Yesterday, at Apple's WWDC developer conference, Apple had a keynote presentation where it debuted new operating systems for the iPhone, Apple TV, Apple Watch, and Mac, a new high-end Mac Pro computer, and more. But my favorite part of this jam-packed presentation was a brand new version of the operating system for the iPad. Since 2010, the iPhone and iPad have both run iOS, although there were always some features that worked on the iPad and not the iPhone. But this Fall, Apple is adding so many new features to iOS for iPad that Apple has given the operating system a new name: iPadOS. There are a breathtaking number of new iPad features, and I have no doubt that I'll be spending the rest of 2019 figuring them all out, especially once iPadOS is released later this year — probably in September if Apple takes the same approach it has in past years. Here are the major new features that I think will be of the most interest to attorneys, but I'm just scratching the surface of everything that is new.
New gestures for text editing
When you are using a computer, are you the type of person who always uses your mouse to go to the File menu to go down and select copy and then goes to the File menu to select paste? Or do you typically use keyboard shortcuts, such as Control-C / Control-V on the PC or Command-C / Command-V on the Mac? If you appreciate using shortcuts to work faster on a computer, you'll like the new gestures for text editing on the iPad.
First, it is easier than ever to move the cursor around the screen. Second, you can quickly select a block of text by dragging your finger over it. Or you can double-tap a word to select it, triple-tap to select a sentence, or tap four times to select an entire paragraph.
Once you have text selected, you can quickly copy by pinching three fingers over the selected text. Move the cursor to another location and do a reverse three-finger pinch to paste. And perhaps best of all, if you want to undo, you no longer need to hunt for a tiny undo icon or shake the iPad; in iPadOS you swipe three fingers to the left to undo, and three fingers to the right to redo.
Mouse support
As excited as I am to use these new gestures, when my iPad is propped up and I'm using an external keyboard to type, I sometimes wish that I could use a mouse or trackpad instead of reaching up to touch the screen. iPadOS adds the ability to connect an external mouse, using either Bluetooth or a USB cable.
Improved Files app
This felt inevitable, but Apple redesigned the Files app to make it much more powerful. You can now connect an external hard drive or a USB thumb drive. The thumb drive support seems especially useful for attorneys. It allows you to trade large files more easily without having to rely on Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, making it so much easier to exchange a huge set of exhibits, a large Keynote or PowerPoint presentation, etc. And if your iPad does have enough internal storage to fit all of the files that you need when you are headed out of town or to court, just put the extra files on a thumb drive. (Note that a USB-C thumb drive will fit into an iPad Pro, but otherwise you may need an adapter of some sort to use a traditional USB thumb drive with the Lightning or USB-C connector on your iPad. Or better yet, if you own an iPad Pro, use a thumb drive that has both USB and USB-C, such as this Samsung Duo Plus flash drive.)
The Files app can also use a Column View, allowing you to see folders nested within folders. The Files app can also connect to a folder on a server or a folder on a PC using SMB. The Files app can zip and unzip files. And if you use iCloud Drive, you will be able to share a folder with someone else.
The Files app also has a Downloads folder. This is a central place to store documents downloaded from the web. Apple says that it is also a central place to access attachments from Mail, but I don't yet have a sense of how it integrates with the Mail app.
Multitasking
There are a number of multitasking improvements, making it easier to use multiple apps at the same time — or multiple instances of the same app of the same time. For example, you could have Microsoft Word running on the left side of your screen while another instance of Microsoft Word runs on the right side of your screen, making it easy to view with two documents at once. There have been a number of times that I've had to open one document, copy something, close the document, open another document, paste, close the document, go back to the original document, etc. I can avoid all of that nonsense in iPadOS.
I'm going to also like being able to view two PDF files side-to-side without having to use a special app such as GoodReader which has a built-in split screen option. And you can drag a window to compose an email next to your inbox so you can see another message while you are typing your message, and copy and paste between messages without one message obscuring the other one.
In the current iOS 12, you can have one app slide over from the right side to appear on top of your other windows. In iPadOS, you can multiple apps open at the same time in Slide Over, and you can swipe across the bottom to switch between apps. It sort of looks like having a mini-iPhone running on top of your iPad apps.
I'm not a big user of the current spaces feature where you can two apps paired in a side-by-side mode, but if this is a feature you use now, you'll like that the same app can now be active in multiple spaces at the same time.
Apple Pencil improvements
Before yesterday, I would have thought that Apple Pencil performance improvements would require buying a new Apple Pencil. But Apple said that it has reduced latency with the current Apple Pencil from 20 milliseconds to 9 milliseconds, reducing even further the already very tiny lag between when the Pencil touches the screen and when digital ink appears. As a result, the experience will feel even more like writing on paper.
iPad currently have the ability to take a screenshot by pressing buttons on the side of the iPad and you can already use an Apple Pencil to annotate the screenshot. This experience is improved in iPadOS. Just drag your Pencil from either bottom corner to take a screenshot and enter annotation mode. Better yet, instead of just capturing what is on the screen, you can instead choose to capture an entire document, an entire webpage, or an entire email. I already find it useful to use the Pencil to add handwritten annotations to a Word document using the Microsoft Word app, so I suspect it will be even more useful to have this feature built-in to the operating system and available to multiple apps.
New Home Screen
The Home Screen has been redesigned. Apps icons are closer together, and you have an option to move all of the apps to the right, resulting in extra space on the left where you can display widgets. This means that right there on your home screen you can see upcoming appointments, the time, weather, alerts, or anything else that you choose to place there.
Safari improvements
Safari on an iPhone does a good job of giving you a mobile version of a website, but on the iPad Safari sometimes feels limited as compared to the browser you would use on a computer. In iPadOS, Safari now automatically presents the desktop version of a website. When a website expects a mouse or trackpad input, Safari in iPadOS figures out how to substitute touch input.
Scrolling websites in iPadOS is faster and more fluid. New options make it easier to zoom in on text. A new download manager makes it easier to download multiple, large files. And you can now send a webpage as a PDF file without having to use clever workarounds.
Performance improvements
iPadOS should make your current iPad feel faster. Unlocking using Face ID on an iPad Pro is up to 30% faster. Apps launch up to twice as fast. App downloads and updates are faster because Apple will be packaging apps in a new way later this year to make them smaller.
The new features I listed above are either exclusive to the iPad or most useful on an iPad. (For example, you can also connect a mouse to an iPhone in iOS 13, but I'm don't see a lot of need for that.) But there are some other features coming to both iPadOS and iOS 13 that I think are going to be fantastic on both the iPad and iPhone. Here are a few of those.
Photos
The Photos app gets some major new features this Fall. It will now be easier to browse your library because, in addition to scrolling through thumbnail versions of every single photo, there is now a mode in which your device picks what are likely to be the best, representative photos of each day, month, or year.
Photos will also provide intelligent titles for events when your device can figure that out, such as a location, a holiday, or a concert performer. This is technology that was previously in Memories and is now applied to other parts of Photos.
Photos will also gain the ability to edit video, removing the need to open another app such as iMovie to perform some simple edits such as turning a video from portrait to landscape orientation.
Find offline devices
If you misplace an iPad (or it is stolen or taken by mistake), you may be able to track it if it has built-in cellular, but if it isn't connected to a cellular or Wi-Fi network, you may not be able to determine where it is located using the Find My iPhone feature. In iPadOS and iOS 13, once you mark your device as missing in the app (whose name is changing to "Find My"), if your missing iPad or iPhone gets close to anyone else using an Apple device with Bluetooth (such as an iPhone or iPad), your missing device will be able to alert you where it is located. It's completely anonymous so you won't know who else had an iPhone close to your missing iPad; you'll just be told the location where your missing iPad or other device was discovered. If you ever need to use this, you will be incredibly grateful for this feature.
Maps
Maps look much better in iPadOS and iOS 13, with additional details. And Apple added its version of Google Street View so that you can see what it would be like to stand in a location and look around 360º with smooth transitions from one spot to another.
Messages
You can choose to have Messages share your name and photo when you send a text message to someone else. That way, the recipient can more easily see who you are, even if the recipient hasn't already assigned a name and photo to you in their Contacts app. There are also improvements for searching past messages, and improvements to Animoji and Memoji.
Reminders
Reminders has long been a simple and useful app. Apple is now turning it into a more powerful app. You can add attachments like photos, documents, and web links to reminders, customize the appearance of your list, group reminders lists, and more.
Mail
In addition to Reply and Reply All, Mail gains the ability to notify you of all replies or mute all replies. You can change fonts, color, indenting, and you can add numbered and bulleted lists. The photo picker is now on the bottom of the screen so you can still see your email when selecting a photo to add as an attachment.
AirPods
Two people can use AirPods to listen to the same iPhone or iPad. And Siri improvements make it easier and faster to hear and respond to messages without touching your iPhone, which can be especially useful if you are exercising.
...and I could go on and on discussing other new features such as lyrics that follow along with music as it plays, an even more useful Shortcuts app, improved mobile device management, support for PlayStation and Xbox controllers for games, security improvements, new features in the Notes app, dark mode, new relationship labels in Contacts, the ability to purchase fonts from the App Store, share sheet improvements, and so much more.
Apple even showed a little love for lawyers who use iPads yesterday. At one point, Apple displayed a bunch of app icons on the screen, and two of the best legal-specific apps, TranscriptPad and TrialPad, were included. (To save you from a "Where's Waldo" search, look at the first column on the left, and seventh column from the right.)
iPadOS and iOS 13 are going to be major updates that will make every iPad and iPhone much better. I can't wait.