Tomorrow morning we’ll find out what’s next for iPadOS. By the time you read this it’ll all have be unveiled already. That won’t stop me from imagining. Consider this a wish list for me.

• Better multitasking
• Status board Home Screen
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Professional apps

Multitasking

If you know how to use the current multitasking setup on iPadOS then you know how much you feel like Dr. Strange, twirling your hands around, trying to make several apps do different things. It’s currently possible to multitask, but it takes a class to learn how to. This should be easier.

I usually have two apps side by side, with messages and Tweetbot in slide-over, for checking them occasionally on what’s new—all while having a video playing in the corner of the screen. That’s four apps open on the screen at once. It’s possible, but it’s not easy to do this. The whole multitasking flow show be much simpler and more intuitive.

Status Board Home Screen

Panic used to have an app called Status Board. This would be a 2021 version of that, but built into iPadOS.

It’s not hard to imagine this. The new update on iPhones give you widgets that can fill up the screen. But this makes more sense on an iPad. I can imagine my homescreen being filled with 20 app widgets. At a glance I’ll get an update on my schedule, my tasks, the weather, the news, and countless other things.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Regardless of what I’m doing on the iPad, I want to press a few keys on the keyboard and it fires off a specific task from a specific app. So it doesn’t what’s currently going on on my screen, I could instantly add a new task or calendar event. Or send a message to someone. Maybe Option+Command+B allows me write a quick blog post from anywhere. Maybe Option+1 starts a shortcut that I built that’s called Morning Routine: where a timer starts, the weather and news is spoken to me, then a podcast starts, and then it opens up my writing app to begin the day. That’s the power of keyboard shortcuts.

Professional Apps

I just want Final Cut. Maybe Logic. Maybe Xcode. I want Apple to pave the way and show developers that it’s time to get serious. I already use Ulysses, Things, LumaFusion, and Cubasis on the iPad. All professional apps that allow me to do serious work, but I want Apple to show what’s next, thanks to the M1 chip.