UPDATE
16 September 2024
iPadOS 18 is now available, taking iPad to the next level with powerful new intelligence features and experiences designed for Apple Pencil
iPadOS 18 makes the iPad experience more versatile and intelligent than ever, and is available today as a free software update. iPadOS 18 brings incredible new features designed for the unique capabilities of iPad, making it even easier for users to get tasks done. With iPadOS 18, Calculator comes to iPad with Math Notes, along with new Smart Script handwriting tools in Notes — all designed for Apple Pencil. Additionally, iPad users now have more ways to customise the Home Screen and Control Centre, and users receive the biggest redesign of the Photos app ever, new ways to express themselves in Messages, and so much more.
Starting next month, iPadOS 18 running on iPad with M1 and later will mark the introduction of Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system that combines the power of generative models with personal context to deliver intelligence that is incredibly useful and relevant for iPad users, unlocking new ways for users to enhance their writing, communicate more effectively, and express themselves.1
Calculator on iPad Delivers a New Way to Solve with Math Notes
Designed for the unique capabilities of iPad, Calculator delivers an entirely new way to use Apple Pencil to solve expressions, as well as basic and scientific calculators with a new history function and unit conversions. With Math Notes, users are now able to type mathematical expressions or write them out to see them instantly solved in handwriting like their own. They can also create and use variables, and add an equation to insert a graph. Users can access their Math Notes in the Notes app, and use all of the math functionality in any of their other notes.
More Flexible Handwritten Notes with Smart Script
Handwritten notes become more fluid, flexible, and easy to read with Smart Script and the power of Apple Pencil. Smart Script unleashes powerful new capabilities for users editing handwritten text, allowing them to easily add space, or even paste typed text in their own handwriting — making editing handwritten text just as simple and flexible as editing typed text. Users can even scratch out handwritten text to delete it. Smart Script also maintains the look and feel of a user’s personal handwriting, automatically refining it in real time to be smoother, straighter, and more legible.
More Ways to Customise iPad
In iPadOS 18, users can customise their Home Screen in exciting new ways by placing app icons and widgets in any open position to frame the wallpaper or create the ideal layout on each page. App icons can be customised to appear light, dark, with a tint, and larger for a new streamlined look that removes the name underneath. And Control Centre has been redesigned to provide easier access to many of the things users do every day, with new levels of customisation, delivering quick access to new groups of a user’s most-utilised controls. Additionally, users can now add controls from supported third-party apps into Control Centre, and developers can take advantage of the new Controls API to let their users accomplish even more tasks, like quickly starting a virtual meeting or kicking off a livestream for their followers.
A Redesigned Photos App to Relive Special Moments
The Photos app receives its biggest update ever, bringing users powerful new tools that make it easier to find what they are looking for. A simplified and customisable app layout takes advantage of the larger display on iPad and helps users browse by themes without having to organise content into albums. Photos uses on-device machine learning to automatically organise a library by helpful topics, like people and pets, recent days, trips, and even documents and receipts.
New Ways to Stay Connected in Messages
iPadOS 18 brings users new ways to stay connected and expressive in Messages, with all-new animated text effects, redesigned Tapbacks that expand to include any emoji or sticker, and new text formatting options, including bold, underline, and italics. Messages also introduces the ability to schedule messages to send at a later time, helping users stay fully in control of when and how they are communicating with their contacts.
New Privacy Controls
With new privacy controls, iPadOS 18 gives users even more ways to control who can see their apps, how they share their contacts, and how their iPad connects to accessories. Users can now lock an app; and for additional privacy, they can hide an app, moving it to a locked, hidden apps folder. When an app is locked or hidden, content like messages or emails inside the app are hidden from search, notifications, and other places across the system.
A New Tab Bar Brings Easier Navigation
A redesigned tab bar floats above app content, making it easier to navigate and keeping content edge to edge. The tab bar elegantly morphs into the sidebar when users want to dive deeper into an app’s full functionality, seen with apps including Apple TV, News, Books, and Fitness. Users will also enjoy refined animations that make apps feel even more fluid and responsive, as well as an updated document browser that gives apps a distinct look and feel when accessing documents in apps like Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and Swift Playgrounds.
Apple Intelligence Makes iPad Even More Useful and Delightful
Apple Intelligence is deeply integrated into iPadOS 18 on iPad with M1 and later, harnessing the power of Apple silicon to understand and create language and images, take action across apps, and draw from personal context to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks — all while protecting users’ privacy and security.
Apple Intelligence powers experiences that are delightful, intuitive, easy to use, and specially designed to help users do the things that matter most to them. With Writing Tools, users can refine their words by rewriting, proofreading, and summarising text nearly everywhere they write, including Mail, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps. Siri becomes more natural, flexible, and deeply integrated into the system experience, and gets a brand-new design with an elegant glowing light that wraps around the edge of the screen when active on iPad. With richer language-understanding capabilities, Siri can follow along when users stumble over their words and can maintain context from one request to the next. Users can type to Siri at any time, and can switch fluidly between text and voice as they use Siri to accelerate everyday tasks. In Photos, the Memories feature now enables users to create the movies they want to see by simply typing a description; and with the new Clean Up tool, they can identify and remove distracting objects in the background of a photo — without accidentally altering the subject.
Apple Intelligence is designed to protect users’ privacy at every step. A cornerstone of Apple Intelligence is on-device processing, and many of the models that power it run entirely on device. To run more complex requests that require more processing power, Private Cloud Compute extends the privacy and security of Apple devices into the cloud to unlock even more intelligence. Private Cloud Compute marks a fundamental breakthrough in server-based intelligence. When using Private Cloud Compute, users’ data is never stored or shared with Apple; it is used only to fulfill their request. Independent experts have access to continuously verify this privacy promise, and are already doing so.
The first set of Apple Intelligence features will be available in beta for iPad users next month as part of iPadOS 18.1, with more features rolling out later this year and in the months following. Apple Intelligence first launches in U.S. English, and will quickly expand to include localised English in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K. in December, with additional language support — such as Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish — coming next year.
New Hearing Health Features Come to iPadOS 18 and iOS 18
Later this Autumn, AirPods Pro 2 add a clinical-grade, over-the-counter Hearing Aid capability for users with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss. Based on results from an intuitive, clinically validated Hearing Test that users can take from the comfort of their own home using AirPods Pro 2 and a compatible iPhone or iPad, this new feature seamlessly transforms AirPods Pro into a personalised Hearing Aid set to meet the specific needs of the user, making access to hearing assistance easier than ever as a free software update.2
Availability
iPadOS 18 is available for iPad Pro (M4), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later), iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation and later), iPad Air (M2), iPad Air (3rd generation and later), iPad (7th generation and later), and iPad mini (5th generation and later). For more information, visit apple.com/ipados/ipados-18-preview and apple.com/apple-intelligence. Features are subject to change. Some features are not available in all regions, all languages, or on all devices. For more information about availability, visit apple.com.
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- Apple Intelligence will be available as a free software update. The first set of Apple Intelligence features will be available in beta next month as part of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1, with more features rolling out in the months to come. It will be available on iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPad and Mac with M1 and later, with device and Siri language set to U.S. English. Later this year, Apple Intelligence will add support for localized English in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K. Over the course of the next year, Apple Intelligence will expand to more platforms and languages, like Chinese, English (India), English (Singapore), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese, and others.
- Coming this Autumn, the Hearing Test and Hearing Aid features will be available in more than 100 countries and regions — including the U.S., Germany, and Japan — where marketing authorisation has been received. The Hearing Test and Hearing Aid features are intended for people 18 years or older, and the Hearing Aid feature is intended for people with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss. The Hearing Test and Hearing Aid features will be supported on AirPods Pro 2 with the latest firmware paired with a compatible iPhone or iPad with iOS 18 or iPadOS 18 and later.