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iPadOS in Beta

Update: 30 September 2019

Okay. Finally. Split-screen Pages is now possible thanks to today's Pages app update. Looks like it's up to Microsoft to update Word for the dual-document functionality.

There was also a huge 3.2 GB iPadOS update today, 13.1.2. Checking it out now...

Update: 24 August 2019

Yeah. Okay. I just installed the seventh beta build. There's reason to be concerned.

Naturally, the OS has had its ups and downs during the past two months of beta testing. But at this point, I'm a little flummoxed as to why a key feature — the ability to open two Word/Pages docs or two Excel/Numbers files — still doesn't work. I'll continue to push it in the feedback app.

Open a Word doc and split screen with a PDF or Excel file? No problem. But two of a kind still cannot be done.

30 June 2019

First, I have to say I'm impressed with the iPadOS beta. I downloaded it as soon as it became available for public testing and it hasn't been nearly as buggy as I was expecting. But, yeah. There are bugs to be squashed during the next couple months leading up to its official release.

I upgraded to the new iPad Pro 12.9 upon its release last November. It's become an indispensable addition to my tech arsenal — I chose the iPad upgrade over upgrading my 4-year-old MacBook Pro in hopes of gaining even greater mobility. There are those crazy dreams of mine, like spending some time in the park (or on a plane) completing the Great Mattopian Screenplay(s). So far, I'm delighted with the iPad Pro — I've already taken a few business trips with the laptops left at home in favor of working exclusively on the iPad Pro. No functionality of any significance has been missed while on the road. News of Adobe releasing full versions of the Creative Cloud for iPad was also a motivator. (Adobe... I'm still waiting.)

Anyway, I'm thrilled with where iPadOS is heading. The ability to move the Day View widgets collection onto the home screen is a no-brainer. As the first piece of new functionality I enabled in iPadOS, it makes the iPad feel more robust right out of the gate. The second feature I turned on was Dark Mode. It's nice. Really nice.

There's also the promise of much greater multi-tasking capabilities, but that's where I've run into some issues. Open up multiple instances of Apple's Maps? Sure. But opening multiple Word (or Pages) documents or Excel (or Numbers) spreadsheets isn't functioning properly. I can open one of each at the same time and use the split-screen feature to work with both simulaneously, but not two documents or two spreadsheets in the same app at the same time. Especially since Pages is called out specifically in the functionality description, this is a big deal to get fixed. This functionality should be a given now, so I've entered a bug report to that effect.

There are other nuisance items. I'm finding Face ID to be a little temperamental when trying to unlock the iPad after it's gone to sleep. But I need to pay more attention to environmental factors before I can submit a report — inside/outisde, light/dark, sunglasses on/sunglasses off, etc. And there's an email layout option in iOS12 that's missing in iPadOS.

There's also a cool option to capture screenshots of web pages using Pencil, but there seems to be a limitation in the page length. It's helpful that I found Apple's very own iPadOS features page as a guinea pig. A couple goofy things in addition to the page length limit: the export is a PDF instead of a JPG and more is captured in landscape than in portrait, which is highly counter-intuitive. As a potential work-around on the length issue, I've suggested the option to select a page starting point instead of automatically starting at the top.

Overall, though, things are moving in the right direction and I'm really enjoying it.

I've taken to holding meetings with my MacBook (or work-supplied Dell on Windows) while taking handwritten meeting minutes using Notability and Apple Pencil 2.0. That pencil is remarkably slick. I've owned or tried several stylus devices and none come anywhere close to the responsiveness of Apple's Pencil; the latency is virtually nonexistent using iPadOS. Back in 2013 I was happy with another stylus called "Pencil," designed like a draughtsman's blocky pencil, for use with an app called "Paper." That was the standard-bearer for quite some time. No surprise, though, that it looks like it's no longer on the market. Apple's Pencil rules them all.

Anyway... Back to the bug hunt...

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