Back in September we learned that Apple was about to postpone the launch of iPadOS 16 on account of having run into some problems with Center Stage. The time frame “October” was thrown around, but sans a clear date. Now we learn that iPadOS 16.1 is coming on October 24th.
Apple previously confirmed it was going to skip iPadOS 16 and go straight to version 16.1. Keep in mind that iOS 16 has been available for a month now, so this is an unusual situation. The info comes from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who has solid sources. The Cupertino firm has a bit of a habit of releasing new products and firmware updates during weeks of earnings reports. Apple’s Q4 2022 earnings are due on October 27 at 2 PM PT time.
iPadOS 16.1 could also debut with some fresh hardware, albeit without a dedicated event. We could see a new entry level iPad, the M2 CPU iPad Pro models and the new M2 Pro and M2 Max MacBook Pros. iPadOS 16 brings a new Stage Manager multitasking. It works on iPads with the M1 CPU only and organizes apps and windows automatically. You can create overlapping windows of various sizes in a single view, drag and drop windows from the side and even open apps from the dock, in order to create groups of apps and perform faster multitasking.
There’s also Freeform collaboration with a “flexible canvas”, without worrying about layouts and page sizes, plus shared tab groups in Safari, passkeys in Safari, a new Weather app and Reference Mode for color accuracy.
