Apple Unveils iPadOS for iPad – New Home Screen, Powerful Multitasking, New Apple Pencil Features, and More

Apple on Monday previewed iPadOS, their operating system for the iPad. iPadOS builds on the foundation of iOS, while adding new features to take advantage of the iPad’s larger display.

New Home Screen

The iPad Home Screen is redesigned to show more apps on each page. The Today View can now be added to the Home Screen, which offers quick access to widgets for at-a-glance information, including headlines, weather, calendar, events, tips and more.

Split View and Slide Over Improvements

The update to Split View allows users to work with multiple files and documents from the same app simultaneously. Users can also quickly view and switch between multiple apps in Slide Over. App Exposé provides a quick view of just the open windows for any one app with a simple tap.

New Apple Pencil Features

Users can now mark up and send entire webpages, emails, and documents on the iPad by swiping their Apple Pencil from the corner of the screen. A new tool palette offers quick access to tools, color palettes, shapes, object eraser, a new pixel eraser for removing any part of a stroke and a ruler for drawing perfectly straight lines. Apple Pencil latency has been reduce to as little as 9 milliseconds.

Files App Improvements

iPadOS adds iCloud Drive support for folder sharing to the Files app. Users with access to a shared folder can see it in iCloud Drive and will have access to the latest version of the files. Support for external drives has been added, offering access to USB drives, SD cards or the ability to log into an SMB file server, all from within the Files app. A new Column View offers easy avigation, along with high-resolution file previews. Quick Actions include mark up, rotate and create PDF. iPadOS also introduces local storage, zip and unzip, and new keyboard shortcuts.

Safari Now Offers Desktop-Class Browsing

Safari in iPadOS now automatically presents the desktop version of a website, scaled appropriately for the iPad display, and optimizes it for touch. New features include a download manager, 30 new keyboard shortcuts, and tab management enhancements.

Text Editing Improvements

It is now easier and faster to point with more precision and speed, select text with a swipe and use new gestures to cut, copy, paste and undo.

Additional iPadOS Features

• Dark Mode delivers a dramatic dark color scheme that looks great across the system and is easier on the eyes in low-light environments.
• Custom Fonts can be installed for use across the system, perfect for creating beautiful documents on iPad. Fonts from boutique and major vendors such as Adobe, DynaComware, Monotype, Morisawa and Founder will be available on the App Store.
• A new floating keyboard saves space and includes support for QuickPath — making one-handed typing easy and leaving more room to display apps. Customers can pinch in to enable the floating keyboard and drag it anywhere on the screen.
• Photos curates the library to highlight the best images, automatically hiding clutter and similar photos to showcase significant events from the past day, month or year. Photo editing is more intuitive with new tools that are easier to apply, adjust and review, and almost all photo editing capabilities are available for video editing.
• Sign In with Apple is a fast, easy and private way to sign in to apps and websites using Apple ID.
• Maps features a new basemap, built from the ground up: Look Around with beautiful street-level imagery of cities using high-resolution 3D photography; Collections for a new way to share restaurants, shops or destinations; and Favorites for quick navigation to frequent locations.
• Performance improvements make the entire system more responsive with faster Face ID unlock, and a new way to package iPad apps on the App Store that reduces download sizes by up to 50 percent, makes app updates up to 60 percent smaller, and results in apps launching up to twice as fast.

The developer preview of iPadOS is available to Apple Developer Program members at developer.apple.com starting today, and a public beta program will be available to iPadOS users next month at beta.apple.com.

iPadOS is compatible with the following iPads:

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