Apple, in the middle of the Worldwide Developer Conference, separates its tablets from its smartphones by introducing a new operating system called iPadOS based on iOS 13. The first thing you’ll notice about the new OS’ interface is that icons are more tightly packed, allowing for more apps to be displayed at once, which gives it a closer look to macOS’ Launchpad.
Apple is making the iPad more potent with the new iPad OS, and a lot of these new features are all about productivity. The Files app is getting a massive upgrade, complete with zipping and unzip features, local storage, a new Column View, folder-sharing through iCloud Drive, and support for SMB file sharing.
The new changes are much helpful including some new gestures, like three finger pinch to copy, three finger drop to paste, and also three finger swipe to undo. That probably seems like no big deal, but if you’ve ever had to shake your iPad to undo something you accidentally cut, you know that it’s a far more intuitive way to work.
The Files app available in iPadOS also received several features found in macOS’ Finder file manager. That includes support for zipping and unzipping files, which should make it easier to share and transfer large, complicated files. Another great feature previously available only on Mac is support for iCloud Drive. Now you can access a shared folder and go back to it after it’s been updated.
Finally, Safari on the iPad has now a revamped desktop-class browser which means you won’t get forced into mobile sites enabling you to access CMS software, or other cloud-based tools that require a real web browser to work properly.
It also means that browser-based software like Google Docs will work the way they’re supposed to, instead of having to use stripped-down mobile app versions. It now feels like the iPad Pro was a legitimate laptop replacement bringing features that are needed to ditch the laptop.
