There was too much at WWDC for me to fit into a single post, so I’m going to divide my coverage into a few separate posts. This is about iPadOS 15. I have more coverage on iOS 15, macOS, and the rest.
iPadOS 15 is getting the updates brought to iOS 15, but also updates that came to iOS 14 last year that didn’t make their way to iPads. While iPadOS 14 was able to use the new widget platform that came to iOS 14, Widgets were relegated to a sidebar in iPadOS 14. In iPadOS 15, Widgets can be placed anywhere on the home screen, just like iPhones have been able to do for the better part of a year by the time iPadOS 15 releases. The App Library is also coming to iPadOS 15 after first debuting on iOS 14 last year. These two changes will allow much more customization of home screens on iPad, though Apple is still stubbornly limiting how users arrange icons on it’s devices to the “start at the top left, then make your way down.”. Interstingly, instead of being a last home screen page, on iPads the App Library will be accessed through a button on the dock. That will aid multitasking on iPads.
Speaking of Multitasking, that functionality is getting some badly needed updates in iPadOS 15. Muti window support is very hard to organically discover in iPadOS, and Apple is aiming to fix that. There will be a new button in the title bar on iPadOS that allows users to enter split-screen mode on their devices, and now users can open any app on the iPad as the second app in split-screen. Previously only apps in the dock or the three most recently used apps not pinned in the dock could go splitscreen. Other quality of life improvements include being able to drag another app onto another in the app switcher to create a split-screen. These updates are very welcome, and should really help improve iPad multitasking. There is no word on if Apple has solved some of the iPad’s other issues with multiple apps, but it is a start. Right now, if you are watching a video in one app and browsing the web in another, the iPad is not capable of handing two simultaneous videos so if an auto-playing video on the web begins, it pauses the video you are trying to watch. These are little quality of life things that I would love to see Apple address, but it is unclear if they have.
The last feature I will highlight is called QuickNote, which is something akin to a screen annotation application. Users can attach notes to web pages, and “other areas of iPadOS” that will appear in the Notes app, allowing users to take a note on top of a website to go back to. This is a nifty feature, and something that Microsoft Edge actually previously had, before taking out. I imagine QuickNote will get more uptake on an iPad style device.
Apple did announce that Swift Playgrounds, its simple “learn to code” app for iPads will become more feature rich, allowing full app development on iPads, including the ability to submit apps to the app store directly from the iPad. Being able to actually write apps on iPads has been requested for years, and it is exciting to see that coming to Swift Playgrounds. It remains to be seen just how feature rich it will be, but I’m personally excited for this.
However, the most noteworthy things are what Apple didn’t announce. With the M1 processor in the new iPad Pro, users were hoping to see iPadOS be able to take advantage of the power of the high end iPads. Nothing Apple announced is world changing, nor will it really turn the iPad into more of a “computer” than it already is. The potential of the iPad, especially the iPad Pro, is hampered by the limitation of iPadOS, and this doesn’t look like it will do anything to unlock that potential, which is a shame.
iPadOS 14 will be available on the 5th-8th generation iPad, 2nd-4th generation iPad Air, 4th and 5th generation iPad Mini, and all generations of iPad pro.