iPadOS is Apple's new operating system for iPad

At its WWDC in San Jose, California, Apple today took the wraps off iOS 13, the future iteration of its mobile operating system for iPhone. It also revealed that going forward, the iPad will run a special variation, called iPadOS.

This is much the same as iOS -- it gains all the new features found in iOS 13 -- but in addition it comes with a new Home Screen, better multitasking, and more ways to use Apple Pencil.

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"iPad transforms how people work and express their creativity, and with iPadOS, we’re taking it even further by delivering exciting capabilities that take advantage of its large canvas and versatility," says Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. "iPadOS delivers exciting features, including a new Home screen with widgets, more powerful multitasking and new tools that make using Apple Pencil even more natural."

The Home screen has been redesigned with a new layout to show more apps on each page, and the Today View can now be added to the Home Screen too, for quick access to widgets.

Users can do more with Split View and Slide Over, and the Files App has been made more powerful with iCloud Drive support for folder sharing.

Safari browsing on iPad gets better and now shows the desktop version of websites rather than the mobile version, but scaled for the iPad’s screen.

Text editing has also been improved on iPad, with new gestures for cutting, copying and pasting text.

Additional iPadOS features include:

• Dark Mode delivers a dramatic dark color scheme that looks great across the system and is easier on the eyes in low-light environments.

• Custom Fonts can be installed for use across the system, perfect for creating beautiful documents on iPad. Fonts from boutique and major vendors such as Adobe, DynaComware, Monotype, Morisawa and Founder will be available on the App Store.

• A new floating keyboard saves space and includes support for QuickPath -- making one-handed typing easy and leaving more room to display apps. Customers can pinch in to enable the floating keyboard and drag it anywhere on the screen.

• Photos curates the library to highlight the best images, automatically hiding clutter and similar photos to showcase significant events from the past day, month or year. Photo editing is more intuitive with new tools that are easier to apply, adjust and review, and almost all photo editing capabilities are available for video editing.

• Sign In with Apple is a fast, easy and private way to sign in to apps and websites using Apple ID.

• Maps features a new basemap, built from the ground up: Look Around with beautiful street-level imagery of cities using high-resolution 3D photography; Collections for a new way to share restaurants, shops or destinations; and Favorites for quick navigation to frequent locations.

• Performance improvements make the entire system more responsive with faster Face ID unlock, and a new way to package iPad apps on the App Store that reduces download sizes by up to 50 percent, makes app updates up to 60 percent smaller, and results in apps launching up to twice as fast.

The developer preview of iPadOS is available to Apple Developer Program members at developer.apple.com starting today, and a public beta program will be available to iPadOS users later this month at beta.apple.com. iPadOS will be available this fall as a free update for iPad Air 2 and later, all iPad Pro models, iPad 5th generation and later and iPad mini 4 and later.