Introducing The Best Features Of iPadOS

The next step for tablet productivity

- Benjamin Kerry & Gavin Lenaghan

“You may notice there’s been one thing missing from the iOS 13 story,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, told the audience at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June 2019 after enthusing about the various features of the new iPhone operating system, “and that’s iPad.” There’s a simple reason for that: this year, the iPad has been given its own dedicated OS called iPadOS, reflecting the “truly distinct” experience of using the tablet.

In a later interview with MacStories editor-in-chief Federico Viticci, Federighi provided some further color on Apple’s rationale for introducing iPadOS. The executive explained that over the years, the iPad has “become something really distinct from the phone”. He clarified that iPad-specific features such as the multitasking functionality of Drag and Drop, Split View and Slide Over, as well as the Apple Pencil, “are things that really define a different way of working with the device.”

Today, the days of the iPad being derided as simply a “large iPhone” feel like a fading memory. All the same, however, the iPad does not quite feel like a complete replacement for the Mac – even if in terms of functionality, the lines between the two have become increasingly blurred. VentureBeat’s Jeremy Horwitz has gone as far as hailing the high-end iPad Pro as “only an iPadOS update away from replacing a laptop”, boding well for next year’s expected refresh of iPadOS.