While lending many of its ideas to the Mac, the iPad continues to gain features of its own that make it feel less unlike a desktop computer

Consolidated options and new pull-down menus feel desktop-like.

Many of iPadOS 14’s default apps now have sidebars that visibly organise your content. Like the earlier introduction of the Files app, this acknowledges a need resisted in early versions of iOS for fear of complicating things.

The Files app itself showcases new desktopstyle pull-down menus, reminiscent of macOS Big Sur. These complement the now ubiquitous options menus, which pop down from an icon showing three dots in a circle. More thought has also gone into the pickers that pop up to let you set a calendar date or select a photo from outside the Photos app.

Interaction plan 

iPadOS 13 had already brought the ability to control a cursor with a connected mouse or the Magic Keyboard’s trackpad, which is compromised only by a scarcity of full support in third-party apps. We do wish, though, that more hardware keyboard shortcuts could be provided for core features, like iPadOS’ multitasking capabilities, that currently rely on gestures which are both effortful to perform and tricky to memorise.