Apple will announce significant changes to its iPadOS operating system for iPads next week at its annual WWDC that will make iPads more like MacBooks and less like iPhones, Bloomberg News reports Thursday citing “people with knowledge of the matter.”
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
The iPad’s next major software update, iPadOS 16, will have a redesigned multitasking interface that makes it easier to see what apps are open and switch between tasks, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the changes aren’t yet public. It also will let users resize app windows and offer new ways for users to handle multiple apps at once.
The iPad accounts for nearly 9% of annual Apple’s sales, and that percentage has inched up in recent years. But professional users of the device have clamored for an interface that feels more like a laptop experience. The iPad’s hardware, which now includes the same M1 chip as some of Apple’s laptops, has grown increasingly powerful, and in some ways the software hasn’t kept up.
Currently, iPad users can either run apps in a full-screen view like on an iPhone or run two apps side by side. The company also lets users add a scaled-down version of a third app by sliding it over from the side. The changes will expand upon that interface.
MacDailyNews Take: This is, of course, a great idea:
Imagine an “iOS Pro” mode.
Turn on iOS Pro on your iPad Pro
1. Tap Settings > General, and make sure iOS Pro is turned on.
2. There is no step two.
Hey, we can dream, can’t we?
— MacDailyNews, December 29, 2015
If windowing (finally) comes to iPad with iPadOS 16, Apple will be smartly cannibalizing itself, to some extent, as some computer buyers will opt for iPads instead of MacBooks solely due to that (massive upgrade in) capability.
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!
Shop The Apple Store at Amazon.
I recently destroyed my MacBook Pro with a large helping of Diet Coke. I had to work on my iPad for a week while my MacPro was getting repaired. I was amazed how little I missed my MacBook. iPad is very close to being all I need 90%+ of the time.
Since you did not mention the type of work you do, suspect computer LITE. Guessing word processing, light database, e-mails, internet browsing, movies, music, games, etc.
Heavy duty content creation apps like 3D modeling/rendering, video editing, creating dozens of editable layers in Photoshop, movie making… then miss your Mac in a N.Y. Minute…
Forget the heavy stuff. Most of my work consists of having MS Word (woefully hobbled on iPad), open along with a dictionary app and sometimes a PDF and Safari. Having two apps side by side is a terrible use of space, I need to be able to stack two vertically, but even side-by-side and slide over doesn’t work with all apps. Through tons of trial and error I’ve figured out how to get more of my work done on my iPad Pro (would have been impossible without the Magic Keyboard, which is still inadequate) but, like with Siri, had I never even tried and just stuck to my Mac and iPhone for everything I would have been more productive.
Just writing this comment reminded me of how horrific cursor placement is with the MK/iPad OS, sometimes it’s impossible to place a cursuor where you want it to go, instead nearby words are just constantly highlighted.
I lived on my iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard for a week while my MBP was in the shop. It works well for some tasks, but the inability to create inline links in email is a huge issue for me. I know it’s possible to grab links, copy them, paste them, and then edit the text of the link, but this is not a streamlined process, and in my experience it can create emails that look fine to the sender but have weird text sizing/formatting for the recipient. I want my emails to be WYSIWYG, and I want links to be insertable alongside the bold/italics buttons. Until then, my iPad Pro isn’t a great substitute for a laptop.
So is this one more step leading up to a macOS replacement or merge?
That’ll be the day puny iOS can outgun Mac OS…
I agree. I just certainly hope that is not what they are thinking, in spite of what they have said in the past.
Surely this is yet more BS from the master debaters of BS. Windows? On an iPad? Will hell freeze over first? Well, maybe Tim Cook does have resizable windows up his pipeline. He obviously has a very sizeable pipeline, it must be extremely well used and well lubricated. Good on him but everything I’ve writtten is surely the biggest load of BS yet.
Two apps: Final Cut Pro and Affinity Publisher. When the iPad can run those apps and those like them, it will have arrived.