At its World Wide Developers Conference 2019 keynote, Apple announced a slew of updates for its various software platforms, iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS and now a brand new iPadOS.
The two hour long keynote, which kickstarted the conference was held at San Jose McEnery Convention Center in California and was attended by over 5000 people.
In the first part of this post, I talked about the updated watchOS, tvOS and iOS and in this post, I am going to talk about iPadOS. This is what surprised everyone as there were absolutely no rumours about it prior.
iPadOS
Ever since the launch of the iPad Pro, Apple has been positioning it as a replacement for our laptops and while it is really powerful from a hardware view point, the software has been lacking some key features to truly make it a laptop replacement.
That is until today. Apple has given iPads their own operating system and is calling it iPadOS which is a custom version of iOS, so the overall experience is almost the same, but still allows iPads to flex their muscles.
The first thing we notice about the new iPadOS is the new home screen which has a tighter grid and the ability to pin your widgets. So, you can have more information at a glance and it makes for a great use of the large screen.
Next up is slideover which allows users to have a second app open in a small window in the side. This feature was already there but in iPadOS, they are making it even more powerful by allowing more apps in the slideover area, one underneath the other that you can change with a swipe.
Apple is really going all out with multitasking on the iPads. The iPadOS comes with multi-window support so that we can have two window of the same app open at once in split view. Not only that, there is now an app expose like in macOS, so that you can have a bunch of multi-window apps open at the same time that you can switch to.
The Files app gets a major update as well (which was one of the main things lacking). Along with new organising tools (like column view), there are also "file preview" and "quick actions" just like in macOS. The biggest update perhaps is that the files app now supports thumb drives and sd cards. This in my opinion, is what brings the iPad a lot closer to a laptop.
Safari on iPad is now getting desktop class browsing and will automatically optimise the web for touch input. It is also getting a download manager.
Basic functions like copy/cut, paste, scrolling, moving the cursor around, undo, are all getting new and different gestures to take advantage of that large screen. If you pinch on the keyboard, you get a small compact form that you can place anywhere you like.
Thoughts
With the introduction of the iPadOS and all the everyday features that we are so used to on our laptops and desktops, Apple has really taken several strides to make the iPad a true replacement for laptops. It is still not quite there yet but with each iteration it sure is getting closer.
On the hardware side of things, iPad Pros are really powerful. They can even outperform last years Intel processors and so they can easily handle any task you can throw at them in a device of that size.
Apple is surely blurring the lines between its various categories while keeping them true to their form factor, giving unified experiences across its many devices.