Whereas a lot of the main focus over the past two weeks has been on Imaginative and prescient Professional and iOS 17, Apple additionally has a brand new replace for iPad customers coming later this 12 months. I’ve been utilizing iPadOS 17 on my iPad Professional, and there are two issues which have caught out to this point.

Stage Supervisor Updates

Apple unveiled Stage Supervisor as a brand new technique to multi-task as a part of iPadOS 16 and macOS Ventura final 12 months. Whereas Apple solely gave Stage Supervisor a passing point out throughout this 12 months’s unveiling of iPadOS 17 at WWDC, it seems the adjustments are literally fairly well-done.

The largest change is that iPadOS 17 offers you way more freedom when arranging and resizing home windows with Stage Supervisor. Whereas there nonetheless isn’t as a lot freedom as on the Mac, it’s a much better system than what was supplied within the preliminary model of Stage Supervisor. There’s a substantial extra quantity of flexibility and help for overlapping home windows.

You too can Shift-click app icons to immediately add home windows instantly to your present workspace. Truthfully, this alteration alone is large enough to no less than make the Stage Supervisor expertise usable for me on iPad. Not to mention when mixed with the liberty for resizing and putting home windows.

The adjustments to Stage Supervisor in iPadOS 17 are so notable and so well-done, that it’s now a viable means for me to multi-task on the iPad. Plus, that is solely iPadOS 17 beta 1. Apple has loads of time to refine and enhance the system much more earlier than iPadOS 17 is launched to everybody this fall.

I additionally suggest testing the MacStories write-up on Stage Supervisor adjustments in iPadOS 17.

Apple introduced Dwelling Display widgets to the iPad two years in the past as a part of iPadOS 15. This 12 months’s replace to the iPad brings extra performance and suppleness. Before everything, widgets are interactive. This lets you carry out duties like taking part in music, finishing a to-do record activity, and extra with out opening the corresponding app for that widget.

Picture through @Willydoo on Twitter

Along with interactive widget help, iPadOS 17 additionally makes a giant replace to Dwelling Display customization. In iPadOS 15 and iPadOS 16, widgets might solely be positioned solely round app icons and subsequent to 1 one other. For instance, you couldn’t go away clean area between widgets and apps nor might you re-create the strip of widgets on the iPad Dwelling Display that many individuals loved in iPadOS 14.

In iPadOS 17, nonetheless, this has modified. iPad customers can now place widgets wherever on the Dwelling Display for much more customization. This consists of the flexibility to copy the strip of widgets alongside the facet of the iPad’s Dwelling Display.

The mixture of added customization and interactivity for widgets makes them infinitely extra helpful. To me, interactivity for widgets is a much more helpful change on iPad than it’s on iPhone.

9to5Mac’s Take

If I needed to sum up my first impressions of iPadOS 17 in a single phrase, I might say “flexibility.” Apple has lastly eliminated a few of the notable guardrails that beforehand restricted issues like widgets and Stage Supervisor. It’s a giant step in the precise route.

iPadOS nonetheless isn’t as versatile as macOS, and it most likely by no means can be. Slowly however absolutely, nonetheless, Apple is making adjustments that may assist flip the iPad right into a extra sturdy and highly effective platform for extra folks.

There are different helpful adjustments in iPadOS 17 as effectively, together with some huge adjustments to how the iPad handles PDFs. I’ll have extra on that later.

The tip objective is that folks can use the iPad with out having to compromise their workflows as in comparison with what they do on the Mac. This doesn’t imply that iPadOS wants to supply each characteristic that macOS provides in the very same method. After I use my iPad Professional, I don’t need the macOS expertise. I need the iPadOS expertise, simply with the ability and suppleness of macOS.

In truth, the iPad ought to supply extra flexibility than the Mac, given the give attention to each contact and cursor enter, completely different type components, and mobile connectivity. We aren’t there but, however the iPadOS 17 adjustments mixed with the latest releases of Logic Professional and Closing Minimize Professional for iPad give me extra hope than I’ve had in a very long time.

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