Whereas a lot of the main focus lately has been on iOS 17 and the iPhone 15, Apple additionally has a brand new replace for iPad customers that’s now out there. I’ve been utilizing iPadOS 17 on my iPad Professional, and there are two issues which have caught out to date.

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Stage Supervisor updates

Apple unveiled Stage Supervisor as a brand new option to multitask 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 modifications are literally fairly properly achieved.

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 significantly extra flexibility and help for overlapping home windows.

It’s also possible to Shift-click app icons to immediately add home windows to your present workspace. This works from the iPad’s dock in addition to by way of highlight search. Truthfully, this alteration alone is sufficiently big to not less than make the Stage Supervisor expertise usable for me on iPad, not to mention when mixed with the liberty for resizing and inserting home windows.

The modifications to Stage Supervisor in iPadOS 17 are so notable and so properly achieved that it’s now a viable manner for me to multitask on the iPad.

I additionally advocate trying out the MacStories write-up on Stage Supervisor modifications in iPadOS 17.

Apple introduced Residence Display screen 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. In the beginning, widgets are interactive. This lets you carry out duties like taking part in music, finishing a to-do listing process, and extra with out opening the corresponding app for that widget.

Picture by way of @Willydoo on Twitter

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

In iPadOS 17, nevertheless, this has modified. iPad customers can now place widgets anyplace on the Residence Display screen for much more customization. This consists of the power to copy the strip of widgets alongside the facet of the iPad’s Residence Display screen.

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’d 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 fitting path.

iPadOS nonetheless isn’t as versatile as macOS, and it in all probability by no means can be. Slowly however absolutely, nevertheless, Apple is making modifications that may assist flip the iPad right into a extra strong and highly effective platform for extra folks.

The top objective is that individuals 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 function that macOS presents in the very same method. Once 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 provide extra flexibility than the Mac, given the give attention to each contact and cursor enter, completely different type elements, and mobile connectivity. We aren’t there but, however the iPadOS 17 modifications mixed with the current releases of Logic Professional and Remaining Lower Professional for iPad give me extra hope than I’ve had in a very long time.

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