If there’s one complaint about theiPadthat’s been persistent – reaching back to when Steve Jobs announced the tablet in 2010 – it’s that it doesn’t hold a candle next to aMacin terms of flexibility. Apple has certainly made some strides towards that goal, for instance, by adding mouse and trackpad support, and a suite of multitasking options likeStage Manager. But if you asked most people what device they’d prefer for writing a research paper, balancing business accounts, or editing photos and videos, I’ll bet they’d probably stick with a Mac or Windows PC – I know I would.
Apple is aiming to take a few more steps forward with iPadOS 19, due to launch this fall, most likely in mid-September. We’ll see the first official details revealed at Apple’sWorldwide Developers Conferenceon June 9 – but thanks to early rumors, we already know a little bit about what Apple has planned. It remains to be seen if Apple is finally prepared to go far enough to make the iPad a full-fledged Mac alternative.
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1A Mac-like Menu Bar
With a potentially big catch
I hadn’t really thought about it much until now, if I’m honest, but a recurring problem with iPadOS 18 apps is that every interface option has to have a custom onscreen button, or else be deliberately flagged by developers – i.e. using a message explaining that if you use this gesture or keyboard shortcut, this thing will happen. In most circumstances, this approach works well enough. But it’s not always efficient, and something Mac and Windows users enjoy is the ability to both launch and remind themselves of app options via a permanent menu bar.
At the moment, the Menu Bar is only expected to pop up when you connect a Magic Keyboard.
iPadOS 19 should finally get a Mac-like Menu Bar, according to leakerMajin Bu, although it’s not clear if that will include the full range of menus and status icons you’re used to in macOS. There could also be a major catch; at the moment, the Menu Bar is only expected to pop up when you connect a Magic Keyboard. Even the cheapest Magic Keyboard (the Folio) is $249 – ridiculously expensive for what it does. I doubt that will fly with iPad owners, many of whom use third-party keyboards. I’d expect broader support than that at some point, even if it means waiting for upgraded accessories and/or an iPadOS update.
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2Enhanced multitasking and app window management
Tied to a new version of Stage Manager?
I’m not a fan of the iPad’s default split-screen multitasking. It gets the job done, and it’s the only option if you don’t have an Air or Pro, but it doesn’t offer much flexibility in how apps are sized and positioned. Stage Manager is the better choice in my opinion, but it’s still comparatively limited – you may only resize apps in set increments, and they won’t necessarily take advantage of the space they’re given. If you don’t have an external monitor, Stage Manager tends to be limited to two or three windows at a time, in any practical sense. Trying to overlap three windows on my 11-inch iPad Pro creates a confusing mess.
It’s not exactly clear what the enhanced “app window management” mentioned byBloombergwill look like. Since it’s supposed to resemble the way Macs work, it could hypothetically become easier to create multiple desktop spaces – in fact, there is no iPadOS 18 version of Mission Control, so all you’re able to really do at the moment is flip between recent pairings in the app switcher. Another possibility is that Apple will add its “traffic light” sizing buttons to iPadOS, instead of forcing users to open the triple-dot menu.
Maybe Apple will finally let us resize apps in any way we like, in which case it might be possible to put three or more windows up with ease. There’s also no iPad equivalent of the Mac’s tiling, which lets you quickly fill up desktop space without resorting to that default split-screen scheme I mentioned. It’s relatively simple to get four apps going simultaneously.
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3Improved productivity
But what does that mean, exactly?
The most nebulous claim, again from Bloomberg, is that Apple intends to improve the “productivity” of iPads to be more Mac-like. That probably includes the Menu Bar and app window/multitasking features I’ve cited, but since productivity is tossed off as a separate thing, there do seem to be wider implications.
Two things tech-savvy iPad users have wanted for years are less restrictive sandboxing and better handling of background tasks. As with the iPhone, iPad apps are currently only allowed to interact with each other in narrow, Apple-sanctioned ways. Macs have far fewer restrictions, enabling more powerful apps, and in some cases modifying macOS itself. I doubt Apple will support OS mods on iPads – anytime soon, at least – but opening up software infrastructure would go a long way towards making an iPad viable as someone’s only computer. Assuming app developers exploit the opportunity, naturally.
Two things tech-savvy iPad users have wanted for years are less restrictive sandboxing and better handling of background tasks.
As for background tasks, those are another area in which the iPad behaves too much like the iPhone. Typically, for example, you can only have one audio stream going at a time – no matter if you’ve got a state-of-the-art iPad Pro. You can’t put onSpotifyor a podcast while you play Hades. Many other tasks pause automatically if an app isn’t onscreen, which just isn’t how Mac or Windows computers function. As long as an app isn’t closed completely, those platforms will normally keep an app running as best they can.
It could be that productivity enhancements won’t have anything to do with software infrastructure, though. Apple is said to be planning a general overhaul of iPadOS (and iOS) that will make it look more like visionOS on the Vision Pro headset. That could be cosmetic more than anything, but it is an opportunity for Apple to rethink how many things operate.
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