Apple’s iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 are starting their public betas today, and bring with them performance upgrades and some killer new features.
This year’s updates are a major overhaul, born from 2020’s norm-shattering pandemic. This includes a strong emphasis on FaceTime features and a better system to organize notifications into “work” or “personal” buckets.
Apple’s insistence on major updates arriving only once a year and its release schedule means some of these features will arrive in what will hopefully be a post-pandemic recovery. It will be fascinating to see how SharePlay, which is one of the most prominent features in the update, performs once people can watch movies and listen together to music again.
SharePlay is the most exciting feature in the fall updates. It’s an Apple-wide system that uses FaceTime to share TV shows, music and podcasts with family and friends even when they aren’t there.
What is Apple SharePlay?
SharePlay is a seamless integration of Apple’s software and hardware services. You can watch a TV program or listen to an album via FaceTime. It also shows the extent of Apple’s walled gardens: SharePlay is only available to developers, and does not work on other platforms. Because content is streamed locally on the internet, you cannot share an episode with a friend that’s not a TV Plus subscriber. But, you can watch the same movie together if you have purchased it from iTunes.
FaceTime also gets a variety of long-overdue updates to make it more useful and viable as a video chat application. These include a grid view, screen sharing and a portrait mode that blurs your background. You can also FaceTime with Android and Windows users using web browsers thanks to sharable hyperlinks.
FaceTime, unlike SharePlay, feels like something that will stay front and center, even as things get back to normal. However, FaceTime’s limited feature set and focus on Apple products means that it won’t be used for business meetings anytime soon.
Apple has made some tweaks to iOS 15’s notifications, as is customary for iOS updates. Apps that you don’t care about can be filtered so that they are delivered multiple times per day instead of pinging for each one right away.
What is Apple Focus?
The new Focus feature is the biggest addition. It’s an extension of Apple’s Do Not Disturb, but instead of a blanket quiet, Focus lets you select certain apps and contacts to share notifications at particular times or triggers.
For example, a “work” Focus can be set up to activate when you are on the clock. It will mute all notifications, except those from your email, Slack and calendar apps. Then it will automatically turn off when you are at home. You can set Focus modes to activate at specific times or in specific locations, such as when you arrive at your office or home from work or when you open a particular app.
Focus allows you to assign specific home screen pages for each Focus mode, including widgets so that you can create more personalized experiences. This isn’t a perfect system as iOS doesn’t allow you to have duplicate icons of apps. Apple Music cannot be visible on both a personal and work home screen.
What about iPadOS 15?
iPadOS 15 receives many of the same improvements ofthe iPhone update. There are a few iPad-specific features though, and these include widgets on your homescreen and the App library (which has a fun animation when you open it).
As expected widgets work better on iPad than on iPhone due to the larger home screen. Apple also offers larger widget sizes. The largest size is approximately the same size as the entire iPhone 12 display when viewed from an iPad Pro 12.9 inches in size.
Apple continues to improve multitasking on iPad by adding two new features: a multitasking icon (three dots at top of display) that make it easier to use split-view and slide-over modes, and a shelf that displays all open windows for an app when you open it.
But although multitasking is easier, it can still be confusing. Split view allows you to place one app in split view by using the new menu. You can then return to your home screen to choose another app or the same app to view in split-screen mode. To create split-screen or full-screen combinations, apps can be dragged and dropped from the app switching window. Multitasking dots illuminate to indicate which app is currently in focus. This is incrementally more effective than the previous bar. Swiping down on multitasking dots will bring up a home button-like interface, closing the app and letting it open a new one.
The new split-screen views and multitasking are an improvement on the old system rather than a new way to use the iPad. The new enhancements and additions to the iPad’s software capabilities will be appreciated by those who enjoy them. However, those who hoped that iPadOS 15 would bring a completely new windowing system will be disappointed. This is especially true after Apple’s M1 upgrade on the iPad Pro.
There’s also new feature, similar to Samsung’s “Quick Notes”, which allows users to swipe up from the bottom of the screen or hit a keyboard shortcut. This will allow them to jot down a thought or highlight text on a website or add a link for context. Quick Notes are saved to a separate category in the Notes app and can be accessed on other Apple devices.
iPadOS remains a tablet operating system that includes iPad apps. That seems to be Apple’s preference.
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