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There's a major focus on the iPad in iOS 11, with Apple introducing a huge range of iPad-specific features that offer a much improved multitasking experience, allowing the iPad to better serve as a full PC replacement. Many of the features included in iOS 11 have topped the wish lists of iPad owners for years, including Drag and Drop, the Files app, the persistent dock, and more.

iOS 11 significantly overhauls the way the iPad can be used, as can be seen in our hands-on video covering the iPad-specific features you can expect to see in the update.


There's an expanded Dock on the iPad, which is persistent and can be pulled up with an upwards swipe from within any app. The Dock makes switching between apps much faster, and it enables multitasking features on compatible devices.

Opening the Dock while using an app and dragging a Dock icon upwards will pop up a new window, which can be pulled into a Slide Over or Split View multitasking arrangement. Using the dock, you can switch between Split View apps in seconds.

Accompanying the Dock is a new App Switcher that has a design similar to Spaces on the Mac. It shows all of your most recently used apps, it offers access to Control Center settings, and it even preserves your Split View or Slide Over window arrangements.

Drag and Drop, one of the most desired iPad features, has been implemented in iOS 11. With Drag and Drop, text, links, photos, files, and more can be transferred between apps with simple drag gestures. Drag and Drop supports multitouch, so you can do things like pull a link from Safari, bring up the Dock, open up Messages, and send the link to a friend. Combined with a new Files app, Drag and Drop makes it incredibly easy to manage files.

Apple Pencil support is also expanding in iOS 11. The Apple Pencil can be used systemwide like any other stylus (or a finger), and there are new features that have been designed with the Apple Pencil in mind, including Instant Markup, which allows essentially anything to be annotated, and inline drawing within Mail and Notes.

There's also a neat Instant Notes feature that lets you tap the Apple Pencil on the screen of an iPad Pro to automatically open a new Note for quick note taking purposes. All of the other features that are new in iOS 11 are available on the iPad, so check out our comprehensive iOS 11 roundup for a complete overview of what's coming in the update.

iOS 11 is limited to developers at the current time, but Apple plans to make a public beta available in late June so non-developers will have a chance to test the new iPad features at that time. We'll have more videos covering iOS 11 features coming next week, so make sure to stay tuned to MacRumors.com.

Article Link: Hands-On With iOS 11's iPad Features: Dock, Drag and Drop, App Switcher and More
 
I think these new features are quite intuitive. Nothing tricky about selecting a block of text, or an image, and dragging and dropping it to another app. It's drag and drop. I also like Federighi's explanation of why it's actually secure, in that it doesn't break the sandboxing. Why not? APFS! Files app, and the gesture of selecting one item, and then selecting one after another, until you can drag a whole bunch all at once.
 
Just installed the iOS 11 beta on an older iPad, tried it for about an hour and now I am restoring back to iOS 10.

Nothing much to write home, IMO. It's slow, it really lags for me -- but I understand it's a beta.

Not really in love with the new store, but maybe I'll get used to it.

Overall, I am starting to think that Apple is falling further behind Android, sadly. The UI is getting busier, although the design is in a way sleeker than Android. Maybe I'll like it when it gets a little more polished.

About the only new feature I found useful is the updated keyboard with secondary symbols accessible by pulling down on a key. Android has had this for ages and I like its implementation a bit better (hold the key for a second).

For now, not real reason to update, particularly since a few of my apps are not updated to work with iOS 11 and fail to launch.
 
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Make no mistake, Apple is betting that the iPad Pro is going to be the future of computing. Calling it a super computer, incremental iOS updates that are used on (dock, file system), changing of OSX to macOS, furthering their own chips. I don't think it will be too much longer before they wave goodbye to their UNIX base, say goodbye to Intel, and get rid of the traditional laptop as we know it.
 
iOS 11 is looking like a fantastic upgrade.

But one thing I haven't seen demonstrated in any iOS 11 videos yet is opening split screen apps that are NOT on the dock. I heard that the swipe from right app picker is gone, so now to open any apps that are not on the dock, you have to first close the first app, and when you are in home screen you hold down the icon of the second app, open app switcher, and drag it onto the first app you had open. That seems very convoluted, and it seems to require two hands. That can't be right because iPads are meant to be held and used simultaneously. I think maybe I just need to see it in action. Anyone know of a video where it is demonstrated?
 
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Definitely much needed improvement in multitasking and system-wide file abilities.
 
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What are the sharing options in the files app? For example if I have video locally stored on my iPad where can I share it? Right now in the TV app there are no sharing options.
 
finally looks like they are heading the right direction specially with Files app.

File management is super important and the biggest limitation of iOS vs Android.

Does the Files App acsess iPad/iPhones own storage or just iCloud?
 
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Make no mistake, Apple is betting that the iPad Pro is going to be the future of computing. Calling it a super computer, incremental iOS updates that are used on (dock, file system), changing of OSX to macOS, furthering their own chips. I don't think it will be too much longer before they wave goodbye to their UNIX base, say goodbye to Intel, and get rid of the traditional laptop as we know it.
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Steven Sinofsky ॐ (@stevesi)
6/5/17, 1:57 PM
Apple iPad Pro with iOS 11 is the future of the productivity laptop.
 
I like the expanded features, but seriously, how can anyone be expected to remember all these gestures? It's hard enough to remember 3D touch sometimes.

I am going to have to disable all of this stuff on friends iPads who can barely use their iPads. These are all going to confuse simple users, just as Force Touch has for these same folks.
 
I'm really excited about iOS 11. Files, especially, is going to be extremely useful. And now with the larger storage sizes on the new iPads, it will also be practical. The drag-and-drop action is well-implemented too.

I create a graphics-heavy monthly newsletter, and I'm going to attempt to create an issue entirely on my iPad. With Affinity Photo, Pages, anyFont and the new iOS features, I think it's going to be doable.
 
which iPads could possibly have enough ram to run split screen, dock, drag and drop etc? Seems like a bunch of older hardware is going to come to a crawl because Apple failed through so many generations to increase the memory
 
Make no mistake, Apple is betting that the iPad Pro is going to be the future of computing. Calling it a super computer, incremental iOS updates that are used on (dock, file system), changing of OSX to macOS, furthering their own chips. I don't think it will be too much longer before they wave goodbye to their UNIX base, say goodbye to Intel, and get rid of the traditional laptop as we know it.

Yeah...because iOS is not UNIX based
 
QUESTION!

If you have an app in your dock that does not support slide-over/split-screen, what does it do you attempt to drag that app from the dock to the "slide over" area.

Does it not do anything? Does it replace the whole screen with a full-size app?
 
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Had a iPad Air 2 and currently have a mini 4. Installed the beta on the mini and while the features where great my iPad became unusable. However I do plan on getting a 10.5" Pro within the month all because of the added features of iOS 11.
My only other request was for Apple to bring split view to the iPhone 7 Plus. There are plenty of times when I have to remember a string of numbers/letters and copy/paste does not work between certain apps. Maybe that's fixed/addressed in iOS 11 but I'm not installing the beta on my 7 Plus to find out.
 
Just installed the iOS 11 beta on an older iPad, tried it for about an hour and now I am restoring back to iOS 10.

Nothing much to write home, IMO. It's slow, it really lags for me -- but I understand it's a beta.
Which older iPad model?

Had a iPad Air 2 and currently have a mini 4. Installed the beta on the mini and while the features where great my iPad became unusable. However I do plan on getting a 10.5" Pro within the month all because of the added features of iOS 11.
Sounding more and more like iOS11 is being made for the iPad Pros and leaving the other still-supported models behind. I say if it lags the device to a point of frustration, nix the feature for that model.
 
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