Five years of iPadOS: A Promising Start, but More Work Ahead

When Apple announced the separation of iPadOS from iOS in 2019, it felt like a watershed moment for the iPad. As someone who has been using and writing about the iPad since its inception, I was excited to see Apple acknowledging that the device deserved its own distinct operating system. The iPad had long outgrown its roots as a mere “big iPhone,” and it was time for its software to reflect that.

Key innovations and enhancements
Now, nearly five years later, iPadOS has indeed made significant strides. The Scribble feature enhances the handwriting and note taking ability of the Apple Pencil by letting people write directly on text fields which improves the text input experience. The Files app improvements have elevated the iPad’s file management capabilities, albeit not quite to desktop level. With Universal Control you can work on a Mac and an iPad simultaneously using one set of keyboard and mouse or trackpad.

Similarly, enhancements to multitasking in recent versions of iPadOS have made it easier to work with multiple apps simultaneously. Split View and Slide Over changed the way people use the iPad by allowing them to work with multiple apps much more easily. Stage Manager, though still a work in progress, takes this ability even further and shows the bigger potential of iPadOS.

On the hardware side, the debut of the M1-powered iPad made it truly a desktop computing class device allowing many other features to be unlocked or introduced. While the Smart Keyboard Folio allowed the iPad to serve as a laptop replacement for many, the Magic Keyboard which comes with a trackpad drives this even further even if it adds quite a bit of heft. Each new version gained brighter, sharper, and more precise display to deliver greater color accuracy and enhanced visual experience and specifically on the Pro line, thanks to ProMotion, True Tone, Retina XD, and P3 color gamut.

The introduction of the Pencil transformed the iPad into a robust tool for creative individuals across many fields and the new Pencil Pro only enhances that further with gyroscope support, haptic feedback, squeeze, and barrel roll capabilities. The iPad can also work with popular game controllers, by the way.

macOS on iPad is not the answer
Despite these improvements, iPadOS still has a long way to go before it can truly rival the functionality and flexibility of desktop operating systems like macOS. The file management system, for example, still feels clunky and limited compared to what’s available on a Mac. And while the multitasking features have improved, they can still feel confusing and unwieldy at times.

While there are calls for the iPad to run macOS altogether due to its clearly capable hardware systems, that’s ignoring the fact that it would take a mammoth multi-year effort to turn the macOS into not just a touch-capable platform but one that can actually feel at home with a touch interface. The macOS was never designed to be a touch-interaction system while the iPadOS was, so it would take comparably less effort to deliver enhancements to the iPadOS.

Part of the challenge lies in Apple’s own apparent uncertainty about the iPad’s role in its ecosystem. Is it meant to be a laptop replacement or a complementary device? After all, it is entirely possible to use the iPad without having a conventional computer in many use cases and situations but at the same time it still lacks a number of “desktop” system capabilities to convince people that it’s what they need as opposed to a traditional computer. On the other hand, Apple Vision Pro is looking more like the future of personal computing than the iPad now.

At the D8 All Things D Conference in 2010 the late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs likened PCs to trucks, suggesting that in the post-PC era, only a minority would need the full range of capabilities offered by conventional computers. However, perception may be the iPad’s biggest hurdle.

Is the Mac holding back the iPad?
There’s also the question of whether the recent resurgence of the Mac, driven by the success of Apple Silicon, has shifted Apple’s priorities away from the iPad. The iPad is 13 years old now but the introduction of the M1 chip brought incredible performance and efficiency to the Mac lineup, potentially leading Apple to refocus more resources on its traditional computing platform. However the company’s latest and most powerful and capable chip, the M4, debuted on the latest iPad Pro with Mac deployment of the chip still further down the line.

Regardless of the reasons behind it, iPadOS still feels like a work in progress. This is a shame because the iPad hardware has never been more powerful or capable. The M4 chip in the latest iPad Pro models is a marvel of engineering, and the Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard add even more versatility to the device.

Maybe if they let the iPad run macOS there won’t be too many reasons left for people to buy the Macs? Although back in 2010 that was probably where the company was heading, trying to disrupt their own product before someone else does it for them. These days, though, sales of the Mac have been as strong as ever while iPad sales are not as big as they could have been.

iPad’s apps and perception problems
For the iPad to truly live up to its potential, Apple needs to continue pushing iPadOS forward. This means building on recent improvements but also thinking more boldly about what a modern tablet operating system should be capable of because with every release the iPad Pro has been the most cutting edge tablet computer on the market bar none. The hardware is always second to none while the software consistently leaves much room for criticism and improvements. Maybe it’s by design to prevent it from cutting into the Mac sales? A more robust file management system and a more streamlined multitasking interface seem to be what many people are crying for.

Additionally, Apple should strive to attract more developers to create apps optimized for the iPad’s larger screen and unique capabilities. Developers are keen to create best in class apps for the iPhone but on the iPad that enthusiasm doesn’t seem to be as high, perhaps understandably due to the significant difference in device popularity and also in complexity given the different capabilities and interface requirements carried by the iPad, and therefore the effort needed to create them.

There are apps for just about every category on the iPad. After all, the most popular apps on the iPad have been productivity or note taking apps such as Notability, Good Notes, and Microsoft Office, creative apps such as Procreate, Canva, and the Adobe suite, entertainment or streaming apps like Disney+, HBO/Max, Spotify, and Netflix, and education apps like Duolingo and Coursera. Despite this, people are still saying the iPad line doesn’t have the app they want or the apps do less than their desktop versions.

Google’s and Microsoft’s suites are examples of such apps. While their apps are popular on the iPad, people still resort to the desktop versions to be or feel more productive or to work faster and more efficiently thanks to certain missing features or capabilities, or because the workflow is different.