iPadOS first look: how Apple’s new tablet OS will boost iPad user experience

For me, Apple’s iPad Pro is great at many things. It is the best tablet for media consumption; it has the best stylus support outside professional-grade illustration pads; it has a larger and better app ecosystem than tablets running Windows or Android; and it has more raw computing power than most actual computers, including Apple’s own Macs. But what the iPad isn’t is a suitable computer replacement for office productivity work, something that is all too apparent during the editorial process for this article. For example, the photos illustrating this piece are from Apple’s official media site, but I couldn’t directly download the original zipped files to my iPad Pro because the device lacks a download manager and the ability to store files locally. Instead, I had to send the photos to my Android smartphone, which has a download and storage system akin to computers, and unzipped them there. But iPadOS, the recently announced operating system that will roll out to existing iPads via over-the-air updates later this year, should fix that exact issue mentioned above. This makes iPadOS the most important of all the software updates announced by Apple during its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) keynote speech this week. Sure, iPhones and Macs will get a mild performance boost with iOS 13 and MacOS Catalina, but the iPad will gain an entirely new lease of life as a machine that should finally do enough to replace a computer. 25 most expensive countries to buy an iPhone XS I got the chance to preview a beta version of iPadOS at the WWDC, and I’m impressed by what I saw. In addition to a new storage system that lets users create folders for downloaded files, the new software will also allow the iPad to finally support external storage. This is a major feature for photographers – who can now import photos directly to the Lightroom photo-editing app by connecting their DSLR cameras to the iPad – and videographers, who can edit videos off external storage. The new OS also allows for more items on the homescreen (which now resembles a computer homescreen) including the placement of widgets: for example, users can have a calendar, or a to-do list, directly placed on the home screen. This is something that Android users have been able to do for years, and it is much-needed for many working professionals. Multitasking has also been improved on iPadOS. Currently, users can run two apps side-by-side, with a third app hovering off-screen that can be pulled into view with a swipe from the right edge of the screen – Apple calls this third app “Slide Over”. The new software will allow more than one app in Slide Over mode. Apple didn’t clarify how many apps Slide Over can accommodate, but during my demo I saw at least six apps floating, which is more than enough. Split-screen view is still capped at just two windows, but with iPadOS you can now run two windows from the same app: for example, two separate Safari web pages or two documents from Google Docs. Typing, too, will be more efficient. The on-screen keyboard can now shrink down to a thumb-sized keyboard in one corner of the screen, with swipe typing support so users can type with one hand. For physical keyboards, more than 30 Mac-style keyboard short cuts have been added. Highlights from Apple developer conference: iPad, Watch and more Latency for the Apple Pencil has been reduced from 20 to 9 milliseconds, and there are additional gestures for the pencil, such as the ability to grab a screen capture of an entire webpage – not just the current frame, but the entire page from top to bottom – and turn that into a PDF document. “It’s always wonderful when you can improve hardware via software,” an Apple rep told me during the demo. And that is true in more ways than one with iPadOS, a big step forward for Apple’s tablet. I’ve been using an iPad Pro as my on-the-go work machine for nearly a year. That’s mainly because iOS-exclusive LumaFusion is the best video-editing app for intermediate-level users such as myself, but also partly because the iPad’s keyboard is ironically superior to the flawed ones on MacBooks. But I’ve had to compromise. The lack of external storage support meant I have to transfer video files from my camera to an iPhone first, and then Air Drop it to the iPad (yes, it is a tedious process). Chinese man guilty of defrauding Apple in fake iPhones scam And of course, I needed an Android phone today just to download the zipped photos required for this story. Beginning this autumn with iPadOS, all those problems should go away. The iPad Pro may finally be a no-compromise work machine.