Old dog, new tricks
Over the summer we’ve been using the public beta version of iOS 11; whether we were enjoying a short weekend break at the beach with our iPhone cameras in tow, travelling with our iPads instead of MacBooks, or just slouching on a sofa doing the same things we normally do, we’ve felt the benefits of the many changes Apple’s latest annual update brings. Of course, we’ve put that hands-on experience to good use to bring you a huge 24-page guide that will help you get to grips with all things great and small about the new operating system. When I bought a second-generation iPad Pro upon it’s release a few months ago, I stuck with iOS 10 for a couple of weeks, before upgrading it to the early beta. Even through inevitable moments of gritting my teeth through the troubles of using prerelease software, using iOS 11 for a few months has been an eye-opening experience that has dispensed with some of my cynicism toward the idea of using an iPad in place of a MacBook. At the heart of this positive experience is something we take for granted on the Mac, because it has been around for so long: drag and drop – more specifically, drag and drop between apps.
Subscribers to our weekly email newsletter (see maclife.com) will have heard this already, but it bears repeating: I think inter-app drag and drop will be widely recognized by iPad owners as the standout feature of iOS 11. It has taken seven years to get here, with Apple steadily laying solid foundations along the way, such as Split View and the corresponding ability for apps to radically adapt their interfaces to different screen proportions.
Apple’s past efforts combine with all the other improvements it has made in iOS 11 to deliver an excellent tablet experience. I hope you’ll find our collection of tips for the new iPhone and iPad operating system useful. I’d like to hear your reactions to it, whether positive or negative, and to know which parts of iOS you continue to feel are lacking. Write to me at letters@maclife.com.