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A die The defining moments of Apple's WWDC speech earlier this week were when Craig Federighi, Apple's software manager, said the iPad would now have its own operating system. "The time has come to recognize the platform in a special way," he said.
This new operating system has a new name: iPadOS. It does not matter that this new nomenclature was disclosed just a few hours before the unveiling when it appeared in the language of Apple's license agreement. The overview remains the same: the iPad has its own native operating system. When iPadOS arrives this fall, it will be a pivotal moment for the Apple tablet. The iPad will no longer work under iOS and will be more than just a giant iPhone. It will finally be something else.
However, if you access settings on an iPad running the unpublished iPadOS and look for the version of the software running, it displays iOS 13. No iPadOS. (At least, that 's what is currently being written on a demonstration unit that I've seen, this could change when it launches in the fall.) The new software for the I & # 39; iPad shares the same core as iOS and macOS, and supports the same application framework as iOS. . It's still, actually, iOS. So why call it "iPadOS"?
It's easy to think of iPadOS as a fun name, another of Apple's catchy currencies. But in this case it is also do not just a name.
It's been years since Apple is moving towards a future in which the iPad becomes your main computer, both because its processing power rivals that of a desktop computer and as young people consumers will simply not distinguish between a "mobile device" and a "computer". Last fall, hardware upgrades made by Apple to the iPad Pro were far more impressive than the components provided so far by the new MacBook Air. At the time of the event, CEO Tim Cook called the iPad "the most popular computer in the world." No tablet but computer.
Now, the iPad software will catch up on these hardware ads, making it even more similar to a laptop. iPadOS will allow users to pin widgets on the iPad's home screen. It's not quite a window manipulation at the desk level, but it's … something. Applications "fade" from the sidebar of the iPad, thus facilitating the change of application. And you can run two instances of iPad applications side by side, as if you keep a few open browser tabs for the same website (whether you realize it or not, if your tab organization is similar to the mine.)
App Expose, the macOS feature that shows you all your open applications, will work soon on the iPad. The Files application will have a column view, with a preview window, similar to how the Finder works on the Mac. The iPadOS demonstration at WWDC reached a kind of crescendo when a virtual USB flash appeared on the giant screen behind Federighi, illustrating that the Files application on iPad now recognizes drives and external devices. Hello, 1998!
Apple has also introduced an enhanced version of Safari web browser designed for iPadOS. It was during this part of the speech that Federighi pointed out, perhaps unintentionally, the problem inherent in the iPad. "Today, the Internet is divided into two categories," he said. "On the one hand, you have the mobile web, designed for the small screen, and desktop sites designed for big screens, like your Mac." And often, websites will serve the wrong thing for iPad. " The blame has been firmly blamed on web designers, but in reality: the iPad has always been a tweener. iPadOS is supposed to change that.
Apple
Name Drop
Of course, Apple could have made all these changes and just call it iOS 13. Several reasons explain why it makes sense to break down the software running on iPad and assign it its own name.
As Strategist founder and analyst Ben Thompson writes he is a A marketing coup, but "the marketing shots can have significance, in this case … While the company was on the set of the iPhone, it was not so obvious that the direction is worries about one or the other – the iPad and the Mac languish, the old software, and the latter in terms of hardware – but now there is real evidence that the company is totally back. "
Giving the iPad its own operating system could also define the type of projects on which engineers work, both within the company and externally. You are no longer a manufacturer of third-party applications creating an iOS app for iPad, you are developing it for iPadOS. Using this established language, the developers will essentially cooperate with Apple's marketing language and help position the iPad's software against what at first looked like an enlarged version of the iPhone's software.
"iPadOS is more like a branding strategy, because people already had the ability to create applications specifically for iPad," says Amir Ghodrati, director of market information at App Annie, an application research company. "But this distinct name recognition means that people now understand what the application is optimized for."
Lauren Goode is a senior writer at WIRED and covers consumer technologies. She is also a cat-mom in Nougat.
But it is clear from Federighi's remarks on stage this week and recent meetings with Apple in the background that the company views the iPad experience as distinct from the iOS on iPhone. In recent years, Apple has to treat the software of the iPad differently, because it must take into account how it relates to a specific hardware. When the iPad Pro was introduced in 2016, it came with specialized accessories: a stylus and a detachable keyboard. These add-ons do not attach, connect, or connect via Bluetooth. They were designed from the outset to work specifically with the tablet. For lack of a better word, the hardware and software are integrated. (Apple will never miss an opportunity to remind customers that it controls the entire stack.)
And a few years ago, the iPad software began to evolve rapidly. The deployment of iOS 11 in 2017, for example, has introduced features such as a dock at the bottom of the home screen and multitasking by dragging and dropping. iOS 11 on iPad still had its drawbacks, especially for people (like me) who really prefer an office operating system. But in less than a year, the big question to ask about the iPad has begun to change: "What happened to tablet sales?" to "Can an iPad Pro replace your PC?"
Come together
Now the big question is whether the iPad and the Mac will really merge as products. The new iPadOS suggests that this could possibly happen because it brings a lot of desktop features to a tablet. The same goes for Apple's Project Catalyst, a developer initiative (formerly known as Marzipan) that makes it much easier to port applications from a tablet to a desktop computer.
Then there is this delicate subject of a touch screen. Apple went so far as to turn the iPad into a touch screen controller and a sketchbook for macOS. But at WWDC last year, Federighi still insisted that "raising your arm to break a screen is a pretty tiring thing to do".
Or maybe both will never merge, and Apple continues to convince people that they need several products slightly different from each other.
"By facilitating its services on many devices, Apple continues to create value for existing product owners and encourage them to buy in the ecosystem," said Julie Ask, vice president of Forrester Research. "Finally, the Apple Watch offers more features than the iPhone. The iPad offers more features than the MacBook. Cannibalization? Or do we buy more devices because everything runs on all the devices? "
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