Apple rolls out iPadOS with Dark Mode, new gestures and more

Apple has officially released iPadOS 13 Tuesday. It is the first time that Apple has rolled out an iPad-centric software update that includes additional features for the larger screen.

Apple is known to offer software support to its devices that are three-to-four years old. Here’s a list of iPads that are eligible to get the iPadOS 13 software update:

• 12.9-inch iPad Pro
• 11-inch iPad Pro
• 10.5-inch iPad Pro
• 9.7-inch iPad Pro
• iPad 6th generation
• iPad 5th generation
• iPad mini (5)
• iPad mini 4
• iPad Air 3rd generation
• iPad Air 2

Users need to ensure that they have taken a backup of their iPad data before updating to iPadOS 13. 

iPadOS 13 features

iPadOS 13 includes many features that were introduced in iOS 13. The latest update includes additional features like:

A new layout

After installing iPadOS 13, users would notice a new home-screen layout. The new layout includes more icons and a new window on the left side of the screen which gives a preview of the ‘today’ tab and other widgets.

Multitasking 

This feature of iPadOS differentiates it from the iOS 13 update. With Slide Over, users can position multiple windows on the screen at the same time. This gets better with Split View as users can work on multiple documents at a time by placing them next to each other.

iPadOS 13 also introduces ‘Spaces’, which allows users to pair an app like Safari with another app like Mail or Pages. Another feature called Exposé allows users to see all the open windows for an app by tapping its icon in the Dock.

Sidecar is another feature that works best with MacOS Catalina. The feature would enable users to use their iPads as a secondary display for additional screen space. For example, keep an app open while you work on another, or see how a presentation looks in presentation mode while editing it on your Mac.

Gestures

There are a bunch of new gestures that Apple has introduced for iPads with iPadOS 13. The basic ones include tapping on the lock-screen to wake it up for reading notifications or swiping up from the bottom of the screen to open the app dock.

To hide or see the new ‘Widgets’ window, one must swipe from the left edge of the screen. You can even pin the Today widget by tapping on ‘Edit’ and select ‘Keep on home screen’.

To open an app in Slide Over, users can drag the app icon to either side of the display. 

Text Editing

Apple has introduced new text editing gestures in iPadOS 13. For example, drag the scroll bar to navigate long documents or webpages, or navigate the cursor by just picking it up and dragging to where you want it to be. 

Text Selection has also become easier. To select a text, tap on it and swipe. For selecting a sentence or a paragraph, triple or quadruple tap on it.

To copy a text, pinch-in with three fingers. To cut text, pinch-in with three fingers two times. To paste, pinch-out with three fingers.

For undo or redo, swipe left or right with three fingers.

Safari

Safari on iPadOS now works as a desktop browser. Safari now automatically presents a desktop version of the website for iPad. There are other new features like iCloud end-to-end encryption for Safari history and open tabs, Per-site settings that allows the user to enable camera, microphone and location access depending on the website, etc.

Safari for iPadOS also gets 30 new keyboard shortcuts. For example, to use the default font size in Reader, use Command + O, or to open a link in the background, press command and tap on the link. There’s a bit of a learning curve to these shortcuts to get used to them.

Files app

The Files app gets a new Downloads folder. Anything downloaded on Safari will be saved in the Files app. Not just that, the Files app now also supports shared folders through iCloud. This means that any changes that you make can be saved in real-time.

Files can now also connect to an external hard drive, SD card reader and pen-drives.

iPad OS also brings Dark Mode to the iPad. Dark Mode can be activated or deactivated on the iPad through multiple ways, like how you do it on an iPhone.

Apart from these features, Apple has also focused on privacy and security in iPadOS 13. Users can individually set Bluetooth, location sharing controls for each app. iPadOS also gets Sign in with Apple.