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iPadOS 16 seems like a big nothing. Am I missing something?

DMG35

DMG35

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Original poster
May 27, 2021
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I downloaded and tried the latest dev beta, but I'm just not feeling that iPadOS 16 is really much of anything. I get the external monitor support and Stage Manager, but other than that it seems pretty weak.

I don't even really like stage manager because it shrinks the content down so much. I can see it being useful I guess on an external display, but not really a game changer as far as I'm concerned. Apple seems to think so as well because they have it turned off by default.

Why are there no lockscreen customizations like iOS 16? It makes zero sense to not have that. Apple is just going to take that on for iPadOS 17 and pretend its some groundbreaking feature.

I'm not a hater as I still love the iPad, but after using the new beta it literally is the exact same thing we had before. I just don't understand why Apple doesn't change the iPad to be less like iOS. I mean a weather app is seriously one of the big features this year? Again, not hating, just looking for something with the iPad that I guess we aren't going to get, which is something more like MacOS that you can run on a tablet.

Am I missing something here that is making this OS release a bigger deal than what I think it is?
 
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You do not print probably, right? 🤓 Otherwise I like the system wide undo/redo and find&replace, as well as the new Files app - this should been the first version released actually IMHO - and there is still room for improvement. 🙃
There seems to go on quite a bit more in the background - so the impact on the surface has the appearance of lesser change than other releases, I guess.
And I agree with your Stage Manager assessment - it was quite a weak concept in 2007 IMHO and so far the current implementation does not impress me much. YMMV 😎
 
DMG35 said:
I downloaded and tried the latest dev beta, but I'm just not feeling that iPadOS 16 is really much of anything. I get the external monitor support and Stage Manager, but other than that it seems pretty weak.

I don't even really like stage manager because it shrinks the content down so much. I can see it being useful I guess on an external display, but not really a game changer as far as I'm concerned. Apple seems to think so as well because they have it turned off by default.

Why are there no lockscreen customizations like iOS 16? It makes zero sense to not have that. Apple is just going to take that on for iPadOS 17 and pretend its some groundbreaking feature.

I'm not a hater as I still love the iPad, but after using the new beta it literally is the exact same thing we had before. I just don't understand why Apple doesn't change the iPad to be less like iOS. I mean a weather app is seriously one of the big features this year? Again, not hating, just looking for something with the iPad that I guess we aren't going to get, which is something more like MacOS that you can run on a tablet.

Am I missing something here that is making this OS release a bigger deal than what I think it is?
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Same
iPadOS is shocking even ios 16 doesn’t feel much difference when installing it it feel like you have iOS 15 apart from the Lock Screen but that’s a bit gimmicky anyways this whole years software is lame in my honest opinion, I want the phone and iPad to feel fresh there’s so much they could of done even just icons refresh or ui layout
 
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DMG35 said:
I downloaded and tried the latest dev beta, but I'm just not feeling that iPadOS 16 is really much of anything. I get the external monitor support and Stage Manager, but other than that it seems pretty weak.
Click to expand...
I disagree. The iPad has never had the ability to resize apps vertically or overlapping windows, I take it as a win... we all have our opinions.

I don't even really like stage manager because it shrinks the content down so much. I can see it being useful I guess on an external display, but not really a game changer as far as I'm concerned. Apple seems to think so as well because they have it turned off by default.
Click to expand...
They have it off by default because it's a feature designed to help with people workflow... some (such as yourself) might not think it's worth using or prefer what they have been accustomed to which is the reason why it's off by default.

Why are there no lockscreen customizations like iOS 16? It makes zero sense to not have that. Apple is just going to take that on for iPadOS 17 and pretend its some groundbreaking feature.
Click to expand...
Well, same approach with widgets... they haven't added it yet. But I don't believe they used the word "groundbreaking" when it came to widgets. But I do believe they will make some design changes to the Lock Screen for the iPad when they announce customization for it.

I'm not a hater as I still love the iPad, but after using the new beta it literally is the exact same thing we had before. I just don't understand why Apple doesn't change the iPad to be less like iOS. I mean a weather app is seriously one of the big features this year? Again, not hating, just looking for something with the iPad that I guess we aren't going to get, which is something more like MacOS that you can run on a tablet.
Click to expand...
Exact same thing we had before? We never had vertical resizing apps nor more space option for display zoom on an iPad. We keep going around in circles with this, if you prefer macOS that's why the Mac exist.
 
Ludatyk said:
I disagree. The iPad has never had the ability to resize apps vertically or overlapping windows, I take it as a win... we all have our opinions.


They have it off by default because it's a feature designed to help with people workflow... some (such as yourself) might not think it's worth using or prefer what they have been accustomed to which is the reason why it's off by default.


Well, same approach with widgets... they haven't added it yet. But I don't believe they used the word "groundbreaking" when it came to widgets. But I do believe they will make some design changes to the Lock Screen for the iPad when they announce customization for it.


Exact same thing we had before? We never had vertical resizing apps nor more space option for display zoom on an iPad. We keep going around in circles with this, if you prefer macOS that's why the Mac exist.
Click to expand...

Stage manager is off by default because Apple knows most people will never have a use for it. You don’t keep a major feature update turned off by default if you think its a game changer. Its a minor multitasking change, and imo not a very good useful one on smaller screen like the iPad. The iPad already has several different ways to multitask and this is one that most people won’t use.

Vertical resizing of apps is fine I guess.

Not having the lock screen customizations is honestly laughable. In day to day usage iPadOS 16 is the exact same as iPadOS 15.
 
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DMG35 said:
Stage manager is off by default because Apple knows most people will never have a use for it. You don’t keep a major feature update turned off by default if you think its a game changer.
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Huh? Whether you think its a game changing or not… it’s off by default because its drastically different from how people normally use the iPad.

Its a minor multitasking change, and imo not a very good useful one on smaller screen like the iPad. The iPad already has several different ways to multitask and this is one that most people won’t use.
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Minor multitasking change? I think its a major difference in the way iPad user will multitask going forward. As for me, since iPadOS 16 has been announced… I primarily been using Stage Manager (rarely use SplitView/SlideOver). But the point is… iPad users now have choices (who doesn’t love choices), a user can use overlapping resizable windows or keep using SplitView/SlideOver.

Not having the lock screen customizations is honestly laughable. In day to day usage iPadOS 16 is the exact same as iPadOS 15.
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I agree, iPadOS 16 should have Lock Screen customization… but the way Apple has been tweaking Lock Screen customization on the iPhone during the beta. It’s understandable that Apple would like to wait until later on for the iPad.

And with all that being said, I get it.. if there’s users against the use of Stage Manager or don’t see the appeal then those users might view iPadOS 16 not being a worthwhile update.
 
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We know that Stage Manager is limited to M1 iPads. What about window resizing and overlapping? Will older iPads support it, I wonder?
 
As someone who has used his M1 12” pro and not touched his MacBook since dev beta 1 I would say that the changes in ipados16 are significant.

Stage manager is very nice to use on a big 4k screen however I default to just using normal multitasking on the iPad screen unless I need 3 apps open at once.

The ability to change the screen scaling to give me more space on the iPad screen has been the defining factor to allow me to ditch the MacBook.

So all in all, just those 2 changes for me have been groundbreaking.

As for a change in the lock screen… I really couldn’t care less. On my phone it’s a great feature as I spend a lot of the time flicking through notifications and then putting the phone back in my pocket. My iPad I barely ever see the Lock Screen.

It’s surprising that we all have different uses for our iPads and one persons “pointless” can be another persons “world shattering”.
 
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DMG35 said:
Am I missing something here that is making this OS release a bigger deal than what I think it is?
Click to expand...
Even if you exclude features that are more unique to iPad (vs. iPhone), such as the Stage Manager, resolution scaling, Freeform, and improved external display support, I think cross platform improvements and features are worth the update.

Features like iCloud Shared Photo Library and Detect Duplicate Photos, edit/undo in Messages, redesigned and faster Home app, and improvements to Focus mode are something we will eventually take for granted.
 
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The Files app handles larger (10MB+) image files better, which was a big wishlist item for me. Previously they'd just loop and fail to load, now they only occasionally hiccup before rendering properly (though B3 was better than B4).
 
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Glad I didn’t install it, especially if today’s “rumor” about it not being released until Oct is true.

Recently having had to install iOS 16 in order to use WatchOS 9, has reminded me how many odd bugs there are in pre-release OSs.
 
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contacos said:
I installed it today. I swear, someone could have installed it in secret and I wouldn’t have noticed that I wasn’t on iOS 15
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I just have them install automatically. If the day comes when I say "Woa!", and notice something, I will be shocked.
 
Proper external monitor support is huge. I think people that just use their iPad on the couch obviously won’t really care, but people who are going for laptop replacement are very excited.

I think being able to format and eject external drives is a glaring omission that Apple needs to change. Give us a Disk Utility app.

The only other thing I don’t love about iPadOS is that it’s not always clear what you can and cannot drag and drop from app to app. I’ll often highlight a bunch of files and try to bring them into another app and… nothing happens. Usually there’s some other way to do it like an import option in the app. But if the app can import files, why not allow it to drag and drop from Files?
 
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