effective in getting the juices flowing. You can also add photos to your entries, search for specific keywords, and sync your data. Grid Diary is free to download and use, but you can upgrade to Pro ($4.99 one-time purchase or $1.99 monthly) for passcode lock, multiple export formats, multiple reminders, custom font styles, and more.

5 Minute Journal

Do you have five minutes to spare each day? If so, then grab Five Minute Journal, because that's all you need. Five Minute Journal has writing prompts and questions that you answer quickly and easily. You can even add photos if you'd like, and there are also daily quotes to help inspire you, as well as weekly challenges. All of your entries get displayed in a beautiful timeline, where you can go back and reflect on memories with ease. There are also reminders, passcode lock, and backup/export to PDF options available.

Penzu

Penzu is a journaling app that focuses on your privacy. With Penzu, you can create rich text entries with photos and sync your journal to access the web for free. All you have to do is create a free Penzu account. However, to get the most out of Penzu, you'll need Penzu Pro, which you can get for $4.99 a month, and $19.99 a year.

Penzu Pro unlocks all available features, such as a passcode lock for your journals, unlimited journals,, and photos, customized journal covers, and more.

What are your favorites?

These are some of the best journaling apps we've come across in the App Store. Journal is where we recommend starting as it is free, will be automatically installed on any iPhone that has iOS 17, and is pretty great. 

From here, start exploring the other options until you find the app that provides the right options for your specific style of journal. 

One day after Apple released all-new versions of its most popular operating systems, the company is moving forward. Earlier today, it released the first iPadOS 16.2 developer beta. The update includes the first version of Freeform, a new creative app that the company first announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June. 

Freeform, which is also set to arrive on future versions of iOS and macOS for iPhone and Mac, respectively, offers various ways for folks to collaborate on projects. With the app, you can sketch and jot down notes with Apple Pencil, insert web links, and share files, including web links, documents, video, and audio. 

The new app is one of the remaining software features that Apple announced in June but has yet to release to the public. 

Other newbies

In describing Freeform, Apple notes: "Coming to iPadOS 16 in an update later this year, Freeform — a powerful productivity app with a flexible canvas — will give users the ability to see, share, and collaborate all in one place without worrying about layouts and page sizes, and with full support for Apple Pencil. Users will be able to view others' contributions as they add content or make edits, all while enjoying a real-time collaboration space. Freeform will allow collaborators to add virtually any kind of file — images, video, audio, PDFs, documents, and web links — to the canvas and preview it inline, without leaving the board."

Freeform isn't the only new feature that has arrived with the first iPadOS 16.2 developer beta. The ability to use Stage Manager on supported iPad Pro and iPad Air models with external displays is also included in the update. With the new tool, you'll be able to view multiple apps on both your tablet and external display and drag and drop files and apps between both locations. 

On Monday, Apple released iOS 16.1, iPadOS 16.1, macOS 13 Ventura, watchOS 9.1, and tvOS 16.1 to the public. Most likely, Apple will release the next round of software updates before the end of the year. 

What's new in iPadOS 16?

Apple released iPadOS 16.1

Apple has released iPadOS 16.1 to the public, adding new features like Stage Manager and bringing the Weather app to the tablet.

Learn more in the release notes below:

iCloud Shared Photo Library - Separate library for seamlessly sharing photos and videos with up to five other people - Setup rules allow you to easily contribute past photos based on start date or people in the photos when you set up or join a library - Library filters for quickly switching between viewing the Shared Library, your Personal Library, or both libraries together - Shared edits and permissions let everyone add, edit, favorite, caption, and delete photos - Sharing toggle in Camera lets you choose to send photos you take straight to the Shared Library, or enable a setting to share automatically when other participants are detected nearby using Bluetooth

Messages - Edit a message for up to 15 minutes after sending it and recipients see a record of edits - Undo send allows you to recall any message up to 2 minutes after sending it - Mark as unread makes it easy to come back to a conversation later - SharePlay in Messages lets you enjoy activities like watching movies, listening to music, playing games, and more with friends while messaging - Collaboration provides a simple way to invite others to collaborate on a file via Messages and get activity updates in the thread when someone makes an edit to a shared project

Mail - Improved search delivers more accurate, complete results and provides suggestions as soon as you begin to type - Undo send allows you to cancel delivery of a message within 10 seconds of hitting send - Scheduled send for sending an email at a specific day and time - Follow‑up surfaces sent emails that have not been replied to, to the top of your inbox so you can quickly follow‑up - Remind me lets you schedule a date and time to be reminded about an email

Safari and Passkeys - Shared Tab Groups let you share a set of tabs with others and see the Tab Group update instantly as you work together - Tab Group start pages can be customized with different background images and favorites for each Tab Group - Pinned tabs in Tab Groups enable you to pin frequently visited websites for each Tab Group - Safari web page translation adds translation for web pages in Turkish, Thai, Vietnamese, Polish, Indonesian, and Dutch - Passkeys offer support for an easier and safer sign‑in method to replace passwords - Passkey syncing through iCloud Keychain makes your passkeys available across all your Apple devices while keeping them end-to-end encrypted

Stage Manager - A new way to multitask on iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later) iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation and later) and iPad Air (5th generation) - Overlapping and resizable windows allow you to adjust the size of your apps and arrange your ideal workspace - Recent Apps arranged on the left of the screen allow you to quickly switch between apps - App groups allow you to create sets of apps that you can quickly get back to

New Display Modes - Reference Mode delivers reference color for popular color standards and video formats on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro with Liquid Retina XDR display and with Sidecar, use it as a reference display for your Apple silicon Mac - New display scaling setting that increases the pixel density so you can view more in your apps on iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation and later), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation and later) and iPad Air (5th generation)

Weather - Weather app on iPad is optimized for the larger display, including immersive animations, detailed maps, and tappable forecast modules - Weather maps show precipitation, air quality, and temperature alongside the location view or in full screen - Tappable modules reveal more detail such as hourly temperature or precipitation forecasts for the next 10 days - Air quality displays a color coded scale for air quality, level and category, and you can view air quality on a map to see related health recommendations, pollutant breakdown, and more - Animated backgrounds represent the sun position, clouds, and precipitation with thousands of variations - Severe weather notifications let you know when a severe weather alert has been issued near you

Game Center - In-Game Dashboard Activity shows you what your friends are accomplishing in this game, and what they are playing and achieving across all games in one place - Game Center Profiles highlight your achievement and leaderboard activity across all of the games you play - Contacts integration shows your friends' Game Center profiles and lets you see what they are playing and accomplishing in games

Live Text - Live Text video support allows you to interact with text in a paused video frame so you can copy, translate, lookup, share, and more available on iPad (8th generation and later), iPad mini (5th generation and later), iPad Air (3rd generation and later), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later) and iPad Pro 11-inch all models - Quick actions let you take action on data detected in photos and videos with a single tap, so you can track flights or shipments, translate foreign languages, convert currencies, and more, available on iPad (8th generation and later), iPad mini (5th generation and later), iPad Air (3rd generation and later), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later) and iPad Pro 11-inch all models

Visual Look Up - Lift subject from background isolates the subject of an image so you can copy and paste it into apps like Mail and Messages, available on iPad (8th generation and later), iPad mini (5th generation and later), iPad Air (3rd generation and later), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later) and iPad Pro 11-inch all models - Visual Look Up adds recognition of birds, insects, spiders, and statues in your photos available on iPad (8th generation and later), iPad mini (5th generation and later), iPad Air (3rd generation and later), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later) and iPad Pro 11-inch all models

Siri - Easy Shortcuts setup makes it possible to run shortcuts with Siri as soon as you download an app with no upfront setup - A new setting allows you to send messages without Siri asking you to confirm before sending - "Hey Siri, what can I do here?" helps you discover Siri capabilities in iPadOS and apps just by asking, available on iPad (8th generation and later), iPad mini (5th generation and later), iPad Air (3rd generation and later), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later) and iPad Pro 11-inch all models - Call hang up option for ending Phone and FaceTime calls with Siri by saying "Hey Siri, hang up", available on iPad (8th generation and later), iPad mini (5th generation and later), iPad Air (3rd generation and later), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later) and iPad Pro 11-inch all models - Emoji support lets you insert emoji using your voice when sending messages on iPad (8th generation and later), iPad mini (5th generation and later), iPad Air (3rd generation and later), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later) and iPad Pro 11-inch all models

Dictation - All-new Dictation experience supports using your voice along with keyboard or Apple Pencil to enter and edit text, available on iPad (8th generation and later), iPad mini (5th generation and later), iPad Air (3rd generation and later), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later) and iPad Pro 11-inch all models - Automatic punctuation inserts commas, periods, and question marks as you dictate - Emoji support lets you insert emoji using your voice available on iPad (8th generation and later), iPad mini (5th generation and later), iPad Air (3rd generation and later), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later) and iPad Pro 11-inch all models

Maps - Multi-stop routing supports adding up to fifteen stops along your driving route in Maps - Transit fares show you how much your journey will cost in the San Francisco Bay Area, London, New York, and more

Home - Redesigned Home app makes it easier to navigate, organize, view, and control your smart home accessories - Home tab now integrates all your accessories, rooms, and scenes into a single tab for a whole-house view, allowing you to see your entire home at a glance - Categories for lights, climate, security, speakers and TVs, and water let you quickly access all the relevant accessories organized by room, and displays more detailed status information - New camera view displays up to four cameras front and center in the Home tab, scroll to see any additional camera views in your home - Redesigned accessory tiles feature more visually recognizable icons that are color-matched to their category, and new behaviors for more precise accessory controls - Matter, the new smart home connectivity standard, is supported enabling a wide variety of smart home accessories to work together across ecosystems

News - My Sports enables you to easily follow your favorite teams and leagues and watch highlights right in the News app - Favorites give you easy access to the channels and topics you read the most, in a consistent place near the top of your Today feed - New homepages deliver visually updated and easier to navigate topic feeds for local news locales, sports teams and leagues, and more

Family Sharing - Improved child account setup makes it easier to create an account for a child with the right parental controls, including age‑appropriate media restrictions - Device setup for a child lets you use Quick Start to easily set up a new iOS or iPadOS device for your child with your selected parental controls in place - Screen Time requests in Messages make it even easier to approve or decline requests from your child - Family Checklist gives you tips and suggestions like updating a child's parental control settings, turning on location sharing, or just reminding you to share your iCloud+ subscription with everyone

Desktop-Class Apps - Customizable toolbars allow you to add the features you use most often in your apps - Menus provide additional context for actions such as close, save, and duplicate, making it easier to edit documents and files in apps like Pages and Numbers - Find and Replace is available in apps across the system, including Mail, Messages, Reminders, and Swift Playgrounds - Availability view in Calendar shows availability of invited participants when you create meetings in Calendar

Safety Check - Safety Check is a new section in Settings to help people in domestic or intimate partner violence situations quickly reset the access they've granted to others - Emergency reset lets you quickly take action to reset access across all people and apps, including disabling location sharing via Find My, resetting privacy permissions for apps, and more - Manage sharing and access helps you review and customize which apps and people can access your information

Accessibility - Door detection in Magnifier locates a door, reads signs and symbols around it, and gives you instructions for how to open the door - Live Captions (beta) automatically converts audio into text for users who are Deaf or hard of hearing to follow along more easily with calls and media content - Buddy controller helps users with cognitive disabilities get support from a caregiver or friend while playing a game, by combining inputs from multiple game controllers into one - VoiceOver is now available in over 20 new languages and locales, including Bangla (India), Bulgarian, Catalan, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese - Voice Control spelling mode gives you the option to dictate names, addresses, or other custom spellings letter by letter

This release also includes other features and improvements: - New Watercolor, Monoline, and Fountain pens in Notes - AirPods Pro (2nd generation) support, including Find My and Precision Finding for the MagSafe Charging Case as well as Personalized Spatial Audio for a more precise and immersive listening experience, also available on AirPods (3rd generation), AirPods Pro (1st generation), and AirPods Max - Handoff in FaceTime allows you to move FaceTime calls seamlessly from your iPad to your iPhone or Mac, and vice versa - Memoji updates include more sticker poses, hairstyles, headwear, noses, and lip colors - Translate camera lets you translate text around you using the camera in the Translate app - Duplicate detection in Photos identifies duplicate photos so you can quickly clean up your library - Pinned lists in Reminders helps you quickly navigate to your favorite lists - Search on the Home Screen enables Spotlight to be accessed directly from the bottom of the Home Screen, making it easy to open apps, find contacts, or get information from the web - Rapid Security Response gets important security improvements to your devices even faster, as they can be applied automatically between standard software updates

This release includes even more features and improvements. For more information, please visit this website: https://www.apple.com/ipados/ipados-16/features/

Apple releases iPadOS 15.6.1 to the public

Apple has released iPadOS 15.6.1 to the public. The latest update addresses a couple of security vulnerabilities that Apple says were actively exploited in the wild, so users should download the update soon. The full list of issues addressed are below:

• An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited.
• Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited.

Apple releases iPadOS 15.6 to the public

Apple has released iPadOS 15.6 with bug fixes. The minor update includes information for iCloud and Matter, according to the release notes. 

How to install the iPadOS update using Software Update on your iPad

The easiest way for most people to download an update to iPadOS is over-the-air, directly on their device. It's fast, it's efficient, and it's simple to do.

1. Make sure you have a recent iCloud backup.
2. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
3. Tap on General.
4. Tap on Software Update.
5. Tap on Download and Install.
6. Enter your Passcode, if prompted.
7. Tap Agree to the Terms and Conditions.
8. Tap Agree again to confirm.

The download will begin automatically. If the download does not begin right away, you may see a notice: "Preparing to download." Give it a couple of minutes and the download will begin shortly.

How to install an iPadOS update using your Mac

If you have limited space on your device or software update isn't working for whatever reason, you can update using Finder on your Mac.

1. Make sure you have a recent backup. Make it encrypted so all of your passwords and other private data is preserved.
2. Plug your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch in using your USB to Lightning cable.
3. In Finder, click on the device icon at the top left to go to the device tab.
4. Click on Check for Update in the Summary pane.
5. Click on Download and Update
6. Agree to the Terms and Conditions.
7. Enter the Passcode on your iPhone or iPad, if prompted.

How to install an iPadOS update over the developer or public beta

You can install the public version of iPadOS over a beta version if your device is still running that version. Here's how to update from an iOS or iPadOS beta to the official release.

With today's release of iPadOS 16.1 and macOS 13 Ventura, most of the software features Apple announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June have now been released. The features that haven't yet arrived should be before the end of the year — unless Apple announces otherwise. 

Here's a look at the software features for iPhone, iPad, and Mac that should debut in the coming weeks. 

Coming ... hopefully soon

When Apple released iOS 16 last month, several announced features were delayed. The iOS 16.1 and iPadOS 16.1 updates for iPhone and iPad, respectively, narrowed that list significantly, although some important omissions remain. 

Freeform: Apple promises to release its new "flexible canvas" to iPhone, iPad, and Mac, before the calendar turns in January. The feature is a productivity app where you and your collaborators can "bring ideas to life" by sharing notes, files, web links, documents, video, audio, and more. 

Apple Pay Later: This highly anticipated "Buy Now, Pay Later" service is intended to compete with Affirm, Afterpay, and Klarna by allowing customers to spread purchases over a short period without paying interest. The feature, which will launch first in the U.S., might not arrive until early next year, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. 

Key sharing: Available on participating car brands and properties through Apple Wallet, key sharing works through messaging apps like Messages, Mail, and WhatsApp. Apple still says the feature will arrive before the end of the year. 

Emergency SOS via Satellite: The iPhone 14 series will pick up this critical feature through a software update in November. 

Apple Music Classical: In August 2021, Apple acquired the classical music service Primephonic. Since then, the company has promised that a "dedicated classical music app" would launch before 2022. December sounds like the perfect time for Apple to do this, although it's possible the service could launch in November instead. 

Play together with SharePlay: It won't be long until you can use SharePlay to enjoy games remotely with family and friends. The new SharePlay feature will work through Game Center across various devices, including iPhones, iPad, and Macs. 

External display support: Incorporated with Stage Manager on iPad Pro and iPad Air only, external display support will allow you to drag and drop files and apps between screens quickly. It supports resolutions up to 6K. 

If history is a guide, don't be surprised if some of these features are delayed until early next year. Besides Apple Pay Later, the features most likely not to arrive until 2023 include Apple Music Classical and key sharing. Additionally, it wouldn't surprise me to see Freeform become a key feature Apple highlights for next spring, not earlier. 

As a reminder, Apple plans on releasing the latest versions of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS today, October 24. 

iPadOS 15 is here with new features that require third-party developer input. As such, the company is releasing developer betas so that software engineers can get a head start on making great software for you.

Apple occasionally offers updates to iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and macOS as closed developer previews or public betas. While the betas contain new features, they also contain pre-release bugs that can prevent the normal use of your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, or Mac, and are not intended for everyday use on a primary device. That's why we strongly recommend staying away from developer previews unless you need them for software development, and using the public betas with caution. If you depend on your devices, wait for the final release.

What's new with iPadOS?

Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the iPadOS 15.6 Release Candidate 2 right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPad soon. This update appears to simply be another "bug fixes and improvements" update, so don't expect new features.

Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the iPadOS 15.6 Release Candidate right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPad soon. This update appears to simply be another "bug fixes and improvements" update, so don't expect new features.

Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the iPadOS 15.6 beta 5 right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPad soon. This update appears to simply be another "bug fixes and improvements" update, so don't expect new features.

Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the iPadOS 15.6 beta 4 right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPad soon. This release appears to be a general bug fix update and does not contain any major new features.

Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the iPadOS 15.6 beta 3 right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPad soon. This release appears to be a general bug fix update and does not contain any major new features.

Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the iPadOS 15.6 beta 2 right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPad soon.

Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the iPadOS 15.6 beta 1 right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPad soon.

Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the iPadOS 15.5 RC right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPad soon.

Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the iPadOS 15.5 beta 4 right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPad soon.

Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the iPadOS 15.5 beta 3 right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPad soon.

Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the iPadOS 15.5 beta 2 right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPad soon.

Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the iPadOS 15.5 beta right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPad soon.

Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the Release Candidate for iPadOS 15.4 right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPhone soon.

Apple has released the fifth beta of iPadOS 15.4 to developers. Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the beta right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPhone soon.

Apple has released the fourth beta of iPadOS 15.4 to developers. Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the beta right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPhone soon.

Apple has released the third beta of iPadOS 15.4 to developers. Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the beta right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPhone soon.

Apple has released the second beta of iPadOS 15.4 to developers. Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the beta right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPhone soon.

Apple has released the first beta of iPadOS 15.4 to developers. Those with registered developer accounts can download and install the beta right now via their Mac, and should be able to install the beta profile and install it as an over-the-air update directly on an iPhone soon.

Apple seeds the release candidate of iPadOS 15.3 for developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple seeds the second beta of iPadOS 15.3 for developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple seeds the first beta of iPadOS 15.3 for developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple seeds iPadOS 15.2 Release Candidate for developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the fourth iPadOS 15.2 beta to developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the third iPadOS 15.2 beta to developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the second iPadOS 15.2 beta to developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the first iPadOS 15.2 beta to developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the second release candidate for iPadOS 15.1 to developers, specifically for the iPad mini 6. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the release candidate for iPadOS 15.1 to developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the fourth iPadOS 15.1 beta to developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the third iPadOS 15.1 beta to developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the second iPadOS 15.1 beta to developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the first iPadOS 15.1 beta to developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the release candidate of iPadOS 15 to developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the eighth beta of iPadOS 15 to developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the seventh beta of iPadOS 15 to developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the sixth beta of iPadOS 15 to developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the fifth beta of iPadOS 15 to developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the fourth beta of iPadOS 15 to developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the third beta of iPadOS 15 to developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the second beta of iPadOS 15 to developers. You can download this updated build over-the-air just as you would any other beta update.

Apple has launched the first beta of iPadOS 15 to developers. You can download the beta now and install it via your Mac, and you should be able to install the profile and download the beta as an over-the-air update directly to your iPad soon.

Apple has officially announced iPadOS 15. There are a lot of changes that need to be tested before it launches to the public this fall, so developers will be able to get their hands on the initial beta version soon.

How to download the iPadOS Restore Image to your Mac

This first part is easy and works just like it does on any Mac operating system.

1. Navigate to developer.apple.com on your Mac.
2. Click on the Discover tab.
3. Click on iPadOS at the top of the screen.
4. Click Download in the upper right corner.
5. Log in with your developer account credentials when prompted.
6. Under iPadOS 15 beta, click on Download Restore Images.
7. Click on the iOS restore image for the device you're installing the developer beta on.

How to make an archived backup of your iPad

Before you begin, make sure you back up your iPad. While the beta process is fairly straightforward, any time you make any significant change to your device you risk problems. And with your personal data, it's always — always! — better to be safe than sorry. Even if you back up every night, you'll want to make sure it's absolutely up-to-date.

1. Connect your device to your Mac using the cable it came with.
2. Launch a Finder window.
3. Select your connected device under Locations in the sidebar of the Finder window.
4. Click Pair to pair the device to your Mac.
5. Tap Trust on the device to confirm that you want to pair it.
6. Enter your passcode on your device.
7. If you don't already have a backup on your Mac, click Back Up Now to make a backup.
8. Click Manage Backups after you've made a recent backup.
9. Right or Control click on your device backup.
10. Click Archive.
11. Click OK.

Archiving will prevent your current backup from being overwritten by an iPadOS backup in the future, should you want to revert for any reason.

How to install the iPadOS beta using your Mac

1. With your device still connected to your Mac, open a Finder window if you haven't already.
2. Select your connected device under Locations in the sidebar of the Finder window.
3. Hold down the Option key and click on Check for Updates. This will launch another window with your recent files.
4. Click on the IPSW restore image.
5. Click Open.
6. Click Update when prompted.

iTunes will now install iPadOS onto your iPad. This process will take some time, and you shouldn't unplug your iPad from your Mac until the update is complete.

How to install the iPadOS beta using a profile

Before you do anything else, make sure you have a developer account with Apple — without a paid account, you won't be able to download any non-Xcode betas.

Thanks to Apple's configuration profile, you can download iPadOS betas directly on your iPad, no Mac required!

1. Go to developer.apple.com on your iPad.
2. Tap on the "Discover" tab.
3. Tap on of the operating system buttons in the bar near the top of the screen.
4. Tap Download.
5. Log in with your developer account's username and password.
6. Go to the iPadOS 15 beta section and tap the download. This will start the process of downloading the iPadOS beta software profile on your iPad.
7. Tap Close.
8. Open Settings.
9. Tap Profile Downloaded.
10. Tap Install. You may need to enter your Passcode.
11. Agree to the Consent form and press Install once in the upper right corner, and once at the bottom of the screen.
12. Press Restart to apply the changes to your iPad.

To install the iPadOS beta, you'll need to visit Software Update on your iPad once you have the profile loaded.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen, tap on General, then tap on Software Update.
2. Once the update appears, tap on Download and Install.
3. Enter your Passcode.
4. Tap Agree to the Terms and Conditions.
5. Tap Agree again to confirm.

Your iPad will reboot to install iPadOS 15. There will be a couple of progress bars going across the screen. Sit tight, and let everything finish.

How to get started with iPadOS beta

Once your iPad reboots, it'll be running iPadOS the latest beta. There's a brief bit of setup you'll need to go through, however, as the system will have changed enough that it'll need your login to complete the update.

1. Tap Continue.
2. Enter your Apple ID password. iCloud settings will update, so give it a minute.
3. Tap Get Started.

Once that's done, you'll be on the Home screen and ready to rock the latest iPadOS beta on your best iPad.

iPadOS 15 is here with new refinements and features that will need to be tested thoroughly before the software is released to the public in the fall. While there is normally a developer beta, Apple also wants regular users to test things out before it's released to the masses.

Are you one of those users who likes to take some risks and get the latest and greatest before it reaches the general public? Here's how to get set up with the iPadOS 15 public beta on your best iPad (make sure to check device compatibility first).

What's new in iPadOS 15?

Apple has seeded the third PadOS 15.6 beta. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has seeded the first PadOS 15.6 beta. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has seeded the final release candidate of iPadOS 15.5. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the first public beta of iPadOS 15.5. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the fifth public beta of iPadOS 15.4. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the fourth public beta of iPadOS 15.4. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the third public beta of iPadOS 15.4. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the second public beta of iPadOS 15.4. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the first public beta of iPadOS 15.4. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the second public beta of iPadOS 15.3. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the first public beta of iPadOS 15.3. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the first public beta of iPadOS 15.2. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the third public beta of iPadOS 15.1. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the second public beta of iPadOS 15.1. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the first public beta of iPadOS 15.1. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the eighth public beta of iPadOS 15. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the seventh public beta of iPadOS 15. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the sixth public beta of iPadOS 15. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the fifth public beta of iPadOS 15. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the third public beta of iPadOS 15. Even if you already have the previous version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

Apple has released the second public beta of iPadOS 15. Even if you already have the first version of this beta installed, you can download this as an over-the-air update just like any other beta version.

How to make an archived backup of your iPad

Before you get the beta, you'll want to make sure that your iPad is backed up. Downloading and installing the beta is a straightforward process, but it's not without risk. Since your iPad probably has all of your personal data, you should always — always! — make a backup, just in case. And yes, even if you do an automatic backup every night, you'll still want to make another one right before putting the beta on to make sure everything is up-to-date.

1. Connect your device to your Mac using the cable it came with.
2. Launch a Finder window.
3. Select your connected device under Locations in the sidebar of the Finder window.
4. Click Pair to pair the device to your Mac.
5. Tap Trust on the device to confirm that you want to pair it.
6. Enter your passcode on your device.
7. If you don't already have a backup on your Mac, click Back Up Now to make a backup.
8. Click Manage Backups after you've made a recent backup.
9. Right or Control click on your device backup.
10. Click Archive.
11. Click OK.

Archiving will prevent your current backup from being overwritten by an iPadOS 15 backup in the future, should you want to revert for any reason.

How to register your account for the iPadOS 15 public beta

If you've already joined an Apple public beta in the past, you shouldn't need to register again for iPadOS 15 — just sign in with the same Apple ID. If you've never joined a public beta before, you'll start by signing up with your Apple ID.

1. Go to beta.apple.com on the iPad you want to enroll in the beta.
2. Tap on Sign up to get started. (If you've already signed up for a previous public beta, tap on Sign in and skip to our "How to enroll your device" section below.)
3. Enter you Apple ID email address and password.
4. Tap Sign in.
5. Tap Accept to agree to the terms and conditions.

Once you're signed up and signed in, it's time to start downloading.

How to enroll your iPad in the iPadOS 15 public beta

Unlike regular iPadOS updates, where you just tap and start downloading, Apple is using configuration profiles to validate devices for the iPadOS 15 public beta. Installing it is easy peasy.

Note: If you've been on a previous iPadOS public beta, you may need to remove the previous beta profile before installing the iPadOS 15 version. You can do so by going to Settings > General > Profile, selecting the iPadOS Beta Software Profile, and pressing Delete Profile.

1. Go to beta.apple.com, if you're not there already.
2. Tap the iPadOS tab, if it's not highlighted already.
3. Tap on Download profile.
4. Tap Allow.
5. Tap on Close.
6. Open Settings.
7. Tap Profile Downloaded.
8. Tap Install in the upper-right corner.
9. Enter your passcode.
10. Tap Install.
11. Tap Install.
12. Tap Restart.

Once your iPad is done rebooting, it should begin to download iPadOS 15 automatically. From this point on, the process is the same as any other iPadOS update.

How to install the iPadOS 15 public beta

To install the iPadOS 15 beta, you'll need to visit Software Update on your iPad.

1. Launch Settings from your Home screen.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Software Update.
4. Once the update appears, tap on Download and Install.
5. Enter your Passcode.
6. Tap Agree to the Terms and Conditions.
7. Tap Agree again to confirm.

Your iPad will now reboot to install iPadOS 15. There will be a couple of progress bars going across the screen. Sit tight, and let everything finish. Patience is a virtue!

How to get started with iPadOS 15 public beta

Once your iPad reboots, it'll be on iPadOS 15. There's a little bit of setting up that you'll need to go through, however. This is because the system has changed enough that it'll need your login credentials to complete the update.

1. Tap Continue.
2. Enter your Apple ID password. iCloud settings will update, so give it a minute.
3. Tap Get Started.

Once that's done, you'll be on the Home screen and ready to rock iPadOS 15. Have fun!

One of the newest features in iPadOS is Quick Note. With this, you can invoke a simple notepad at any time on your iPad, and quickly jot down any little bits of invaluable information, save links, and even add text and images from Safari.

But how do you use Quick Note in iPadOS 15? Don't worry, it's easier than you think, and while it helps to have an Apple Pencil, you can also just use your finger!

How to bring up Quick Note on iPadOS 15

Remember, Quick Note can only be invoked at any time and in any app, with a first-generation Apple Pencil, second-generation Apple Pencil, or an alternative stylus. It can also work with your finger if you do not have a stylus.

1. Using your Apple Pencil, stylus, or finger, swipe inward from the bottom right corner of your iPad screen. You'll see a small gray box start to appear — make sure it is fully expanded and opaque before you let go of the tip.

2. Once Quick Note is expanded, you can write or sketch in the box with your stylus or finger or switch to the keyboard to type. You can change your drawing tool with the button in the bottom right corner, just like you would in a regular note.
3. When you're done with your Quick Note, tap Done to save it, or you can just swipe it away — it saves automatically.

How to bring up Quick Note with an external keyboard

If you're using an external Bluetooth keyboard or something like the Magic Keyboard for iPad, then you can bring up Quick Note without even needing to touch the screen.

1. Anywhere on your iPad, press the globe key and Q on your external keyboard.

Quick Note will pop up from the bottom right corner as if you used an Apple Pencil or stylus. And again, if you don't have a stylus with you, your finger works just as well.

How to quickly save links, text, and images in Safari with Quick Note

One of the coolest things about Quick Note is that it uses intelligence to detect when you're using it while in Safari. This allows you to quickly save links to your Quick Note, and you can even highlight text and images in Safari to add them to your note.

1. Bring up Quick Note using the methods above.
2. Launch Safari on your iPad.
3. While on a webpage, in the Quick Note, tap Add Link to save the link of the current page to your note.
4. If you want to add text or images to the note, use your stylus or finger to highlight what you want on the webpage.
5. On the contextual menu that pops up, tap Add to Quick Note. Doing this adds the link automatically.
6. Tap Done on Quick Note to save it.

How to view your saved Quick Notes

Quick Notes are saved separately into their own folder in your Notes app. Here's how to view them.

1. Launch Notes on your iPad.
2. Tap Quick Notes in the Folders list.

3. Optionally, while you're in the Quick Note box, you can tap the Quick Notes button (it looks like four squares) to immediately go to all of your saved Quick Notes. You can also swipe left and right to jump between all of your Quick Notes in the Quick Note box.

That's it! From here, you can move notes as you see fit, edit them, delete them, and pretty much anything else you need to do with a regular note you've created.

You can also use Quick Note with Safari in macOS 12 Monterey. However, if you're wondering about iOS 15, you'll only be able to edit existing Quick Notes — you won't be able to add new ones with your iPhone.

How to change or turn off the Quick Note corner gesture

If you don't want to use Quick Note or you find yourself accidentally invoking the feature with the swipe gesture, you can swap the corner that invokes it or turn off Quick Note altogether on your iPad. Here's how.

1. Launch Settings on your iPad.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap Gestures.

4. Tap on Left Corner Swipe or Right Corner Swipe.
5. Choose Quick Note to select that corner or choose Off to turn off Quick Note.

Take note

As you can see, when it comes down to how to use Quick Note on iPad, it's easy peasy, lemon squeezy! Taking notes has never been easier on your favorite iPad.

Updated April 2022: Updated for the latest version of iPadOS 15.

There are some pretty significant changes to Safari in iPadOS 15, and you can further customize your experience with a few hidden-away settings relating to the Tab Bar. Here's how you can change iPadOS 15 tab behavior.

How to switch to a Compact Tab Bar in Safari for iPadOS 15

You have a couple of options when it comes to your Tab Bar's appearance in iPadOS 15: Separate or Compact.

Separate takes up more space but offers a more familiar-looking appearance with the address bar displayed above your open tabs.

Compact takes up less space by having your currently viewed tab act as an address bar, meaning you can get more content on screen. Compact also matches the Tab Bar's color to the site you are viewing, effectively extending the page to the edge of your iPad's screen.

1. Open your Settings app.
2. In the sidebar, scroll down and tap Safari.

3. Scroll down and tap Compact Tab Bar.

If you already have Compact Tab Bar selected and didn't like it, you can tap Separate Tab Bar to return to the old way of doing things.

How to set new tabs to open in the background in Safari for iPadOS 15

This feature was already present in earlier versions of iPadOS, but it's another way to fine-tune your Safari experience to your liking in iPadOS 15.

1. Open your Settings app.
2. In the sidebar, scroll down and tap Safari.

3. Scroll down and toggle Open New Tabs in Background to On.

Want every new tab that you open to be front-and-center? Then, set this toggle to the off position.

How to have Safari close tabs automatically in iPadOS 15

If you find your iPad soon becomes an unmanageable mess of open tabs, you can have Safari take the hassle out of cleaning that up for you with tabs that close automatically after going unviewed for a set period of time.

1. Open your Settings app.
2. In the sidebar, scroll down and tap Safari.

3. Tap on Close Tabs.
4. Select your preferred timeframe.

If you don't want your tabs to close automatically, you can change this setting to Manually to take total control.

All the tabs

If you want the very best iPad experience, the above power-user features are well worth knowing about. Though hidden away in the Settings app, these little tweaks can help you customize your Safari experience to suit your needs and preferences.

Updated April 2022: Updated for iPadOS 15.

Apple's iPad models are incredibly powerful, so much so that it often feels like the software is holding back the hardware — and that's especially true with desktop-class chips now powering several iPad models.

For iPad power users, one of the main frustrations with using their devices each day is the lack of true multi-window multitasking, but that could be about to change if the latest rumor is to be believed.

Over on Twitter, self-professed researcher Majin Bu claims that "Apple is developing a smart system for iPadOS" that will allow apps to operate in full-screen but enable them to "automatically shrink when connected to keyboard and trackpad." Internally dubbed Apple Mixer, apparently, the feature might not make it into iPadOS 16, might be M1-exclusive, or, you know, may not exist at all, but it's got me excited for the future of the iPad regardless.

Paving the way

iOS, and by extension iPadOS, was designed to get out of the way for the most part and allow the content to fill your screen. This simplicity has proven immensely popular, but it didn't scale particularly well to the larger and more powerful iPad models.

As bigger iPad screens started arriving, so too did the ability to display more than one app at once, but the iPad's multitasking experience is still fairly rudimentary. Features like drag and drop have made using an iPad seem more computer-like, but it's still not quite there and, particularly at the Pro-end of the iPad line, the hardware is being kneecapped by the software.

Adding keyboard and, more importantly, trackpad support to iPadOS has made the experience feel much more laptop-like and has opened up new ways of working where touch is too imprecise, though the windowing is still where the experience falls down.

I had hoped that iPadOS 15 might fundamentally re-imagine the iPad software experience after a lackluster iPadOS 14 release, but the 2021 update focused mainly on improving foundational experiences. iPadOS 15 did improve the discoverability and usability of multitasking, but not how it actually works, though perhaps we got a glimpse into a floating window future with the new Quick Note feature.

Automatic switching

Of course, I am running away with this rumor being true at this point but the idea of automatically changing modes based on peripherals sounds incredible. Thanks to the Smart Connector, an iPad Pro or iPad Air 5 detects when it has been magnetically attached to a Magic Keyboard immediately. A Bluetooth keyboard and mouse getting connected could elicit the same response in software.

Discoverability is one potential problem, and Apple has often hidden away some of its most advanced features behind gestures or deep down in Accessibility settings pages. However, given the productivity focus of a potential true windowing experience and the clunkiness of trying to resize small windows with fat fingers, I think this would be one case where a power-user feature is right to be obfuscated from view, this time unavailable until the right peripherals are detected.

I would imagine, again if this rumor turns out to be true, that this windowing experience would play nice with Universal Control too, allowing you to flow freely between many windows on your Mac and iPad using just one mouse and keyboard.

Two floating windows ≠ proper multitasking

A lot of people sitting in front of a Mac or PC for work will keep a ton of windows open all day, every day. Right now, I have Mail, Safari, Music, Slack, and Notes open on my Mac screen. When I work from my iPad, I only really ever have two of these apps open at a time and have to switch between different multitasking views that I set up.

The ability to have three or more apps open on screen at once, with windows that can be dynamically resized to suit my needs, would be a huge boon. Those that like to work this way will enjoy it, those that prefer to operate one-app-at-a-time will still be able to do so. There's very little downside.

The people who spend laptop-like prices on one of the best iPads and a Magic Keyboard today expect a laptop-like experience, and iPadOS does not really provide one just yet. Proper support for windows would certainly win a lot of folks over and be a powerful marketing message for the more premium iPad models and the Magic Keyboard accessory.

However, the example shown in the tweet from Majin Bu simply has two smaller windows on an iPad screen. That alone is not an improvement on what we have today with Split Screen.

The suggestion appears to be that these can be placed arbitrarily on the screen, that there's room for more than two windows, and there may even be the possibility to resize them, overlap them, and otherwise arrange them however you want. That Mac-like multitasking experience is sorely lacking from iPadOS and is particularly noticeable when using a keyboard and trackpad that already feels so Mac-like in terms of hardware.

How Apple solves power management when multiple apps are all viewable at once remains to be seen. It has been pretty good at handling background states for apps on mobile up to this point and macOS is already smart about prioritizing power for visible windows over those that are not actively in use, so I'm sure that there could be an efficient way to do it. Regardless, those choosing to use this mode may be happy to trade off a little bit of the iPad's stellar battery life for the improved multitasking experience.

WWDC calling

Apple's worldwide developer conference is just a few months away and we'll no doubt see Apple's vision for the future of the iPad laid out there with the unveiling of iPadOS 16.

Though this feature may not be ready for the next version of iPadOS, according to the leaker, it or something like it is surely on Apple's docket for iPad in the near future.

One of the most important new macOS Monterey and iPadOS 15 features is finally available for everyone to try. Though first announced in June 2021, Universal Control is now shipping to the public with the macOS Monterey 12.3 and iPadOS 15.4.

Universal Control allows you to move back and forth between side-by-side Macs and iPads using trackpads, mice, and other input devices.

What you need for Universal Control

To use Universal Control, you must have macOS Monterey 12.3 installed on your Mac and iPadOS 15.4 installed on your iPad. Both devices must be signed in to iCloud using the same Apple ID with two-factor authentication enabled.

If you plan to use the feature wirelessly, both devices must have Bluetooth, Wi‑Fi, and Handoff turned on and must be within 30 feet of each other. To use Universal Control over USB, you must trust your Mac on the iPad.

Of course, your devices must also be compatible with the feature. Apple lists Universal Control device compatibility as follows:

• MacBook (2016 and later)
• MacBook Air (2018 and later)
• MacBook Pro (2016 and later)
• iMac (5K Retina 27-inch, Late 2015)
• iMac (2017 and later)
• iMac Pro
• Mac mini (2018 and later)
• Mac Pro (2019)
• iPad (6th generation and later)
• iPad Pro
• iPad Air (3rd generation and later)
• iPad mini (5th generation and later)

Setting up Universal Control on Mac

Once the required version of macOS Monterey is installed, follow these steps to activate Universal Control:

1. Choose the Apple icon at the top left of the device.
2. Select System Preferences from the pull-down menu.
3. Pick Displays.

4. Click the Advanced button.
5. Check all three boxes in the box. These include: "Allow your cursor and keyboard to move between any nearby Mac or iPad," "Push through the edge of a display to connect a nearby Mac or iPad," and "Automatically reconnect to any nearby Mac or iPad."
6. Select Done.

Your Mac is now ready for Universal Control.

Setting up Universal Control on iPad

After installing a compatible version of iPadOS 15, it's time to set up Universal Control on your tablet:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Choose General on the left menu.

3. Toggle on Cursor and Keyboard.

You can now use Universal Control on your iPad.

Using Universal Control

To move between two or more compatible Apple devices using Universal Control, simply use your mouse, trackpad, or keyboard (Bluetooth or otherwise). It works seamlessly.

Cross-platform smarts

Working across all of the best iPad and best Mac models, Universal Control creates a whole new way for you to work across platforms while allowing you to get the most out of both macOS and iPadOS apps and experiences.

Updated March 2022: Updated for macOS Monterey 12.3 and iPadOS 15.4 public releases.

Back in 2019, Apple finally spun out an iPad-specific version of iOS, dubbed iPadOS. With it and subsequent versions, Apple has been able to offer more features aimed solely at the iPad in order to make the most of the increased screen real estate and powerful hardware.

If you're unsure about updating your existing iPad to iPadOS 15 or you're doing research ahead of ditching your laptop for an iPad, here's everything you need to know about iPadOS.

Can I install iPadOS 15?

Before you find dive into all that iPadOS 15 has to offer, it's worth knowing whether your device can actually run the latest version of Apple's iPad-specific software.

Here are all of the iPad models that work with iPadOS 15:

• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (4th generation)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (2nd generation)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (2nd generation)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (1st generation)
• iPad Pro 10.5-inch
• iPad Pro 9.7-inch
• iPad (8th generation)
• iPad (7th generation)
• iPad (6th generation)
• iPad (5th generation)
• iPad mini (5th generation)
• iPad mini 4
• iPad Air (4th generation)
• iPad Air (3rd generation)
• iPad Air 2

That device compatibility list is the exact same as it was for the previous year's iPadOS 14 update, so if you are running one of the best iPad models from the last few years, you won't have any issues upgrading to version 15. If your device is on the list, read on to find out more about iPadOS 15's biggest features.

SharePlay

One of the headline features of the iPadOS 15 release is SharePlay. Most likely a feature that was brought to the fore by the pandemic, SharePlay unlocks some new functionality for your video calls with shared entertainment experiences and productivity use cases.

SharePlay is akin to other shared streaming experiences like Netflix Party and Facebook Watch Together in that it allows users to enjoy content simultaneously, though it expands beyond just movies and TV shows and includes music, Fitness+ workouts, games, and even more content types. It didn't ship on day one with iPadOS 15 and instead launched with the iPadOS 15.1 release, but it's available to everyone now.

Widgets and App Library

With iPadOS 14, Apple finally put widgets on the iPad Home screen, though these were confined to the left side of the display. It seemed a rather arbitrary call on Apple's part, especially since you could place widgets anywhere on your iPhone's Home screen in iOS 14, which released at the same time.

In iPadOS 15, Apple righted this wrong and freed widgets from the Today View panel, allowing users to place them in more of a free-form manner rather than being restricted to one side of the screen. There's even a special XL widget size that is only available on the iPad's larger canvas.

It's a similar story for the App Library in iPadOS 15. It was curiously absent in iPadOS 14 despite launching on the iPhone in iOS 14, but version 15 of the iPad's software has fixed this. Now, you can remove app icon clutter from your iPad's Home screen without deleting the app itself. You can launch it from the App Library or Spotlight search whenever you need it.

Multitasking and keyboard shortcuts

Continuing the story of refinement in iPadOS 15 is Apple's update to iPad Multitasking. As I wrote in my iPadOS 15 review, Multitasking in iPadOS 15 has gotten perhaps its biggest overhaul since iPad split-screen apps debuted in iOS 9, making it much easier to discover and use for both the average iPad user and power users.

With it, you can keep two windows side-by-side with Split View, or temporarily bring in a new app window to fire off a quick message with Slide Over. You can also keep watching video from the web or an app while carrying on with other tasks thanks to picture-in-picture support, jot something down with Quick Note, and switch between multiple windows of the same app with the Shelf.

Another neat improvement in iPadOS 15 for multitaskers concerns keyboard shortcuts. While these were supported in iPadOS 14, the feature is much more robust in iPadOS 15, with a redesigned menu accessed by the ⌘ key and the addition of the Globe key modifier for system functions like returning to the Home screen, switching apps, Multitasking, showing the App Library, invoking Siri, and much more.

Quick Note

Quick Note is a novel feature that launched first with iPadOS 15 before later coming to the Mac. It is a new universal capture system that you can invoke at any time by swiping from the bottom right corner of your iPad screen with your finger or Apple Pencil. You can also get to Quick Notes by pressing Globe-Q on your keyboard, hitting the Quick Note toggle in Control Center, or by tapping "New Quick Note" from the contextual menu when selecting text in Safari.

When you do so, you'll get what is effectively a picture-in-picture window that acts like a notepad for jotting down whatever you need to in that moment. You can type in a Quick Note, handwrite with Apple Pencil, or drop in links, images, and other media. Once you get into the habit of using it, it's a really convenient way to ensure you don't forget things or for keeping certain bits of information to hand.

Focus

While not exclusive to iPadOS, Focus is still an incredibly useful tool for those that use an iPad extensively.

If, at first blush, Focus appears to you to be just a beefed-up version of Do Not Disturb, then you've got the gist already. However, instead of being a binary on or off setting for alerts, Focus allows you to set up customized Do Not Disturb modes for things like Work, Personal, Entertainment, Gaming, Sleep, Driving, and anything else you may need.

Each Focus mode can allow different people or apps to reach you, and new notification priority settings let you decide whether only time-sensitive alerts or any low-priority notification can get through your digital barrier. Focus can even customize what apps appear on your Home screen allowing you to avoid distracting social media apps and games while in your Work mode or hide anxiety-inducing work apps while you are in your Personal Focus.

Your Focus mode syncs between your iPad, iPhone, and Mac devices too, so you don't have to be worried about one of your other devices pinging you when you need a bit of time to, well, focus.

Universal Control

Apple's cross-platform Universal Control feature was unveiled as a tentpole feature of iPadOS 15, although it's still yet to launch to the general public. It is, however, included in the beta versions of iPadOS 15.4, Apple's next iPadOS update which we expect will be released in early 2022.

There are both developer beta and public beta versions of iPadOS that are available if you want to try it and other upcoming features. Be warned, though: you should also never install a beta on your main device and you should always back up your data before installing.

Get up to date

Though iPadOS 15 is light on blockbuster features, there's still plenty to get excited about. It improves foundational experiences of using an iPad with better Multitasking and features like the App Library and Focus modes while adding some neat new capabilities like SharePlay and Universal Control that make it worth updating to.

Plus, it's available on every iPad that was capable of running iPadOS 14, so there's no one being left behind.

Updated March 2022: Updated for iPadOS 15.

For a lot of folks, the iPad has become an essential communication tool that serves as the perfect FaceTime device. With a large screen and loud speakers, the iPad is especially well-suited to video calling. It's more intimate than a laptop and light enough to hold for a long period of time.

As iPad cameras have improved over time, it's become the go-to FaceTime machine for so many people and now, Center Stage works to make that experience even better for iPad users.

Center Stage uses a mixture of machine learning software smarts and Ultra Wide camera hardware to keep you, and anyone else with you, in the frame on your video calls. The result is buttery smooth, automatic adjustments that keep you in shot even as you move around. Want to try it for yourself? Here's everything you need to know to get started with Center Stage.

Which iPad models support Center Stage?

Apple's Center Stage feature debuted in 2021 and, since it requires both hardware and software support, it only works on its 2021 iPad models so far. That being said, you don't have to spend top-dollar on the very best iPad model in order to make the most of Center Stage with even the latest entry-level iPad supporting the feature.

The full list of Center Stage-compatible iPad models looks like this:

• 11-inch iPad Pro (3rd Generation)
• 12.9-inch iPad Pro (5th Generation)
• iPad mini (6th Generation)
• iPad (9th Generation)

That's four out of Apple's five current iPad models with the notable exception being the iPad Air 4. Rumors suggest the iPad Air is the next model in line for a spec bump having not been updated since 2020, so it's likely that Center Stage will be across all the iPad lines in the near future.

Which video calling apps support Center Stage?

When announcing Center Stage, Apple revealed that the feature would be available for third-party video conferencing apps to incorporate in addition to its own FaceTime app. That's great news for those that need to use Zoom or Microsoft Teams for work as well as anyone that video chats with folks outside of the Apple ecosystem.

As it stands, several popular video calling apps have added Center Stage support, including:

• Facebook Messenger
• FiLMiC Pro
• Google Meet
• Microsoft Teams
• Skype
• Slack
• Zoom
• Webex

Since iPadOS 15 and the iPad's camera hardware do the heavy lifting, it's relatively easy for a third-party developer to plug the feature into their app. That means video apps not listed above could add support in the near future.

How to turn Center Stage on or off on your iPad

If you have an iPad that supports Center Stage, the feature is actually turned on by default and you'll notice the camera adjusting to your movements as soon as the front-facing camera starts up. If you want to turn it off or want to re-enable it after doing so previously, the instructions are as follows.

1. Begin a video call in FaceTime or other video conferencing app.
2. Swipe down from the top right corner of your screen to open Control Center.

3. Tap on Video Effects.
4. Tap on Center Stage to turn it off or on.

Depending on which video app you're using, you may also be able to turn Center Stage on or off in the in-app settings. In FaceTime, for example, you don't have to swipe open Control Center; you can instead tap your own thumbnail in the chat window and enable or disable the feature from there.

Front and center

Over the last couple of years, video calls have become an increasingly common part of our lives as people moved more of their interactions to the digital world both in their personal and work lives.

Center Stage is a nice bit of polish on the video conferencing experience for Apple device users and, as well as being very cool, can be really convenient for keeping a group of people in shot on a call or for when your hands may be preoccupied.

What you need to know

• Apple release Swift Playgrounds 4
• App Store Connect lets you upload your app directly to the App Store on your device.
• With iPadOS 15.2, you can build apps with SwiftUI right on your iPad

Swift Playgrounds is Apple's educational and development for apps that you can use right on your iPad, and it has just released Swift Playgrounds 4 with some significant upgrades!

According to the update log on the App Store, these are the major new features you can expect from Swift Playgrounds 4:

• Build iPhone and iPad apps with SwiftUI right on your iPad (requires iPadOS 15.2 or later)
• App Store Connect integration lets you upload your finished app to the App Store
• App Preview shows live updates as you make changes to your app
• Full-screen preview lets you see your app edge-to-edge
• Smart, inline code suggestions help you write code quickly and accurately
• App Projects make it easy to move projects to Xcode and back
• Project-wide search finds results across multiple files
• Snippets Library provides hundreds of SwiftUI controls, symbols, and colors
• Swift Package support lets you include publicly-available code to enhance your apps

Apple originally announced the fourth generation of Swift Playgrounds, its Swift programming app for beginners, at WWDC21 earlier this year with the promise to allow iPad users to create and publish apps all from the device itself.

You can download Swift Playgrounds 4 right now, but remember to download and install the newest iPadOS 15.2 software first. One thing's for sure, and there's never been a better time to try coding on your iPad than right now with Swift Playgrounds 4.

After the summer beta period, iPadOS 15 is now available for the general public to download and install. After what was a light year in terms of iPad-specific features as Apple focused on refinement in iPadOS 14, many had hoped iPadOS 15 would bring along some game-changing new ideas.

While there's plenty to get excited about, especially for power users, iPadOS 15 is yet another update that looks to improve the foundational experiences in iPadOS. Let's dive in.

iPadOS 15: Availability

Before you figure out whether you should install iPadOS 15, you need to know whether you actually can install it.

Thankfully, you most likely can since iPadOS 15 compatibility extends to any device that could run iPadOS 14, and iPadOS 14 already allowed any device that ran iPadOS 13 to upgrade.

That means you can run iPadOS 15 on almost every model released since 2014, the only exception being the iPad mini 3. That earns it top marks for backward compatibility, though some features won't work everywhere.

Just so you're sure, these are the devices that are compatible with iPadOS 15:

• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (4th generation)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (2nd generation)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (2nd generation)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (1st generation)
• iPad Pro 10.5-inch
• iPad Pro 9.7-inch
• iPad (9th generation)
• iPad (8th generation)
• iPad (7th generation)
• iPad (6th generation)
• iPad (5th generation)
• iPad mini (6th generation)
• iPad mini (5th generation)
• iPad mini 4
• iPad Air (4th generation)
• iPad Air (3rd generation)
• iPad Air 2

iPadOS 15: What's new

In the past, the iPhone would push the boundaries of where Apple wanted to go with its mobile OSes with iPad playing catch-up each year.

Since iPadOS was split out into its own OS (in name, more than anything else), it has had some special attention paid to it, but the name change hasn't really revolutionized iPadOS development. iPadOS 15 is a great example of how the iPad software plays second fiddle to its iPhone counterpart while still gaining some unique, iPad-specific features.

This year, Apple has continued to refine the iPad experience while adding new features power users are going to love. An overhauled Multitasking design should make it more accessible to all iPad owners, and features like movable Home screen widgets and the App Library will appeal to many. The iPad-first crowd will also be impressed by Quick Note, improvements to keyboard shortcuts, Focus, and more.

iPadOS 15: First things to do

Already running iPadOS 15 and wondering where to start? The best place to start is on your Home screen. Since you can now move widgets anywhere on the screen, and you have easy access to the App Library, you can customise your Home screen to display only the apps and information you want while hiding away any mess.

I'd also recommend getting to grips with the new iPad Multitasking UI. You'll see the new ellipsis icon at the top of the screen when you have an app open. Tapping it allows you to invoke different Multitasking layouts without needing to learn any hidden gestures. This, plus Quick Note, could unlock some interesting news ways of working on your device.

It's also worth checking out our iOS 15 review. There's a lot of crossover between the two OSes, and this review focuses mainly on the iPad-specific aspects, so there may be more to glean from the phone counterpart.

iPadOS 15: Widgets and App Library

In a way, one of iPadOS 15's major new features is simply righting a wrong that occurred with iPadOS 14. Last year, it seemed a baffling decision to ship iPadOS with widgets but without the ability to place them anywhere on your iPad Home screen and without App Library at all.

Perhaps Apple ran out of time to get these features ready for launch or maybe the company really believed iPad users would want or need them. Regardless, these issues have been resolved this time around. Now, Home screen widgets have been freed from the confines of the "Today" view side panel on your first Home screen and can now be moved around and placed anywhere you want.

If you're a fan of the Today view, it's still there — you just have to swipe right to bring it into view because it's now hidden by default instead of being persistent on the Home screen. Whether this is a good or bad change is dependent on how much you liked the Today view in the first place.

I much prefer being able to place widgets in more of a free-form manner rather than being restricted to one side of the screen and I generally keep my most-used apps in the Dock anyway — and in iPadOS 15 you can keep up to 17 apps there, up from 15. The only real downside for me is the large date and time not being always visible (it is still visible in the status bar, though, just smaller).

Like on iOS, Home screen widgets are still a bit of a nightmare to arrange in iPadOS 15, and you'll find yourself chasing around random app icons and losing things to the next screen. It is easier to edit existing widget stacks, however, and once you have things set up the way you want it's a pleasant experience having glanceable information available. Apple even lets you have two different layouts for your widgets — one for landscape and one for portrait orientation — so that you don't see a jumbled mess when you go from one mode to the other.

There's a new size-class of widget specifically for iPad in iPadOS 15: XL. This effectively takes up the space of eight app icons on the screen, though it only works with a handful of apps right now. It does, however, offer a pseudo-desktop experience when used with the Files app which is a unique use for it.

If you want to go the whole hog and remove all app icons from your Home screen, you can do that with iPadOS 15 thanks to the App Library. With App Library, I can not only remove app icons from my Home screen without deleting the app itself, but the Library is always a swipe away, and it's even in the Dock itself. You can easily bring it up by swiping left from your last Home screen page or bringing up the Dock. When you combine the App Library with Spotlight, which can also be accessed from pretty much anywhere, there is little reason to keep app icons and folders cluttered all over the Home screen if you don't need to.

iPadOS 15: Multitasking and Shelf

Apple has done a lot for Multitasking in iPadOS 15, perhaps the biggest overhaul since iPad split-screen apps debuted in iOS 9. The updates make Multitasking much easier to discover and use which is a boon to both the average iPad user and power users.

Previously, Split View and Slide Over on the iPad were only accessible via hidden drag-and-drop gestures — if you were not someone who dug into the ins and outs of how to use an iPad, then you may have missed it completely. Think of a less tech-savvy family member that has an iPad, for example; do you think they know how to use Split View and Slide Over without any help?

Another limitation of having iPad multitasking being locked away behind multitouch gestures is that you don't have any flexibility if you're using an external keyboard or keyboard case because there was also no support for keyboard shortcuts. iPadOS 15 changes both of these shortcomings.

Now, in iPadOS 15, you have an all-new Multitasking menu which you can access from any active app thanks to the ellipsis (•••) indicator at the top of the screen. Tapping it brings up a menu with Multitasking layout options including Full Screen, Split View, and Slide Over. Some apps, such as Mail and Notes, also support a fourth option — Center Window — wherein you can open a specific email or note in the middle of the screen. Other apps may adopt this over time.

In addition to controlling the layout, the ellipsis indicator shows you your currently active app with a darker grey shading for the app in use. This is slightly easier to see than the previous pill-shape indicator and should reduce the number of times you type into the wrong app. It also serves as a grab handle to drag-and-drop windows and rearrange your Multitasking layout.

In the App Switcher view, it's now easier to drag-and-drop apps onto one another to form split views and labels make it easy to see what app is paired with what. Slide Over windows now show in the App Switcher UI, too, again surfacing different ways to use apps together while simultaneously making things easier.

As I've written before, even as a heavy iPad user who often works from the device, I found the previous iteration of Multitasking to be a confusing mess. I never really got on board with the gesture-based interface so essentially worked with one app at a time most of the time. If a self-confessed nerd like me struggled with Multitasking before, I suspect I am not the only one that will appreciate the changes here.

On top of an improved Multitasking UI, iPadOS 15 has brought a new 'Shelf' view in supported apps. It's essentially a window picker that appears at the bottom of an app when you open it and displays a tray with all available open windows for that specific app. Windows in the Shelf will differ in size based on what Multitasking mode they are in and the shelf auto-minimizes as you interact with the app.

This feature is a little hidden away, but it's easy enough to use once you get into the habit and it makes it really straightforward to open up a Split View instance with drag-and-drop. If you need to prompt the Shelf to appear after it has minimized, you can do so with the keyboard shortcut Globe-Down or by long-pressing the app icon and selecting "Show All Windows".

Depending on your workflow, you might never utilize the Shelf but I have found it really handy in Notes where I can quickly reference notes from various folders without having to tap through layers of menus.

iPadOS 15: Keyboard shortcuts

The updates to keyboard shortcuts could have fallen into the Multitasking section of this review, but the changes are so significant I feel they needs a section of their own.

While iPadOS 14 supported keyboard shortcuts, the feature is much more robust in iPadOS 15. The first thing you'll notice when it comes to keyboard shortcuts is a redesigned menu when you hold down the ⌘ key.

The menu is now much more reminiscent of a Mac's menu bar, which no doubt helps with Catalyst apps, with commands listed under categories like File, Edit, View, and more which makes it much easier to find the shortcut you were thinking of but couldn't quite recall. Start typing in this view and you'll also be able to search for a particular shortcut if you can half-remember what it's called.

On top of keyboard shortcuts using the ⌘ modifier, Apple has also repurposed the Globe key with iPadOS 15, giving you easy access to system-wide controls without needing to take your hands off the keyboard. If you're a keyboard-first user, any opportunity to keep your hands on the keys is a boon for productivity.

Holding the Globe key brings up a similar shortcut menu pop-over with the search functionality. You'll find quick actions here for things like returning to the Home screen, switching apps, Multitasking, showing the App Library, invoking Siri, and much more. Some third-party iPad keyboards have dedicated keys for these functions which I felt Apple's Magic Keyboard lacked when it launched, but it's now possible to pick up a few keyboard shortcuts for the actions you use regularly.

On top of the shortcuts, Apple has now built in keyboard navigation for the iPad UI itself. That means you can use the arrows key to shuffle around the Home screen, App Library, or within apps like Settings, and hit Return to make a selection. On the Home screen, a tvOS-like highlight shows around the icon or widget you are currently 'hovering' over, though I found this to be very hard to see with my wallpaper. Your mileage may vary on that front, though it's another way for users to keep their hands on the keys more of the time

iPadOS 15: Quick Note

Perhaps my favorite new feature in iPadOS this year is Quick Note. When I first saw the feature shown off during the WWDC keynote, I greatly under-estimated it and thought of it as something of a gimmick but I am happy to have been proven wrong.

Quick Note is a new universal capture system that you can invoke at any time by swiping from the bottom right corner of your iPad screen with your finger or Apple Pencil (or alternative stylus). You can also get to Quick Notes by pressing Globe-Q on your keyboard, hitting the Quick Note toggle in Control Center, or by tapping "New Quick Note" from the contextual menu when selecting text in Safari.

Doing so brings up what is essentially a picture-in-picture window which acts like a scratchpad for jotting down, well, a quick note. You can type in your Quick Notes, handwrite with Apple Pencil, drop in links, images, and more. You can even have more than one Quick Note, choose which shows up first, and swipe between them in the Quick Note window. During my testing of iPadOS 15 leading up to this review, I used Quick Note extensively as it was super convenient to have a place to note things down as I came across them.

The main downside to Quick Note is that it is exclusive to the Notes app, meaning you can't set your favorite third-party note-taking app to work in the same way. I'm a heavy Notes user, using it for most of my research for stories at iMore as well as jotting things down in my personal life, so I don't mind this limitation, but it does make the feature less useful for those outside of Apple's system for notes.

iPadOS 15: Focus

While not exclusive to the iPad, I feel Focus warrants some attention for its usefulness to iPad users. As iPads, particularly the best iPad models, become more powerful and continue to replace traditional laptop computers for more people and more tasks, it's important that the software keeps up with those demands. By that I don't just mean powerful productivity apps like Photoshop or Ulysses or Ferrite being available on the iPadOS platform, but iPadOS itself creating an environment that lends itself to getting work done.

A lot of the updates in iPadOS 15 suit power users, from Multitasking revamp to the keyboard shortcuts overhaul, which make it much easier and more efficient to work from an iPad. Focus in turn makes it much easier to remain, well, focused on the task at hand.

The best way to describe Focus is a beefier version of Do Not Disturb. With Focus, you can set up customized Do Not Disturb modes for things like Work, Personal, Entertainment, Gaming, Sleep, Driving, and anything else you may need. While a Focus is active, you can select which people and apps can reach you with notifications, and you can even choose to receive only time-sensitive notifications that may be more urgent than low-priority alerts.

Focus is also ideal for muting distractions while working, when handing an iPad off to a child to play games, reading, watching a movie, and all manner of other use cases. The beauty of Focus is you can create different modes for different use cases and totally redesign your own iPad experience to suit.

Better yet, you can select specific Home screens that show or become hidden automatically depending on which Focus mode is active. That means you can set up a Work focus that only displays your Calendar widget, Mail app, work chat app and other productivity tools and takes away the temptation of distracting apps like Twitter and Facebook. Turn on your Gaming Focus and have all of your Apple Arcade titles presented front-and-center, or your Entertainment Focus switch over to a Home screen with the Apple TV widget, Netflix app, and more.

All Focus modes can be turned on manually from the Control Center, but you can also enable Shortcut Automations for them to turn on once certain criteria (launch a certain app, arrive at a certain location, at certain times of the day, etc.) are met, or even use on-device intelligence to turn it on at opportune times (once it learns your habits). All of this makes for a context-aware, smart device that adjusts to your needs.

iPadOS 15: Safari

While Apple has made great strides, on the whole, to refine the user experience across iPadOS with version 15, Safari is an odd outlier. While the controversy has been much stronger around Safari in iOS 15, just because Safari is less bad on iPadOS 15 doesn't mean it should escape criticism.

Firstly, a redesigned tab bar now comes in two different flavors: Separate or Compact, neither of which are an improvement on what came before. With Compact selected, it's hard to distinguish tabs from one another because the address/search bar is now unified with your tabs, which is hard to distinguish from each other, especially if you have several tabs open. As you select a tab to be the current view, it expands in order to fill up the horizontal space of the address bar, but as a result, the other tabs get smaller.

This results in the tabs jumping and moving around a lot, and it's harder to see what you have in tabs since you can't get a preview of it unless you hover over it with a trackpad, making this especially problematic if you don't use a keyboard with a trackpad or something similar. The tabs are also harder to tap and click on with more tabs open, and the size of the tabs is also further reduced if you are using Split Screen mode.

And while Safari on iPadOS 15 still has a refresh button, you cannot see it unless you hover over the address bar. You can pull-to-refresh, but this only works if you are already at the top of the page. Switching to Separate alleviates the reload problem as the address bar for the active tab remains at the top of the screen with its dedicated refresh button, though the same issue of unreadable tabs occurs once you have enough of them open.

Regardless of the tab bar design you choose, you'll also see your Favorites displayed beneath the tabs. This makes zero sense with how other browsers, and Safari in the past, handled this with tabs always being the lowest portion of the tab bar. This made sense as the tab indicated the page you were currently viewing. With Favorites breaking up the tab bar in this way, it's even less usable in my opinion.

It isn't all bad with Safari in iPadOS 15. The new sidebar is an improvement on the old one with easier access to Reading List and Bookmarks, as well as tabs and tab groups. The latter, tab groups, is probably the best update to Safari this year.

The feature keeps a group of tabs in what is effectively a bookmark folder that you can name and sync across your devices. However, each is a tab and not a static link to the same URL, so it's more about keeping your device free from an unwieldy list of dozens of open tabs. Have a bunch of tabs open while researching a particular topic? Create a tab group from them and you can store them out of the way of your day-to-day browsing and still have easy access to them when you need to. You can have several tab groups, switch between them, and change their contents easily.

iPadOS 15: Refinement

There so many more iPad-specific updates and little details on top of the features described above that it would be impractical, if not impossible, to go through them all here. The overall focus from Apple seems to have been on further refining the iPadOS experience without ripping up the rulebook with any fundamental changes.

App designs have been made cleaner and more modern, there's a new floating keyboard shortcut bar that can minimize into a button, Low Power mode is available on the iPad for the first time, and notifications are easier to read and manage from the Lock screen.

Little things like the date and time picker reverting back to the scrollable wheel when touch input is being used are a nod to Apple being able to admit when it got something wrong (there's hope for Safari yet!) and new guidance screens when erasing a device or moving to a new one will make it easier for regular folks to understand what they are doing. Apple has polished a lot of rough edges with iPadOS 15 in ways you might not notice but will definitely feel.

iPadOS 15: More to come

That being said, there are a few key features absent from iPadOS 15 at launch, the most notable of which are SharePlay and Universal Control.

Both require cross-platform compatibility and stability, so it's no real surprise that these are hard to nail down, but they are some of iPadOS 15's tentpole features so it's disappointing that they have been pushed back. Hopefully when they launch they will be rock-solid and worth the wait.

iPadOS 15: Should you wait?

In short, no. If your device supports iPadOS 15, and it probably does, then you should update as soon as you can. The year-over-year improvements are worth updating for, even if Safari is a bit of a step in the wrong direction.

iPadOS 15 might just unlock some extra functionality for you in your iPad that was there all along but you just didn't know about with easier-to-use Multitasking, plus new features like Quick Note and Focus make it a productivity dream.

iPadOS 15: The bottom line

While iPadOS 15 is light on standout new features, Apple has touched basically the entire OS with this update, adding a bit of shine and making a concerted effort to make things more usable for more people.

In every area (except for Safari), Apple has improved the iPad user experience making it a must-download. Further point-release updates to iPadOS 15 will bring along more features in time, too.

Working from an iPad full-time is not a new idea. It's been possible for years now, and with advancements in iPadOS 15, it's about to get much easier for a lot of folks.

Even if you don't have the absolute best iPad hardware, you can still benefit from iPadOS 15 when it launches this fall. Since it supports all of the same devices that iPadOS 13 and iPadOS 14 did, you'll be able to upgrade on devices from as far back as the first-gen iPad Pro and iPad Air 2.

Though the bulk of my work is still done at my desktop Mac, I've been trying to work from my iPad Pro a lot more when on the move and whenever I need a change of scenery. My MacBook Pro from 2013 is very much long-in-the-tooth at this point and its battery life isn't what it used to be, so the iPad Pro certainly blows it out of the water in terms of longevity and speed. With the iPadOS 15 beta loaded up, it's also got some really helpful new features that make it a joy to work from.

New Multitasking design and shelf

I've been a fan of the iPad since the first model was introduced, though I've got to admit that I never really took to the Multitasking UI when it first came along in iOS 9. As more features were added to it over the following couple of years, it became a complicated mess that was hidden behind unnatural gestures, so I just avoided using it for the most part.

With iPadOS 15, Multitasking is much more discoverable with the new multitasking menu that makes it easier to initiate Split View and Slide Over. Now, you can simply tap to choose your desired Multitasking layout and get easy access to your Home Screen to select the apps you want to use side by side.

It's also easier to create Split View spaces from the App Switcher just by dragging one app on top of another.

On top of an improved Multitasking UI, iPadOS 15 has brought a new 'shelf' view in supported apps. This is really useful for apps like Pages where you might have multiple windows open that you need to refer to. For me, I have found it incredibly useful in Notes where I can quickly reference notes from various folders without having to tap through layers of menus. It's still a little hidden away, but it's easy enough to use once you get into the habit and it makes it really straightforward to open up a Split View instance.

Safari tab groups

A neat addition to Safari in iPadOS 15 (and other platforms) is tab groups. The feature allows you to keep your tabs organized in a new way by gathering them into named groups and enables the ability to switch between different views. On the iPad, the sidebar makes it really simple to go between different tab groups.

In my job, the first thing I do each day is open the same selection of sites. With tab groups, I can have a named group for work which makes this process quicker and also keep those separate from my other open tabs. It's also great if I am researching something in Safari and want to quickly gather up the open tabs into a group to save for reference later, as this can be done quickly from the sidebar.

My main Mac isn't on the macOS Monterey beta but I'm looking forward to these tab groups syncing across all of my devices, too.

Focus

Focus is basically a beefed-up Do Not Disturb, but it's now hugely useful if you want to try and stay productive on your iPad and other devices. While Focus also encompasses previously available features like Do Not Disturb While Driving and Sleep modes, it's now much more customizable than Do Not Disturb ever was.

You can create your own Focus modes to suit your needs in different places or at different times of day. It can be used to silence notifications for specific apps or contacts and even change up your Home Screen. If you want to, you can use the turning on of a particular Focus mode as a trigger for Shortcuts.

For me, I've set up a Focus for work that is automatically activated during my regular working hours with notifications silenced for everything other than my calendar and Slack. It's pretty simple, but it happens without any input from me after setting it up and stops me from being distracted by other alerts.

Quick Note

When I first saw the Quick Note feature — the ability to swipe up from the bottom right corner of your iPad screen in order to jot something down quickly — I didn't think I would use it a great deal, but I have actually found it pretty handy for just dropping text or links I need to be able to find again later.

You can have a few Quick Notes and swipe between them so you have a place to note things down that are specifically for one task or another. With the research I have to do for my writing here at iMore, it's a pretty useful addition for a heavy Notes user like myself.

Home Screen improvements

The Home Screen also gets some love in iPadOS 15. The most obvious change is the ability to place widgets anywhere on the screen, rather than just on the left-most edge. This should have been available in iPadOS 14, but better late than never.

I don't use widgets that much, but having a glanceable Fantastical widget is super useful and the News app's regularly updating widget showing only Apple news is a nice-to-have for my work. If you utilize a lot of widgets, the Home Screen is about to get much more useful in iPadOS 15.

A better addition, and one that was sorely missing in iPadOS 14, in my opinion, is the App Library. This allows you to have your Home Screen be a curated space of your most-used apps and widgets while keeping all the occasionally-used stuff hidden away in organized folders.

Spotlight search is also much nicer to use with a refreshed look. Its richer results make it more reliable for finding apps, web results, files, text in photos, and more. It looks and feels more like Spotlight on the Mac which is a huge positive for the way I work.

Still more to look forward to

One of the most exciting iPadOS 15 features, Universal Control, has not been available for testing in the beta period and it's unclear when this feature will actually launch. The feature, which allows users to seamlessly move between their Mac and iPad using the same keyboard and mouse, looks perfect for my cross-platform workflow and should enable me to use my iPad in even more circumstances.

Another feature that I am anticipating being very helpful is Safari extensions. While the feature is present in the current iPadOS 15 beta, developers can't yet submit their apps that take advantage of it. With apps like Grammarly and various productivity apps likely to get on board quickly, I'm excited to see how much of my job I can get done from the iPad alone.

What are your favorite iPadOS 15 features?

Have you been running the iPadOS 15 beta? Is the iPad your main work device? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

What you need to know

• The fourth developer beta of iPadOS brings a macOS Monterey feature to the iPad.
• The latest beta brings the redesigned Safari tab experience to the iPad.

When Apple announced macOS Monterey at WWDC21, the company unveiled a redesigned Safari with a completely new tab experience.

With the latest developer beta of iPadOS 15, which Apple released to developers earlier today, the company appears to be bringing that new experience to iPad users as well. The new experience breaks out tabs into a new look that turns them more into floating bubbles than tabs underneath the top view.

In addition to the redesigned Safari tabs coming to iPadOS 15, it appears that Apple has added the ability for users to tweak the experience. In the Safari section of the Settings app, users can choose whether to use the "Compact Tab Bar" or the "Separate Tab Bar."

The "Compact Tab Bar" simplifies the user interface by incorporating the search functionality into each tab that you have open. The "Separate Tab Bar" will, as the name indicates, separate the search bar from your open tabs, a user experience similar to the current version of Safari on macOS and iPadOS.

Apple has been hit with quite a lot of negative feedback for how it approached its redesign of Safari tabs in macOS Monterey. iMore's Oliver Haslam even went as far to call the redesign "user-hostile."

Apple has already made one change with its tab redesign. The "Separate Tab Bar" originally wasn't an option, but Apple added it in a later version of the macOS Monterey beta and now the latest iPadOS 15 beta. We'll have to wait and see if the change satisfies users or if the company continues to backtrack with continued feedback.