10 ways that iPad OS 16 can increase productivity

Today, Apple is anticipated to release iPadOS 16.1. The majority of its upgrades are available on iOS 16 and macOS Ventura in addition to iPad. Nevertheless, whichever Apple device you use, they ought to increase your productivity.

Here is a look at a few of the upgrades and what they accomplish.

A desktop more akin to the Mac

Stage Manager (see more below) aims to converge Mac and iPad, although Files and other Desktop Class programmes on iPad provide new system components and interactions. These consist of constant undo and redo, toolbars that may be customised, and the options to alter file extensions and view folder sizes in Files. Given how crucial Files has become for some workflows, this might be enough reason to upgrade.

Mail significantly improves

As I previously stated, the majority of iPadOS 16's best upgrades are present on all of Apple's products. Consider the new intelligent tools in Mail, which enable you to schedule email sends, set reminders, and cancel outgoing messages. iPads can perform all of these tasks and alert you if you neglect to include attachments in your message, just like Macs can. Additionally, search has been enhanced; it now uses synonyms, can handle typos better, and will provide much richer mail search results.

Stage Director

The Mac and iPad both share the most recent significant upgrade to the user interface. Stage Manager makes an effort to develop new application handling logic for both systems. Theoretically, it makes switching between several apps, or groups of applications, much simpler, and it aids by keeping the application you are now working with in the foreground. However, as people get acclimated to it, the change may help close the ever-closing gap between the distinctive features of both systems. In practise, beta testers appeared to find the new UI more useful on Macs than iPads.

Arriving soon: Freeform

Although it's not included in this version, Freeform has big plans for all of us. Users can share schematics and plot plans on a fully editable shared workspace using this type of collaborative notebook. You may collaborate with others and follow changes asynchronously with Freeform because it integrates with FaceTime and Messages.

Apple updates Safari with some interesting changes.

Shared tab groups, improved password management made possible by Passkeys, and new dedicated start pages for particular Tab Groups should all help to make using Safari more secure and enjoyable. If you like to think visually, you may add bookmarks, sections, and background images to your Tab Group start pages to personalise them.

Intelligence based on artificial intelligence and vision

Live Text was already a fantastic tool for reading words from images of signs like street signs or notices. Words in videos can now be recognised in iPadOS 16 as well. You can drag and drop words into other applications, translate them, and do other things. Improvements in Visual Look Up mean you can recognize animals, insects, birds, flowers, and statues from photos. Essentially, photos and videos on iPads and other Apple devices have become functionally useful tools, particularly for education, report creation, and travel.

Other enhancements that need mentioning

VoiceOver now supports 20 more languages, enabling even more people in more countries to utilize iPads for voice-activated tasks. Meanwhile, Notes now has Smart Folders and a host of other improvements to make taking, managing, and sharing notes simpler.

If you're one of the many people who tend to spend a lot of time in video conferences, FaceTime's Handoff feature makes switching between devices during conferences simpler. Given that Zoom, Teams, and Webex are where the majority of work is currently done, it would be much better if you acquired this capability there.

Last but not least, Display Zoom enables you to make the most of the space on your iPad display by minimizing the size of the icons and fonts.

A "hover" experience using the Apple Pencil

The second-generation Apple Pencil may be detected by iPads when it hovers around 12 mm above the screen. The display will show you a preview of the mark when it recognises the implement to assist you in placing it more precisely. This results in greater precision when using Scribble, fewer mistakes when annotating documents or PDFs, and one significant restriction: Hover is only compatible with iPad Pro models equipped with the M2 chip.

Support for external displays

Additionally, you can connect your iPad to an external monitor. Film and photography pros will now be able to carry the lightest reference camera in the world thanks to Reference Mode, which meets colour criteria and manages colour accuracy, if they are using a high-end new iPad Pro.