iPadOS 15 arrives at an important time for the iPad. Apple has been receiving increasing requests from users to make its tablet software as versatile and as powerful as the 2018 iPad Pro. The iPadOS update for this year's iPadOS is not going to please those who desire the iPad to feel more like a Mac. It still feels like an iPad.Apple has made some significant and minor changes to the iPad's interface, but they have also maintained (and improved upon) the iPad's basic experience. There are many new features, and the iPadOS 15 public beta is still in development. Here are some highlights to look forward to when final software arrives this fall.Do you need to install iPadOS 15First, let's talk about the beta status. Apple's betas are generally reliable and this is true here as well. My iPad Pro 11-inch has been easy to use. However, apps sometimes crash and throw me to my Home Screen. I also have issues with notifications working and interacting with them. There are many other hiccups. Examples include the fact that my cursor does not always move to the search box when I summon it. Also, Slide Over sometimes cuts off the last few letters in my messages. Although it's not a major problem, it is noticeable when I am using my iPad for hours at a stretch. I would wait for the beta versions to be released, unless it is something you are really interested in, or you have a backup iPad.Let's get to the good stuff. The biggest change in iPadOS 15 are widgets. Like last year's iOS 14, iPad users are now able to pin widgets wherever they like. You can choose which apps you wish to display on your Home Screen. The rest of the App Library is where you can store all the apps that you have installed on your iPad. Both the App Library and widgets were added to the iPhone last year. It was surprising that they hadn't made it to the iPad yet.My home screen for "work".I'm glad Apple did this because it allows you to customize your iPad's home screens, which is a great feature for a large-screen device. Although it was a bit of work, I now have five home screens that I've curated for entertainment, work, and games. My work screen has only six shortcuts (Drive Docs Sheet, Trello and LastPass), but I have many widgets that provide quick access to information and a variety of tools. A widget shows recent notes from the work folder. Another widget displays reminders, which is also specific to my work group. An Apple News widget displays the most recent tech news. There are widgets for Google Calendar, Gmail, and Google Calendar. This is the place I go to when I need to do things.Quick NotesQuick Notes is another feature that could revolutionize the iPad experience. Quick Notes, as Apple's Craig Federighi stated last month at the WWDC keynote was now an all-system feature. Swiping down from the lower left corner will bring up a new note which floats above any apps you are using. Quickly type or draw (using the Apple Pencil), whatever you like and then swipe away the note when you are done. You can either start a new note each time you access Quick Notes or keep adding to an existing one depending on your settings. If you need to go to a particular document, you can also swipe between Quick Notes that you have started.A button appears at the top of the Quick Note to allow you to save a link for the page you are visiting.Quick Notes offers a more fluid experience than the iPad's Slide Over multitasking features. Quick Notes can be moved anywhere on the screen. It feels like a window, similar to what you might use on Windows and macOS. You can quickly dismiss the note from the iPad's sidebar, where you will see a small arrow.Apple's Quick Note demos were mostly about using the Apple Pencil to quickly note down ideas, but they also work well with a keyboard. The iPad feels much more versatile than it does when I'm working. It almost always has the Magic Keyboard attached. This is a great tool for research. You can add links to web pages in Safari and destinations in Maps with just one tap. The only problem I have with the gesture to swipe in from the bottom left is the awkwardness of the keyboard-attached iPad. The Apple Pencil is a better option.MultitaskingWWDC also focused heavily on multitasking. Apple made some improvements, but the basic iPad multitasking experience remains the same. You can have apps take up all of the screen or share it with another app in Split View. Slide Over allows you to quickly summon another app's floating window. These features have seen major improvements over time, but they still offer the basic multitasking options that we have had since iOS 9 in 2015.Once you are able to use it properly, the tiny multitasking menu is very useful.This is not the experience you've been looking for. Apple has made multitasking easier with the features it offers. You can now move your app between fullscreen, slide over, and split view by using a small three-dot menu located at the top. I am typing this sentence in Notes, full screen, as I type. To split View Notes and share my screen with Safari, just tap on the multitasking menu. This will give me a full view on my Home Screen. I can then pick any item that I wish to add alongside Notes.It's a huge improvement to be able to select any app from your Home Screen while setting up multitasking views. Before, you had to either use search or drag an app from your dock. It is much easier to switch between full-screen, slide over and split view views using the menu. You had to be aware that there were many gestures. But after a few minutes playing with the multitasking menu, it is easy to see the behavior.SafariSafari is the last major update I'll be addressing at this stage. Safari is one of the most essential apps on the iPad and has seen a significant improvement in the past few years. Apple made a controversial design decision for iPadOS 15. Apple reduced the top menu bar by putting the URL bar and open tabs in one row. A tab and its URL bar now have one visual cue.This means that the URL bar's location changes. The URL bar will be all the way to your right if you look at the tab that is currently open. This can take some getting used to as most people are used to the URL bar being in the middle of any browser. It is also difficult to see other tabs. I currently can see eight tabs, in addition to the active tab. You can see the rest to my left and right of my active Tab. You will need to scroll in either direction to see them.My active tab is the one to my right. The URL bar in my browser is also to my right.In this example, the URL bar is at the bottom and my active tab is to my left.Apple's menu bar cleanup also removed the zoom-out button that shows you a preview for every tab open. This is a change I don't like. The Safari menu can't be customized on iPad, unlike the Mac. You can either use a keyboard shortcut to open the sidebar or drag it up. This shows all tabs that are currently open in a particular window, along with your bookmarks and reading list, history, and links shared in messages.The iPad's Safari already does a fantastic job hiding the menu bar when you scroll through websites, so I don't feel the need to make this change. It will be interesting to see how Apple reacts to the beta. I'm sure that many people will still prefer the old layout.The new sidebar in Safari lets you access your tab groups and other items such as bookmarks or your reading list.Tab groups are a positive feature of the new Safari. These tab groups are handled beautifully with a button in your sidebar that allows you to open a blank group or take all of your tabs and save them as a group. The sidebar lets you switch between groups and you can access any groups that you've created in any Safari window. If you have upgraded to iOS 15 and macOS Monterey, groups will sync across all your devices. Different tab groups are useful for different tasks. I've already found them to be very helpful and will continue to use them as I integrate them into my workflow.There are more to comeiPadOS 15 has many other important changes, including the revamped Focus system and notification system, improvements to FaceTime, Messages and the Universal Control system, which works between an iPhone, iPad and Mac. You can find out more about these changes in our previews for iOS 15 and macOS Monterey. I will be reviewing all of the new software in its final form in the fall. In the meantime, I'll continue to dig into future beta releases to find out how iPadOS 15 has changed between now and the wider release.
