I’m Not Excited About iOS/iPadOS 15

It’s a good update, but not a thrilling one.

iPadOS 15 as it appears on my iPad; screenshot by Author.

I’ve been testing out iOS- and iPadOS- 15 ever since the developer betas hit the street. And I’ve been trying to write about them ever since. But I was struggling to find the words.

Despite the fact that I was so intrigued by the updates to iPadOS 15 that I was ready to install it the instant Apple’s Keynote was over, once it was in my hands and I was using it, my excitement seemed to evaporate.

Now, don’t get me wrong; iOS and iPadOS 15 are absolutely worthwhile updates to their respective platforms. But for all the “new” they brought to the table, none of it felt revolutionary.

For example, let’s look at iPadOS 15. The thing that sold me on downloading the potentially buggy beta on my one and only iPad was the App Library. Finally, I could remove all the apps from my home screen and have them all readily available in the dock (and that’s exactly what I did; I even removed all the apps from the dock so that only the App Library and Apple’s three recommendations are visible). That was going to be a major improvement for multitasking on the iPad, as previously if I wanted to do split-screen or slide over, I was limited to the apps pinned to the dock. And speaking of multitasking, I was super eager to try the new features in that…