Apple Demos iPadOS 16

Freeform in iPadOS 16 - Image via Apple

07 JUNE 2022 - Between the iOS 16 update and macOS Ventura, we’ve already hit a lot of the features coming to iPadOS 16. There are the new features and improvements for Messages, the tweaks to Mail, the iCloud Shared Photo Library, the collaboration and security features for Safari, the improvements to Live Text and Visual Look Up. Stage Manager is making its way to M1 powered iPad Pro units as well as M1 iPad Airs. And one wonders again whether they are just making one operating system to run them all.

There were features specific to iPadOS 16 though, like Freeform. Think of it sort of like a never ending whiteboard - one that everyone can add to. Apple says collaborators can “start a session from FaceTime and see the updates from others right in the Messages thread.” Kind of nifty.

iPad is finally getting a built-in Weather App.

I was on a FaceTime call with a friend over the weekend. He wanted to switch from his iPhone to another device, and wondered whether there was a way to handoff the call from one device to another. There was not. But there will be. Handoff in FaceTime will let users start a FaceTime call on one device then seamlessly hand it off to another nearby. Not sure why that’s in the iPad press release, but whatever.

On What and When?

Plenty more where that came from. iPadOS 16 will work for the fifth-gen iPad or later, fifth-gen iPad min or later, third-gen iPad Air or later, and all of the iPad Pro models.

The first iPadOS 16 beta is available to developers now. It’ll be out to public testers next month. General release is set for this fall.