Only one tablet has survived the rise and fall of the tablet craze — mostly unscathed, that is— and that’s the Apple iPad. First launched in 2010, the original iPad mostly served as a larger iPhone, but without calling capabilities. And with no front-facing camera, you couldn’t even place video calls. Fast forward almost a decade and Apple’s tablet lineup are bonafide laptop replacements for some. Apple has adapted the iPad in form, function, and overall cost in such a way that it’s become the no-brainer tablet purchase.
I feel like there are reports every year that Apple is going to introduce better iPad multitasking, and then we get something like Stage Manager or a different update that’s still not quite what I need to work. This year’s rumor suggests more Mac-like features. I’ve been playing with a Surface Pro 12 I bought, and I keep thinking, ’Man, it would be so nice to be able to do this on my M4 iPad Pro.’
This year’s rumored redesign for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS is also coming to watchOS and tvOS, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. In an April subscriber edition of Power On, he wrote that watchOS would only get elements of the redesign “here and there.”
It’s expected the updates will take cues from the look of the glassy, translucent visionOS, which, Gurman writes, is also getting tweaks where they “make sense for a headset.”
Sources tell leaker Majin Bu that iPadOS 19 could add a menu bar to the top of the iPad when it’s connected to a Magic Keyboard, as spotted by MacRumors. That tracks with Bloomberg Mark Gurman’s report that Apple is planning to bring more multitasking and windowing features to its tablets.
Additionally, Majin Bu says Apple may add external display support to iPhones with USB-C, which could offer an experience similar to Stage Manager.
That’s because DMA rules let iPad owners access alternative app stores like AltStore Classic. That opens the door to iPadOS apps with just-in-time compilation (JIT) for modern hardware emulation and running things like Windows 11 on an M2 iPad Air, as YouTuber NTDev demonstrates in the video below. MacRumors has some details on how it works.
Meanwhile, the best I can do is JIT-less Windows XP on an M1 iPad Pro.
Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter notes Apple’s push for an AI agent-powered “Project Mulberry” upgrade for its Health app next year, and that its its long-running attempt noninvasive glucose monitoring via Apple Watch sensors is still “many years away.” (Here’s more on why that’s been so difficult).
But if you’re into hardware, he reports new M5 iPad Pros are already in testing in addition to work on 2027-targeted M6 editions with Apple’s in-house modems, and while the regularly scheduled MacBook Pro M5 refresh is “a lock” for this year, a design overhaul may not come until its M6 update in 2026.
Apple supposedly set its rumored HomePod with screen for launch in March before delaying it to Q3 2025. Now supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says it will come after WWDC (and the expected reveal of iOS 19) so that the new smart home device’s interface “aligns with new OS updates.”
The iOS and iPadOS versions of Dropbox’s mobile app were updated this week with support for Live Photos which was first introduced on the iPhone 6S and iOS 9 in 2015, as spotted by 9to5Mac.
As with Apple’s Photos app, you can press and hold on a Live Photo in Dropbox to play the short video. You can also convert Live Photos to still images and back again, and convert HEIC Live Photos to JPEGs.
8
Verge Score
Apple’s new tablet is exactly what you think it is. Which is fine.
The mute key’s label now features a speaker with a strike through it so it more closely resembles the icon that appears in macOS when pressed, as spotted by iCulture. Apple made the change on the new iPad Air’s Magic Keyboard, too.
As MacRumors points out, with today’s iPad announcements and the recent iPhone 16E launch, Apple no longer sells new iPhones or iPads with 64GB of base storage. Finally.
[macrumors.com]
Apple’s retail stock of last year’s iPad Air is drying up, a sign that Apple could announce new versions of the tablet soon, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman writes in today’s Power On newsletter. That’s a rare turnaround for the iPad Air, which Apple tends to take longer to replace.
Gurman adds that the M4 MacBook Air’s launch is “imminent,” with Apple making “a Mac-related announcement as early as this coming week.”
Cat toy apps like “Meow Cat Game” aren’t new, but my orange fuzzball Trevor is. If you need a way to distract your energetic kitty for a while then they might just buy you enough time to get some work done.
The developer beta of iOS 18.3 (and associated updates for software on iPads, Macs, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and Vision Pro) just launched, and now they’re available in the public beta too.
However, you may not have much to try, as the only noticeable changes we’ve heard about include Genmoji in macOS Sequoia 15.3 and hints of robot vacuum support in Apple Home.
[Twitter]
