We’re a couple of weeks away from WWDC, and as is common when Apple releases iPads in the spring, iPadOS users are looking to this year’s developer conference with bated breath. The pervasive theme in this year’s iPad reviews is, again, “great hardware, lacking software”. Whether or not you agree with that, there’s no shortage of potential improvements Apple could be making to iPadOS this year, and these are the ones I’m hoping for:

1. Vertical Multitasking

This is a feature I’ve changed my mind on over time. Being able to split two apps with a horizontal divider in portrait makes more sense than the current solution where one is a narrow third of an app. The more I think about it, I can’t figure out why this hasn’t been the way split screen was implemented from the beginning.

2. Improved Audio Handling

One of the last major items to tackle in iPadOS is the way it handles audio. Two big improvements are needed:

• Multiple audio streams can play at the same time

  To be clear, I think the default is the right choice here for 99% of people 99% of the time. Why would you really want a bunch of audio playing at the same time? Well, sometimes web pages try to autoplay sound to the point that the music or video you’re currently playing may get paused for what feels like no reason.

• Multiple apps accessing the system audio stream
  For podcasters that want to record multiple guests, a common request is the ability to record their own audio simultaneously with their guests’. iPadOS currently only allows a single app to access audio at a time.
  

It wouldn’t surprise me if both of these changes were only enabled in Stage Manager.

3. Remove 4 App Restriction For External Displays

You could argue that the 4 app limitation in Stage Manager should be removed altogether, and I wouldn’t really fight you on it. I can kind of see Apple’s point on the iPad itself. iPad displays are mostly on the small side, and a clear design goal of Stage Manager was to provide windowing to iPadOS users in a way where they wouldn’t lose track of their windows. Adding more apps wouldn’t really help that.

That reasoning really doesn’t apply to something like a 27-inch display. It’s very easy to argue that you’re “advanced” enough to know that you can use your tablet with an external display, and you can probably figure out managing your windows on that display. External displays have too much room to be restricted to four apps/windows.

4. Slide Over from the Home Screen

Slide Over is great, and I’m a firm believer that not every app needs to be full screen. Especially something like a calculator. The problem with Slide Over is that apps in the Slide Over stack can only be reached when another app is foregrounded. It’s time for the Slide Over stack to somehow get elevated to being always accessible, even from the Home Screen. Now, how will Apple do that? No idea. There are some gesture conflicts on the Home Screen that would make this difficult. However, Apple hires some smart folks. They’ll figure it out.

5. Files App Improvements

This Files app has been working pretty well for me (in fact, I made a video about it), but there are a few small features that could take it to the next level.

• Disk Formatting – I don’t know that iPadOS needs a full Disk Utility app, but if you could tap and hold on a disk and format it to APFS or some other supported file format, that would remove one more thing you need to go back to a laptop for.
  
• Support for opening Disk Images – When Apple launched the Mac App Store, it felt like a triumph that users would no longer have to deal with Disk Images for installing applications. Truthfully, I’ve never really understood why Disk Images are so pervasive on macOS. Apple itself bundles some marketing images in Disk Images, and it would be great to be able to mount/open them on an iPad.
  

6. Advanced Background Processing

Apps in Stage Manager are supposed to be fully live, even if they aren’t the foreground app in the stage. But as we’ve seen with Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro, there are seemingly some limitations to this liveliness. Both apps have long-running actions that require the app to remain foregrounded the entire time, even in Stage Manager. Enabling a more Mac-like background processing paradigm will almost certainly impact battery life. This feels like another way Stage Manager could be used as the “Pro mode” it was rumored to be before launch.

I think the real reason Apple hasn’t gone further with background processes on iPadOS isn’t because the hardware isn’t capable (it clearly is). I think it’s more about finding a way for the user to be aware that an app is doing some work in the background. I would imagine it being seen as a “failure” that background tasks can potentially bog down your Mac without you knowing about it. The average user likely doesn’t know how to use Activity Monitor. Again, I’m not sure how Apple solves this problem, but it’s past time for them to do something.

Conclusion

Realistically, the only one of these I think has a shot is the audio improvements. And that’s only because of this rumor from last year that this was something Apple was working on. Most of what we get this year will be AI-powered features that hopefully add actual value and aren’t just catch-up gimmicks. We’ll see in two weeks!