Last year was the year of the Mac transition, where Apple began to move their Macs from Intel processors to their own, now bringing them to work on the same architecture as the iOS devices.
While the new Macs with this chip are proving to be incredible devices, with great battery-life and fast performance, eyes are turning to the iPad.
We're now at the point where the tablet looks restricted; for its great modular design, its software is now far behind in functionality. It's time for the iPad to expand into something more now.
With that, here's our wishes for iPadOS 15.
iPadOS 15 Wishes
Widgets Everywhere
iOS 14 brought widgets to both iPhone and iPad. While they've been available on Android since 2008, the iOS variant simply look better, and have greater uses. However, while you could place them anywhere on your home screen on your iPhone, you're only restricted to one column on iPad.
This seemed bizarre when it was announced, and seven months later, it's still bizarre that no widgets can be placed anywhere on a 12.9" screen. In 15, I want to see all the widgets across the iPad screen. There's so many that can be used, and as 'WidgetSmith' has essentially been the app of the year with its customisation, it could reach another level if it gained iPad-specific features.
READ MORE: The best games to play with the iPad Trackpad.
Better Multitasking
Now that a mouse can be used with iPadOS, multitasking now seems outdated; as if it was only made for a touch-based device. It would be great to have a three-pane view of apps running at the same time instead of two, alongside being able to switch between apps in these panes much easier. Instead of bringing up a dock, perhaps you can bring up a 'carousel' view in one of the panes to switch apps.
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Better UI
Having 'Compact view' in iPad meant that Siri and incoming calls finally appeared as an overlay in iPadOS 14; not a full-screen experience. But that's only the tip of what could be done for the iPad UI. There seems to be an issue where any menu buttons are covered up by the taskbar at the bottom, while we've already spoken about widgets.
But Control Center is the biggest annoyance; it has its own section on iPad, covering one side of the screen, and blurring everything out. Instead, perhaps have it in the 'multitasking' screen again from iOS 11, or even have some has keyboard shortcuts.
Another aspect are the folders. You press one, it covers the whole screen. How about the UI from pre-iOS 7 comes back, where they appear as an opening to the home-screen?
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Multi-Audio Support to Create Podcasts
It's no surprise that podcasts are booming; millions of episode are being downloaded, subscribed and listened to on many devices. However, creating a podcast from scratch on an iPad is simply a terrible experience.
Usually, one needs Skype/Discord, and a recording app, and a microphone connected in order to capture both voices on different tracks, and then using another app to create, edit and publish the episode.
However, iOS cannot record two simultaneous audio tracks at the same time. This instantly limits any creative endeavour, so if iPadOS 15 can allow this, alongside allowing third-party microphones such as Yeti and Razer to be used, it can open up a huge avenue for iPads there.
While there's plenty of low-hanging fruit here, it's a bag of small wishes that could really help the iPad be its own device. It's going to be an interesting time in June when the next software versions are announced at WWDC, but it could decide for many if they will need to switch from an iPad to an M1 Macbook. Right now, it's very alluring, so one can only hope that Apple are aware of this, and are about to show iPadOS 15 as a powerful creation device to stand on its own.
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