iPadOS 15 and iOS 15 have been launched and the first minor (but much needed) update to version 15.0.1 is now behind us. Time to see what the new OS really has to offer. We focus here on iPadOS, but much is also applicable to iOS.
The launch of iPadOS 15 (in the rest of this article we will mention iOS 15 not separate anymore, but mean to mention it too…) didn’t exactly go smoothly. The latest version was plagued with several serious bugs, the most annoying of which were fixed after the update to 15.0.1. By the way, iPadOS 15 is much more an evolution than a revolution, which is very nice for serious users. One of the less obvious but very useful news is that you have much more control over printing. Finally, quality and paper settings are available, allowing the iPad (and iPhone) to be used for serious printing tasks.
We do see that this part does not yet work 100%, with us the standard paper setting A4 sometimes jumps back to Envelope. That requires some attention in order not to be confronted with a whole mountain of fractionally filled pages. It would have been nicer if you as a user could simply create different print profiles and these would also be saved. Another funny thing is that the print quality is always on Normal state, while High is also available. But you have to select again and again, which is nonsense, especially with laser printers. You just always go for High because it usually doesn’t matter in terms of print speed. Anyway, the printing capabilities are definitely an improvement, but they still deserve some polishing.
Safari: getting used to
Safari has been completely overhauled. Despite warnings from many beta testers, Apple has opted for a range of sometimes quite drastic innovations. Working with tabs will take some getting used to. Another feature that has been praised by Apple is ‘pull to refresh’. In other words: pull down an open page and it will be refreshed. Unfortunately, this turns out to lead to disaster in combination with a mouse and keyboard. For example, are you in an online app (Google Docs or a CMS) typing a text and you accidentally scroll too far up, the page will be refreshed. This often leads to the loss of all typed material (especially if nothing was saved yet). The most annoying thing is that pull to refresh cannot be disabled in any way and can therefore be considered a bug in our opinion. Let’s see if this will ever be resolved. For serious production work, we recommend an alternative browser like Brave for now. That option can be turned off there. It doesn’t matter for the final rendering speed of web pages whether you use an alternative: all surrogate browsers for iPadOS use the Webkit system browser engine under the hood. In short: a switch is a breeze without worries.
One of the more welcome options in the new Safari is extension support.
quick note
Best of all, the new quick mini notepad works. Slide diagonally from the bottom right corner of your screen to the top left and the gem opens. Ideal for quick notes during a telephone conversation. If you tap Done, the note will be saved and you will find Your quick note in the ‘regular’ Notes app. It’s one of those little things that makes using your iPad or iPhone easier. Although the scrolling method on that iPad doesn’t work to activate the option, you need to add the ‘quick note’ to the Control panel. You do that by launching the Settings app, followed by a tap on Control Center on the left. Then tap the green + on the right for the option quick note. The control panel on you by sliding down from the top right of the screen, where you will find the just added option.
Mouse and keyboard
As expected, the iPad also works fine with mouse and keyboard under iOS 15. A downside, however, is that as soon as you start typing, a large floating button bar appears at the bottom of the screen that is not removable. You can, however, make it smaller by dragging to the left or right at the bottom of the screen; it then becomes a thing the size of a hefty button. A lot of apps don’t take that bar into account, and websites certainly don’t. This sometimes causes the bar to lie over essential controls, leading to frequent sliding back and forth. Hopefully there will be a fix for that in an upcoming update. At the very least, the bar should be wipeable, just like in previous versions of iPadOS. In itself you will find some nice but certainly not indispensable formatting buttons and a dictation button. But you will also find them elsewhere in apps and components. As far as we’re concerned, can all go, because it’s mainly in the way now. What can also be adjusted is in terms of accuracy quite a bit of ‘fuzzy’ gray ball as mouse cursor, that can simply become a usable arrow.
Widgets
Also new in iPadOS 15 is that you can now place widgets anywhere. It’s a matter of holding down any app a little longer and choosing Change home screen in the opened context menu. Then tap the + at the top left and add widgets. Also new in iPadOS 15 is the app library. We already knew this from the iPhone and it concerns apps that are automatically thematically arranged by iPadOS. Ideal for the chaotic who have never bothered to organize apps into thematic folders themselves! Less necessary for anyone who has. You reach the app library panel by swiping to the very last home screen (it’s on the far right). Or tap the new button in the dock. If you don’t use the app library, it’s just a waste of space that that button is there. To remove it, launch the Settings app. In the left column, tap Home screen and dock, then turn off the Show app library in dock switch on the right. Now you have some extra space in that dock again!
Select text in images
One of the most frequently mentioned tricks is the ability to select and copy text from photos and other images such as screenshots. Only: that option is not enabled by default! In order to achieve this, it is first of all important to add English as an additional language. Officially, the function only works for certain languages ​​and Dutch is not yet included. Don’t worry, because it just means that you can’t translate from, for example, Japanese to Dutch. But in English or German, which is usually no problem in our regions. The copy function also works in Dutch, if activated. If you have added the second (or third, fourth, etc) language in the Settings app, English via General, Language and Region and Add language (whereby you leave the first language at Dutch of course), then it is time to activate the Live text switch. turn on. From now on you can select text in photos, with an amazing recognition rate. We often notice 100% at even poor resolutions. If the switch is missing, your (older) device unfortunately does not support the trick.
Memory usage
What especially iPad (Pro) users will be happy with is the more efficient memory management in iPadOS 15. Apps are allowed to use much more RAM than before. Which gives heavy photo and video editing apps as well as multitasking a noticeable boost and provides more stability.
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