iPadOS 15 features, release date, beta and compatibility

iPadOS xv features, release date, beta and compatibility

(Image credit: Apple)

Afterward a summer of betas, iPadOS xv is finally here. Yes, you can download iPadOS 15 now, to run into how much it fixes the multitasking experience You'll also go a dwelling screen comeback nosotros've wanted since last yr, while the Notes app gets a lot more supercharged.

The big Notes features revolve around Quick Notes, which volition assist you start writing faster, and have notes with the apps you lot utilize. The App Shelf is i of our favorite iPadOS features that help the iPad become more of laptop replacement. In total, these look like enough tweaks (including perks coming to iOS xv, likewise arriving Sept. 20) to make certain the iPad is still all-time tablet at that place is.

iOS 15: All the new features for your iPhone
Save money with the best Apple tree Pencil alternatives
Plus: How to download iPadOS 15

The iPad finds itself at an interesting moment. The M1 scrap in the iPad Pro 2021 makes it more powerful than ever, but besides more like to Apple's MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. But at the aforementioned fourth dimension, the iPad remains non quite as capable, equally macOS still enables better multitasking.

Here'due south how iPadOS 15 volition effort to accost all that.

iPadOS 15 release engagement and beta info

iPadOS 15's final version arrives Sept. 20 after a summer-long beta process. We've got guides on how to download the iPadOS xv developer beta and how to download the iPadOS 15 public beta. We've tested the betas, so bank check out our hands-on iPadOS fifteen review to learn more than nigh information technology.

iPadOS 15 compatibility and supported devices

iPadOS 15 supports all of the same iPads as iPadOS 14.

Here is the below list of supported iPads, as confirmed by Apple.

10.2-inch iPad 2020 aka eighth generation iPad (and dorsum to the 5th gen 2017 model)
All iPad Pro models including:
iPad Pro 2021 (12.9-inch)
iPad Pro 2021 (eleven-inch)
The iPad Air 2020 (4th generation), 3rd gen. and 2nd gen.
iPad mini (4th and fifth generation)

iPadOS xv new features

Both new iPad-exclusive and iOS 15 features are coming to the iPad, with the tablet gaining helpful multitasking tricks, widgets on the home screen, Notes app upgrades that remind us of Google Docs and more.

All of the iPadOS 15 features — (Image credit: Apple)

iPhone improvements establish in FaceTime and notifications, coming from iOS 15, are also going to be a office of iPadOS 15. Oh, and macOS 15 will make it easier to use multiple Apple devices at once, with a cool feature called Universal Control, and it looks pretty cool.

iPadOS 15 multitasking upgrades

Apple's making multitasking easier with iPadOS fifteen, starting with new Menu buttons for multitasking at the top of the screen (which are subconscious under a three-dots push). With a tap or two, you'll start using a split-view mode, and view your home screen to pull out the apps yous want. Slide-over is also shown as an choice in this button.

This is a welcome improvement from the way multitasking works now. Currently, you rely on the apps in your Dock (which tin't concur all the apps on your device), Users with keyboards had one extra trick, using Spotlight to observe other apps, but that was insufficient. Now, you'll be able to multitask with whatever apps you desire.

iPadOS 15 in multi-tasking view — (Prototype credit: Apple tree)

Switching out one of the apps in your split view works only as easily. Just swipe down from the top of the app to come across your habitation screen, to offset finding a new app to multitask with.

Apple tree as well highlighted a mode to multitask further, where holding downwards on a message in Postal service (while already in split-view) gives y'all the option to etch a reply in a window that stands on elevation of your carve up-screen. This didn't seem particularly major at first, but and then we saw that you tin can minimize that answer to the Shelf, a new section that appears above the dock, where you lot can find other works in progress from the awarding yous're working in.

Apple's reveal of iPadOS 15's multi-tasking shelf — (Image credit: Apple | YouTube)

Shelf shows you documents related to the app(s) you're using, and information technology will appear when you open an app, tap the iii-dots button to open multitasking view and when you tap the app icon in the dock.

You likewise get to create new divide-screen views in the app-switching Work Spaces mode. But drag one app onto the other, and you've got them paired.

Yous e'er had the option to use iPadOS Widgets on your dwelling screen, merely they were ... questionably ... stuck in the menu on the left side of the screen. This upshot is no longer a nuisance.

iPadOS 15 with widgets all over the home screen — (Image credit: Apple tree)

June's WWDC 2021 keynote showed off how widgets tin now go anywhere on the home screen, making the most of that big iPad screen. Apple besides introduced a new larger-sized widget, showing it off with the Tv app, where you could see a listing of content you could watch, and a spotlighted show (in this case, Apple'southward own Mythic Quest).

App Library, the application management view that lets you remove apps from the home screen, but still view them in a carte du jour, is at present also on iPadOS. Only like the selection to put widgets on the dwelling house screen, this was a curious absence from iPadOS 14, as our iOS 14 vs. iPadOS 14 comparison detailed final yr.

iPadOS 15's app library — (Image credit: Apple)

iPadOS 15 upgrades Notes to compete with Google Docs

Apple'south Notes app is getting a lot smarter, starting with the ability to tag someone in a note. You simply type the @ symbol and their name, select and confirm the person you're looking to add (we all know more one person with the same first proper noun), and you'll bring that contact in to collaborate with you.

iPadOS 15's new Notes app — (Prototype credit: Apple)

There's besides a new organizational tool for Notes — using hashtags. Now, if I write "#Blogs" in a note, there will be a #Blogs button in the Notes carte du jour, that will bear witness you all notes with that hashtag. This is a feature I've used for years in the Behave text editor app, and it helps you make folders without having to manage actual folders.

The biggest feature that reminded u.s.a. of Google Docs is the Activity panel, which pops out from the right side of the screen. Activity shows you lot who made edits to the document, and at what time.

iPadOS 15's Quick Notes speeds up note-taking

Having problem getting a note started quickly? The new Quick Notes feature makes a notation a simple drag of the Apple Pencil abroad. Moving the tip of the pencil inwards from the bottom right corner, starts a Quick Annotation.

iPadOS 15's new Quick Notes — (Image credit: Apple)

While y'all can but write in this note, Quick Notes are designed to help y'all take notes with another app. The demonstrator showed how to easily pull the URL from the Safari webpage you're using aslope with Quick Notes.

Quick Notes can be created on iPadOS, and then viewed on macOS or iOS — and you'll be able to edit them on iOS. likewise.

iPadOS fifteen's other new features

Apple's also adding new keyboard shortcuts (which are getting their own menu) and an upgraded Swift Playgrounds for iPad, enabling the cosmos of iPad and iPhone apps.

Of course, the iPad is also getting some of the new iOS xv features. Those volition include Focus statuses to accommodate how you lot get notifications, photo search in Spotlight, SharePlay for watching and listening to content with your friends and family in FaceTime and upgrades to Apple Maps that make locations much more intricate. (Only be aware that SharePlay won't be live when iPadOS 15 arrives, equally Apple tree plans to add that feature in a subsequent update.)

Two macs and an iPad to demo Universal Control — (Image credit: Apple tree | YouTube)

Universal Command is another really neat shared feature, that allows iPads and Macs to be used with the same keyboard and mouse. You but move your MacBook'south cursor toward your other device, as if you're dragging information technology off-screen and it moves to the other device.

The new Safari design, which has a new await for favorites and tabs, is also coming to the iPad. Here's how to stop Safari from changing colors in iOS xv, iPadOS 15 and macOS 12 if you don't similar that new characteristic.

Check out our guide to iPad keyboard shortcuts
Bank check out our iPad Pro (2020) review

Henry is a senior editor at Tom's Guide covering streaming media, laptops and all things Apple, reviewing devices and services for the past six-plus years. Prior to joining Tom's Guide, he reviewed software and hardware for TechRadar Pro, and interviewed artists for Patek Philippe International Mag. He'south also covered the wild world of professional wrestling for Cageside Seats, interviewing athletes and other manufacture veterans.