iOS 14’s Best Features NEED to Come to iPad OS

When Apple released iOS 14 out into the wild, it brought two fantastic features with it.

Widgets

The first was the update to the way widgets were are handled by the OS. Instead of locking widgets to the Today View (where I often forgot I had set them up), users can now drag widgets right onto their home screen. While it’s true that widgets lost a bit of functionality to bring a bit more uniformity to how they’re designed, I feel the trade off was worth it in the long run.

The thing I always hated about widgets in the past was that every app had its own design guidelines and widgets didn’t really look like they belonged together. The way things are now, you know that widgets will, for the most part, match up with how the system looks. I also have no doubt that Apple will find ways to expand widget functionality in the coming years.

The biggest complaint I have with widgets on the iPhone are that the small widgets size gets a single tap target, when it could easily include at least two (or up to four if we use apps for comparison). Still, I like the widgets system overall and have quite a few widget stacks that I use throughout the day. I’m still working on finding the perfect layout, but for the time being I’m getting by.

App Library

The second feature that iOS 14 brought to the iPhone is the app library. This may just be one of my favorite features to ever come to the iPhone. While I could debate with anyone all day about whether Apple should be automatically sorting every single app into the folder they think it should go, overall, I’ve found it to be quite functional.

I very rarely access the alphabetical list, as I tend to launch most apps that aren’t on my Home Screen from Spotlight. The times when I’m bored and want to play something from the Apple Arcade library, though? I love the ability to slide over and jump into a folder that’s automatically curated with my Apple Arcade games.

The other reason I love the App Library is because I have a lot of apps on my phone that I need, but I don’t need every day. Apps like Starbucks and AAA need to be on my device when I need them, but I don’t need them on my Home Screen, nor do I need them sitting in a “misc. junk” folder. And of course I don’t need them taking up a Home Screen that serves the sole purpose of being the dumping ground for apps that don’t need to be front and center.

The App Library is a godsend for that.

Now Bring it to iPad OS

The place that proper Home Screen widgets and the App Library are really needed, though, is on iPad OS. For the life of me, I don’t understand why Apple didn’t bring this feature to the iPad at the same time as the iPhone.

From what I can tell, the widgets are scaled to more or less the same size and there’s plenty of space on the iPad Home Screen to accommodate a mix of widgets and apps.

As for the App Library, there’s plenty of people that use their iPads for business, not pleasure, and thus there are apps that have that “needed, but not front and center” quality to them. Instead of letting them waste away in unnecessary junk folders, let us have an App Library to sort them.

More and more we’re seeing Apple push that iPad as computer but the handling of apps on the iPad is vastly different from how it is on macOS. Ideally, if you really want to give the iPad that “it’s a computer” quality, you’d give us a way to make those “out of sight, out of mind” apps truly out of sight and mind.

Not having the App Library or proper Home Screen widgets on the iPad doesn’t hinder the experience, but in my opinion it would absolutely take it to the next level.