View all the open windows for an app, and quickly switch between them with the new shelf at the bottom of the screen. When someone outside your allowed notifications tries to contact you, your Focus status appears in Messages, so they know you’re busy. Multiple photos sent in Messages now appear as a collage or collection of images that you can swipe through for easy browsing.
Maps A new interactive globe shows enhanced details for mountain ranges, deserts, forests, oceans, and more.
Detailed maps for cities like San Francisco and New York display elevation, landmarks, trees, turn lanes, crosswalks, and more. A new map for drivers highlights details like traffic and incidents, and a route planner lets you view your upcoming journey.
Safari The updated tab bar takes up less room on the page and adjusts to match the colors of each site. Easily start a Quick Note by swiping your finger or Apple Pencil up from the bottom-right corner of the screen, or open Control Center. Create Smart Lists to automatically organize reminders by tags, dates, times, locations, priority, and more. Universal Control (iPadOS 15.4) Use a single keyboard, mouse, or trackpad to work seamlessly between your Mac and iPad.
Screen Time (iPadOS 15.2; not available in all countries or regions) With communication safety in Screen Time, the Messages app can detect nudity in photos before they’re sent or received on your child’s device, and provide resources to help them. Mask unwanted environmental or external noise by playing soothing sounds continuously in the background.
See Customize accessibility settings for specific apps, Explore images, and Play background sounds on iPad to mask environmental noise. Learn tricks for iPadOS The Tips app adds new suggestions frequently, so you can get the most from your iPad.
iPadOS 16: Everything We Know
There are also iPad-exclusive improvements to the Podcasts app, new accessibility features, and DriverKit to provide developers with a way to build support for audio, USB, and PCI hardware devices connected to the iPad. In addition, iPadOS 16 gains most of iOS 16’s features and improvements, such as new ways to collaborate via Messages, the all-new Freeform app, and shared Tab Groups in Safari.
iPadOS 15: Everything We Know
Users can bring up Quick Note anywhere to jot down a thought and add links, providing an easy way to get back to exactly what they were looking at. Spotlight now offers web image search and richer results for actors, musicians, TV shows, and movies. FaceTime also supports Portrait mode and offers a new grid view to see more faces at the same time. Users can also generate shareable links to a scheduled FaceTime call, which can also be opened on Android and Windows devices.
There are dozens of tweaks and improvements, such as Universal Control to seamlessly use a single mouse and keyboard across the iPad and the Mac and drag and drop files, features in the Maps app including a globe view and a new 3D experience in cities, all new features for Memories in the Photos app, a system-wide Shared with You feature for highlighting content that has been shared in Messages conversations, a new For All of You row in the TV app to recommend entertainment for the whole household, and more.
iPadOS 16: All the new features coming to iPad
Editor’s Note: The iPadOS 16 public beta is available now, which means you brave souls can install an early, unfinished version and try it out for themselves. Apple unveiled the new features coming to iPadOS 16 during its annual WWDC event in June. A new Freeform feature in iPadOS 16 allows you an others to jot down notes or draw on a virtual whiteboard, while Stage Manager makes it easier to work with a connected external display.
These new features seem promising and may deliver on the notion of turning the iPad into a desktop replacement.
This delay is significant because it marks the first time in a long while that Apple has staggered the release of major updates to its iPhone and iPad operating systems. It’s also worth noting that not every iPad capable of running iPadOS 16 will support every feature.
It’s also possible to drop photos, videos and documents into a specific group using the whiteboard feature. Stage Manager allows you to resize windows as you would on a Mac (or PC) and has a visible dock on the screen that makes it easy to access apps.
Stage Manager’s best feature is how it lets you plug your iPad into an external display so that you can effectively have two screens. The Weather app has been missing in action from iPads since the dawn of time, but iPadOS 16 brings it to Apple’s tablet. (A developer API will allow app makers to build weather info into their software as well.) If you’ve got an iPad Pro, you’ll be able to take advantage of Reference Mode, which lets the 12.9-inch model match the color requirements in workflows like review and approve, color grading, and compositing — definitely a welcome addition for pros who use their iPad as a second screen.
A lot of iOS 16 additions also make their way to the iPad, including live text support for video, a My Sports section in Apple News with scores and highlights, on-device dictation and more. As we said, there are a good deal of folks who use iPads for work or as their sole computing device.
iPadOS 15 now available: Features, compatible iPads, and more
The iPad software focuses on productivity features, bringing a new Home Screen design with integrated widgets and the App Library. With the release of iPadOS 14 in 2020, Apple introduced Home Screen widgets, expanded stock apps with unique iPad design elements like sidebars in Photos and Apple Music, new interfaces for Siri and incoming phone calls, and more. Redesigned Home Screen: Widgets, App Library, Focus, and Notification Center In the bottom right corner, users can finally find the App Library, introduced with iOS 14.
With this function, users can select what kind of notifications they will receive while working or having some personal time. Functions people would expect to use while in quarantine are finally arriving in iMessage and FaceTime.
iMessage now brings pinned messages, a new gallery grid for multiple images, and there are several new Memoji customizations. Still talking about iMessage and FaceTime, Apple introduced two new features called SharePlay and Shared with Me.
The cool part of this feature is that you can take your time to listen to a song, watch a TV show, or hear a podcast, and then click on it to reply to the message sent to you a few hours or days back.
In the productivity section, Apple, unfortunately, didn’t bring all the features pro users wanted to take full advantage of their new M1 iPad Pro, even though Apple made it easier to rely on multitasking features. They just need to slide the pencil through the bottom right corner to the center of the screen and start writing. A new open project format based on Swift packages can open and be edited in Swift Playgrounds for iPad as well as within Xcode on Mac, offering users even more versatility to develop apps across iPad and Mac.
It syncs across Mac and iPhone so users can continue their projects from anywhere or easily share them with friends and family. It brings a new feature called Auto Translate, which detects when someone is speaking so users can converse naturally without having to tap a microphone button.
Maps: Apple is enhancing details in cities for neighborhoods, commercial districts, elevation, and buildings, new road colors and labels, custom-designed landmarks, and a new nighttime mode with a moonlit glow.
iCloud+: iCloud got new premium features, including the Hide My Email feature, expanded HomeKit Secure Video support, and a new internet privacy service, iCloud Private Relay, at no additional cost
With this version, the company finally brought SharePlay for all users as well as reverting Safari to its old design. is a new subscription tier that gives you access to all songs, playlists, and stations in Apple Music using Siri App Privacy Report in Settings lets you see how often apps have accessed your location, photos, camera, microphone, contacts and more during the last seven days, as well as their network activity
in Settings lets you see how often apps have accessed your location, photos, camera, microphone, contacts and more during the last seven days, as well as their network activity Communication safety setting gives parents the ability to enable warnings for children when they receive or send photos that contain nudity gives parents the ability to enable warnings for children when they receive or send photos that contain nudity Digital Legacy allows you to designate people as Legacy Contacts so they can access your iCloud account and personal information in the event of your death allows you to designate people as Legacy Contacts so they can access your iCloud account and personal information in the event of your death Apple TV app: Store tab lets you browse, buy, and rent movies and TV Shows all in one place
This update foregoes new features in favor of under-the-hood bug fixes and improvements.
One of the most notable changes here is a fix for a Safari vulnerability that may have been leaking your browsing history and Google ID data to the websites you visited. Different from other software updates, iPadOS 15.5 only improves the Podcast app experience, as Apple focused on Wallet changes for the iPhone this time:
Apple Podcasts includes a new setting to limit episodes stored on your iPhone and automatically delete older ones TV app adds the option to restart a live sports game already in progress and pause, rewind, or fast-forward. Fixes an issue that may cause Braille devices to slow down or stop responding when navigating text in Mail.
Make a fresh backup of your iPhone or iPad with your Mac or PC in case you want to downgrade your device at any point (you can’t restore from a backup made in iOS 15 if you downgrade to iOS 14) On your iPhone or iPad, head to Apple’s public beta website Tap the arrow in the top right corner, sign in if you’re not already Now make sure you’re on the iOS “Guide for Public Betas” Swipe down and under the Get Started section, tap enroll your iOS device Swipe down again and tap Download Profile Tap Allow to download the profile, hit Close Head to Settings on your device and tap Profile Downloaded near the top Tap Install in the top right corner, enter your passcode if needed Read the consent agreement, then tap Install two more times Your iPhone or iPad will prompt you to restart to complete the changes After it reboots, head back to Settings > General > Software update You should see iOS 15 public beta available, tap Download and Install
iPadOS 16: Everything you need to know
iPadOS 16 is arriving in a couple of months and brings a whole host of new features: improved multi-tasking, new collaboration tools, and most important of all, the very first built-in weather app for iPad. Even though it isn’t out yet, you can get excited about iPadOS 16 because Apple has unveiled the key new features, which we’ve outlined below.
Apple has confirmed that iPadOS 16 will launch in “fall” (or autumn, if you’re in the UK), but this is no surprise as it releases a new version every year.
However, a recent report from Bloomberg suggests that, for the first time, the release of iPadOS 16 could be pushed to October. The news comes from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman citing “people with knowledge of the matter,” who suggest the delay is down to several reasons. It gives Apple a little bit longer to test out issues with Stage Manager, the new iPad multitasking interface that’s particularly buggy in current beta builds, and it’ll also free up resources in the short term to work on iOS 16 ahead of release next month.
As its own platform with features specifically designed for iPad, we have the flexibility to deliver iPadOS on its own schedule,” Apple explained via comment. If you want to download it, follow our guide to installing the iOS 16 beta, as the steps for an iPad are essentially identical. But take heed of the warnings: beta software may not work properly, and it is a big risk to run it on an iPad that you rely on daily. Some of the major changes are to multi-tasking and there are a few M1-specific software tricks, which apply to the latest iPads that use Apple’s M1 processor. Of course, iPadOS 16 also benefits from many of the improvements in iOS 16 (the iPhone version of the operating system – the two are still closely related). It’s designed to be quick to jump from that app direct into the chat group or even start a FaceTime call too.
All of these tools are taken to the next level in Freeform, a new app that will launch alongside the OS update later this year. It took steps to fix this issue with iPadOS 15, introducing a new icon when browsing iPad apps that lets you activate the split-screen functionality, but Apple isn’t done just yet.
At WWDC the company introduced the new Stage Manager view, which will arrive on both Macs and iPads this year – though only those with the M1 chip inside. Curiously they sit on the side of your screen, in addition to the Dock along the bottom, so it will make things a little cramped.
Finally, Virtual Memory Swap can re-allocate up to 16GB of storage to serve as make-shift RAM for demanding apps – again, only for the M1. This feature is widespread on Android devices, where the actual performance gains are questionable, but perhaps Apple has found a way to make it more effective. Designed to appeal to pros, though not exclusive to them, these updates are all about bringing iPad apps in-line with their Mac equivalents. This isn’t about specific small changes, and more about a sweeping move to give the iPad more of the capabilities and software of Macs, so it feels less like an iPhone with a big screen.
For one, iPadOS 16 is gaining support for Metal 3, the new graphics API the company is simultaneously rolling out on Macs. It’s wishful thinking that this is an oversight: it’s more likely that iPad owners will have an extra year – or more – to wait for the same lock screen changes. The redesigned first-party app icons are allegedly in development by Alan Dye, VP of Human Interface Design at Apple, and his team.
iPadOS 15 new features, and what will change on your iPad
A sister update to iOS 15, the new iPadOS has lots of the features of that iPhone operating system, but with a few extras that make the most of the tablet form factor. If you’re not yet up to date then head to Settings > General > Software Update to grab the latest available version of iPadOS. Widgets were added in iOS 14, but they were locked to the home screen in a panel on the left… for some reason.
On iPhones you have to swipe to the end of your home screens to get to the app library, but on iPads you can also bring the thing up easily from any page via the dock. It’s not clear how this is different from the current split-screening feature, as the ‘shelf’ or list of apps to swap between when you’re multitasking already exists in prior iPadOS builds. The iOS Notes app has turned into Google Docs, by the sounds of it. One other new improvement is the ability to easily bring up a Quick Note by swiping up on the screen with the Apple Pencil, giving you a way to easily sketch a note or write down an idea. This app is now coming to iPadOS, so you can convert text and spoken words between languages.
FaceTime has a variety of improvements, and the biggest of them is a feature called SharePlay that allows you to listen to songs together over Apple Music or watch TV shows in sync, with shared playback controls. It’s sort of like Netflix Party, a feature many used during the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020, but specifically for Apple devices and through the company’s services like streaming platforms. Pus you can move seamlessly between an iPad and a Mac with a single mouse and keyboard, Memories in Photos has a new look and personalized song suggestions, Maps includes new and enhanced details, and there are new privacy and accessibility tools. This allows you to stream films and TV shows or listen to music while on FaceTime calls, and to have the content in sync for everyone.
There’s also a Legacy Contacts feature, which lets you assign someone to get access to your Apple ID, iCloud account and iPad data after you pass away. There are other smaller changes too, which you can read about in our iOS 15.2 guide, as they’re the same for both iPhone and iPad.
With iPadOS 15.4, users finally got access to Universal Control, which allows you to connect your iPad to a Mac and use the iPad’s screen like an extension of the Mac’s display, with one keyboard and mouse controlling both devices. There’s not much in iPadOS 15.5, but one change is a new Apple Podcasts setting to limit episodes stored on your iPad and automatically delete older ones. iPadOS 15.6 is another small update, but along with bug fixes it also includes the ability to fast-forward, rewind, pause, and restart live sports games that are currently in progress from the TV app.
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