It seemed that it never came but it is finally June 5, and that means that we have reached the date set by Apple in its calendar of presentations. WWDC 2023 starts with its traditional inaugural keynote and in it we have seen different software-level innovations land. Of course, we already have among us the next iteration of iPadOS born from iOS a few years ago. iPadOS 17 is now fully official.
As in all the masses commanded by Tim Cook, those responsible for the development of the operating system for Apple’s iPad have shelled each of its novelties. Or at least most of them, because another of the traditions here is that the system evolves, although in a minor way, through each of its betas for developers until reaching its final version. Let’s see what they have told us from Cupertino.
Widgets for the lock screen and more
It seemed that they would never arrive, but Apple has finally decided to bring its iPad the widgets of the home screen that we already knew from the iPhone. Now, to the lock screen. The company says that the presence of these widgets allows faster interactions not only with certain apps, but also with company devices. And let’s face it, this is a reality.
These widgets come to the lock screen of the iPad and we will also have new backgrounds, such as those inspired by kaleidoscopes. Of course, there will be no shortage of live wallpapers with animations and parts of videos. These funds will be mostly customizable so that we can have a unique lock screen on our Apple tablet. The size of the iPad will also help these widgets to be more numerous and, therefore, unique.
iPadOS 17 also debuts the live tracking, live monitoring of all kinds of events, also including the delivery of packages to our home. We can place multiple timers on the screen to control everything we want, and that is compatible with the new iPadOS 17. The Health app also takes a step forward with interactive graphics and all kinds of information. Of course, Healthkit also arrives for developers.
‘Notes’ loves PDFs in iPadOS 17 and becomes collaborative
Be careful with the PDFs that are far from dead, because Apple has put them on the dashboard of your tablet. With iPadOS 17 we can interact with PDFs as if we were professional editors. The system will automatically identify form fields, allow us to add signatures and all kinds of extra interactions.
We don’t want to leave the iPadOS ‘Notes’ app out of the news, which in iPadOS 17 improves interaction with the rest of the system and, of course, with PDFs. We can add not only one but several PDFs to our notes, so that we can use them individually or collaboratively. One of the most powerful Notes tools, if you allow us the comment.
Other new features arrive at iPadOS 17, such as those that land in ‘Stage Manager’ or in ‘Freeform’. There is no doubt that, despite having a somewhat slow start when it was separated from iOS, which is on its version 17, iPadOS is picking up cruising speed and it turns out to be more and more complete and powerful. If you can update to the latest version, you will enjoy all these novelties and those that Apple has not yet told us about and that we will know through its betas. This is only the main thing, everything else remains.
In addition to the exclusive news, iPadOS 17 inherits many of the improvements of iOS 17
In addition to these new features that come exclusively to iPadOS 17, other features are inherited that also land in iOS 17. Such as the arrival of user profiles in Safari, the evolution of Messages with the addition of Live Stickers or the improved sharing of our location. FaceTime also evolves with new reactions, or with video and audio messages that now we can leave if they do not answer a call.
These are the iPad and iPad Pro that can update to iPadOS 17
In the absence of Apple confirming each of the models, the previous release schedules invite us to think that the upgradeable models will be the following:
- 2018 iPad Pro 11-inch
- iPad Pro 2018 12.9-inch
- iPad 2018 9.7-inch (2018)
- 2019 iPad Air 3
- 2019 iPad mini 5
- iPad 2019 10.2-inch
- iPad Pro 2020 11-inch
- iPad Pro 2020 12.9-inch
- iPad 2020 10.2-inch
- 2020 iPad Air 4
- iPad Pro 2021 11-inch
- iPad Pro 2021 12.9-inch
- iPad 2021 10.2-inch
- 2021 iPad mini 6
- iPad Pro 2022 11-inch
- 2022 12.9-inch iPad Pro
- 2022 iPad Air 5
- 2022 iPad 10.9-inch
Apple opens today, June 5, the preview version for members of the Apple Developer Program, and next month we will have the first public beta available. The North American firm says that the official premiere of iPadOS 17, now in its final version, will take place sometime in the fall.
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In Xataka Mobile | iOS 17 aims high: these are all the novelties of the new update for the iPhone