Rumors level to iPadOS 19 blurring the road between the iPad and Mac. With Apple reportedly specializing in “productiveness, multitasking and app window administration,” we put collectively a really particular iPadOS 19 want record for options that might unlock the total potential of Apple’s tablets.
With WWDC25 simply across the nook, right here’s what we wish to see in iPadOS 19.
iPadOS 19 options want record
In some ways, iPadOS 17 was the final main improve for the iPad’s working system. It improved Stage Supervisor‘s multitasking capabilities, added Lock Display customization, and many others. Final 12 months’s iPadOS 18 was comparatively gentle on modifications, bringing no notable multitasking enhancements.
Leaks level to this 12 months being completely different, with Apple specializing in delivering a extra Mac-like expertise with iPadOS 19.
For years, Apple offered the notion of the iPad as an on-the-go productiveness machine. However past a slender vary of duties, the system constantly falls quick, particularly in multitasking. On account of a collection of irritating limitations, iPadOS largely fails to dwell as much as the pill’s spectacular {hardware} (particularly on the iPad Professional).
With iPadOS 19 shaping up as a serious improve, right here’s all the things we hope Apple brings to its subsequent massive iPadOS launch.
Desk of contents: iPadOS 19 options want record
1. True multi-user help
An iPad doesn’t require the identical degree of private possession as an iPhone. In lots of households, children and fogeys share Apple tablets. Given this actuality, Apple ought to have added multi-user help to iPadOS a very long time in the past. However that hasn’t occurred but.
With the corporate seeking to make iPadOS 19 extra like a Mac, it ought to add multi-user help. This is able to allow higher sharing of an iPad between relations, making certain separate app installs and information. My nephew loves Speaking Tom, so my M1 iPad Professional carries a dozen variations of the sport I by no means requested for and don’t even play.
With out devoted consumer profiles, everybody shares the identical House Display, app information and browser historical past. On a number of events, my nephew ended up opening Outlook and archiving necessary emails in my inbox. macOS and even tvOS help consumer profiles, so there’s nearly no strong purpose that the iPad nonetheless lacks this characteristic.
Apple might leverage Face ID on the iPad to ship a seamless multi-user expertise in iPadOS 19. Think about selecting up an iPad and immediately being taken to your customized profile the second Face ID acknowledges you. Later, when your spouse picks it up, iPadOS 19 seamlessly switches to her profile — full together with her apps, settings and preferences.
2. Professional-level exterior monitor help with a greater Stage Supervisor expertise
Photograph: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
Newer iPad Professionals can drive exterior screens (as much as 6K) over USB-C with ease. Nonetheless, Apple’s method to exterior monitor help on the iPad falls wanting the pliability provided by macOS. You may both mirror the iPad’s show or use it as a secondary monitor.
With the latter choice, the iPad robotically permits Stage Supervisor for the exterior show. There’s no manner to make use of an exterior monitor as an prolonged show. So, your major app will take the middle, with a sidebar on the left displaying the at the moment open and lately used apps. The underside exhibits a dock offering fast entry to your favourite apps.
Coming into full-screen mode in an app robotically hides each the sidebar and the underside dock. You may deliver up the previous by swiping from the left fringe of the display screen. However to view the dock once more, you need to exit full-screen mode or use the Globe + A keyboard shortcut. This undesirable step can hinder you whenever you wish to swap between apps rapidly.
The Stage Supervisor expertise on the iPad can be not the identical as on a Mac. On macOS, Stage Supervisor supplies full flexibility for window resizing and works properly with exterior screens. On the iPad, you get restricted preset sizes for app home windows, with Stage Supervisor nearly necessary for exterior shows.
With iPadOS 19, Apple ought to improve the multitasking expertise. A leak signifies iPadOS 19 might add a Mac-like menu bar, although the UI aspect supposedly will seem solely when the system is linked to an Apple Magic Keyboard.
If iPadOS 19 adopts the Mac’s signature crimson, yellow and inexperienced buttons, it might allow you to rapidly shut, decrease or develop app home windows with ease. It also needs to drop the Stage Supervisor requirement for exterior shows or enhance the characteristic to offer higher flexibility when multitasking.
3. Smarter clipboard
Clipboard help on iPadOS couldn’t be extra primary — you copy one thing, swap apps and paste. That’s the extent of it. On my Mac, I closely use a clipboard supervisor, so it’s disappointing {that a} system as highly effective because the iPad presents such a stripped-down clipboard expertise.
With iPadOS 19, Apple ought to pave the best way for clipboard supervisor apps to hit the iPad’s App Retailer. This is able to allow the iPad to retailer as much as “x” variety of copied objects in historical past. Think about coding or writing an electronic mail with a doc as a reference; getting access to a clipboard historical past will enable you save time and enhance multitasking throughout apps. Whereas this characteristic on our iPad OS want record may appear minor, it might dramatically velocity up your workflow.
It feels laborious to name the iPad Professional a professional system when it lacks such a elementary characteristic.
4. Xcode for iPad
Photograph: Cult of Mac
Apple launched Ultimate Minimize Professional for iPad, a pill model of its high-end Mac video enhancing app, in 2023. Within the two years since, Ultimate Minimize for iPad obtained a number of updates to make it much more highly effective. Nonetheless, it stays Apple’s solely professional Mac app on the iPad. There’s no level within the iPad Professional that includes an M4 chip if there aren’t sufficient apps that may put it to use totally.
With iPadOS 19, Apple ought to lay the groundwork for bringing extra of its Professional apps to the iPad, together with Xcode. The iPad packs sufficient energy to compile and run apps, leaving no technical barrier to bringing Xcode to the platform. With Apple reportedly teaming up with Anthropic for AI coding, Xcode on the iPad might use generative AI to make coding extra environment friendly.
Xcode on the iPad would allow builders, college students and tinkerers to construct on the go. Think about writing, testing and deploying apps immediately from an iPad with out touching a Mac. That degree of flexibility might make the iPad a much more compelling system for creators and coders alike.
5. True background multitasking
Photograph: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
Other than professional apps, Apple ought to add true background multitasking capabilities to iPadOS 19. Admittedly, this may entail a success to battery life. However iPadOS wants this transformation to ship an expertise much like macOS.
In your Mac, video renders or picture exports don’t cease whenever you swap to a different app. That’s not the case with iPadOS proper now. For instance, Ultimate Minimize Professional will cease a video export when you swap away. Likewise, you can’t swap to some other app when exporting a whole bunch of images on the iPad.
This limitation undermines the iPad’s multitasking potential and severely holds the system again.
Apple might restrict background multitasking to a choose few apps, making certain builders don’t take undue benefit. In any other case, there’s all the time a threat of poorly coded apps working within the background and draining your iPad’s battery.
iPadOS 19 want record: Apple must ship massive time
iPadOS has lengthy been the bottleneck for the iPad’s highly effective {hardware}. Regardless of packing laptop-class chips just like the M1, M2 and now the M4, the iPad nonetheless doesn’t supply the form of flexibility or multitasking freedom that energy customers anticipate.
With iPadOS 19, it’s time for Apple to lastly finish these software program limitations and permit the iPad to dwell as much as its full potential. The options on this record would go an extended approach to reaching that lofty aim.
