Can your iPad replace your Mac?
It might be time to switch thanks to iPadOS 15
EDITED BY ROB MEAD-GREEN
If your work involves heavier workloads, you will probably want to stick with a Mac for now.
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pple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) keynote, on 7 June 2021, featured no new hardware, to the disappointment of anyone hoping for a new MacBook Pro or an AirPods redesign. But that doesn’t mean it was totally devoid of interesting news – as we discuss in MacFormat Investigates on page 14, it was full to the brim with new software features.
Some of those updates weigh in on what's becoming an age-old question: can you now replace your MacBook with an iPad? Ultimately that depends on how you use both devices, but the new features in iPadOS 15 will certainly have an impact on that.
At WWDC, Apple spent a lot of time talking about iPadOS 15’s new multitasking abilities, which are a step up from what was possible before. For instance, multi-window management is an oft-requested feature among iPad power users, and Apple is now granting it with iPadOS 15. If you have multiple app windows, you can switch between them using a kind of ‘shelf’ that acts a little like a Dock for that specific app.