Apple's iOS 15 and iPad 15 public betas begin today, and after a few weeks with the developer betas, Apple's OS updates feel like more of a grab bag of new features than ever before. This year's improvements are not a significant reworking of either platform. The two upgrades were definitely inspired by the world-shattering epidemic of 2020. From the strong focus on FaceTime capabilities to a better system for corralling alerts into "business" and "personal" buckets, the feature list at WWDC and on Apple's website clearly bears last year's remote-first influences. Of course, Apple's release schedule and insistence on only releasing significant upgrades once a year implies that some of these improvements will be included in what will hopefully be a post-pandemic comeback this autumn. So it'll be fascinating to see how things like SharePlay, one of the update's standout features, play out once people can watch movies and listen to music together again in person. The result is a software upgrade that is far quieter than Apple's normal releases, one that focuses on improving tiny details behind the scenes rather than rebuilding things from the bottom up, at least for now. The result is a software update that feels a lot quieter than Apple’s usual releases, one that — at least for now — looks to improve smaller things behind the scenes than rebuild things from the ground up. The iOS 15 homescreen is largely unchanged from iOS 14. SHAREPLAY AND FACETIME SharePlay, a new Apple-wide system built on top of FaceTime for sharing TV programs, movies, music, and podcasts with friends and family even when you're not in the same room, is the most exciting feature coming to the autumn upgrades. It's also the most pandemic-inspired feature, an Apple-based take on the plethora of watch party apps and services that have popped up to replace movie evenings in the last year. SharePlay demonstrates how nicely Apple's hardware and software services integrate: viewing a program or listening to an album through FaceTime is a breeze. Despite the extension of FaceTime and the Apple TV app to other platforms, it also shows the height of Apple's walled garden: developers must choose to utilize SharePlay, which currently lacks huge names like Netflix and YouTube, and it only works on Apple devices. Because material is streamed locally, everyone watching or listening must have access to it, which means you can't share a Ted Lasso episode with a buddy who isn't a TV Plus subscriber, and you can't watch the same movie if only one of you has purchased it from iTunes. FaceTime is also getting a slew of long-overdue upgrades, including a much-needed grid view, screen sharing, a portrait option to hide your untidy backdrop, and the ability to FaceTime with Windows and Android users (through web browsers) thanks to sharable links. These are all much-needed capabilities for FaceTime, but it's puzzling that we'll have to wait until September 2021 for them, especially given how much video calling has been used in the last year and a half. Unlike SharePlay, however, the FaceTime enhancements appear to be the kind of thing that will stay front and center even as things return to normal, even if the Apple product focus and limited feature set when compared to professional solutions like Zoom or Microsoft Teams means FaceTime won't be making a play for business meetings anytime soon. CONCENTRATE YOUR ENERGY Apple has messed about with alerts on iOS 15, as is customary with an iOS release. Some of the smaller alerts have grown in size and now include contact photographs, which might be a push to get users to add photos to their contacts, which is something I haven't seen in the real world outside of an Apple presentation. And, instead of pinging you for each notification straight away, applications that you don't care about may be sorted into a new summary mode that is given many times a day. But the new Focus function is the biggest update, and after only a few weeks of use, it's already one of my favorite iOS features in years. On the surface, Focus appears to be an extension of Apple's current Do Not Disturb function, but instead of a blanket silence, Focus lets you to choose which applications and contacts you want to receive alerts from at certain times or triggers. . Focus settings (left), the expanded Do Not Disturb menu (middle), and Focus-siloed notifications (right). A "work" Focus, for example, may be configured to turn on while you're at work, mute all alerts except those from your email, Slack, and calendar applications, and then turn off when you leave the office. Specific times, locations (such as when you arrive at your workplace or home from work) or the launching of a specific app can all activate focus modes. So far, I've primarily been utilizing a "personal" focus for weekends and evenings to automatically muffle any business Slacks and emails until the morning, which has been fantastic. Apple's machine learning also tries to learn from how you use your phone — for example, it advised that I add a sports app to my whitelist that I use frequently during "personal" time. While Focus may be used in combination with Apple's Screen Time feature, it isn't a fully integrated system: there's no way to automatically block business applications like Slack when in "personal" Focus mode, for example. It just disables notifications. For even more personalized experiences, Focus allows To go with Focus and the morning summary feature, there's a new type of notification called "Time Sensitive Notifications," which may override certain notification filtering settings so you don't miss important bank notifications, for example. When it comes to when developers may use them, Apple has precise guidelines, but we'll have to wait and see how they're applied when applications are upgraded this autumn. you set certain homescreen pages to each Focus mode, including widgets. It's not an ideal system, though, because iOS won't allow you have duplicate app icons (for example, Apple Music can't be shown on both a "personal" and a "work" homescreen). But I like the functionality since it offers me a purpose to use widgets on my homescreens and helps me resist the urge to hit the Slack symbol while I'm meant to be offline. SAFARI EXPLORES A NEW LOOK Safari’s new design, with the rearranged URL bar. In iOS 15, Safari has been completely overhauled. This is the most significant update to iOS to date, and it affects what may be the most important app on the platform. That implies a one-handed design that lowers the URL bar to the bottom of the screen, adds a swiping motion interface, and a tab grouping function for the iPhone in particular (which is also coming to iPadOS and macOS Monterey). Even after a few days of use, I'm still getting used to it, and I believe it'll be the most divisive of all the new features in the current software update. My brain has been conditioned to reach up for the menu bar on cellphones for over a decade through muscle memory. Although I understand Apple's rationale for relocating it to the bottom of the screen, making it easier to access on the increasingly big phones it produces and placing the actual content of devices front and center at the top, it's still a change that will take some getting used to. MULTITASKING ON THE IPAD: WHAT IS A COMPUTER? Overall, In general, the iPadOS 15 upgrade includes many of the same enhancements as the iPhone version. However, there are a few iPad-specific improvements, starting with two big additions from iOS 14 that were strangely absent last year: homescreen widgets and the App Library (which comes with a spiffy animation when you open it). I'm still baffled as to why Apple didn't include those features last year, but they're much appreciated now. Because of the larger homescreen, widgets function even better on the iPad than they do on the iPhone. When there's still so much free space on the screen, giving away a fourth of your homescreen for widgets isn't such a huge deal. Apple has also added even larger widget sizes, the largest of which, when viewed on a 12.9-inch iPad Pro, is almost the same space as a full iPhone 12 display. Despite their huge size, Widgets work the same way they do on the iPhone, which means they're more focused on glanceable information than interactive small apps. Apple is also refining multitasking on the iPad with two new features: a multitasking icon (three dots at the top of the display) that makes it easier to use the various split-view and slide-over modes it introduced in 2019, and a "shelf" that displays all open windows for a specific app when you open it or tap the multitasking icon. Multitasking on iPadOS 15 is still... a lot. The new multitasking configuration is more user-friendly, albeit it is still a little perplexing. Using the new option to split-screen a single app returns you to the homescreen, where you may choose a second app (or the same app) to display in split-screen mode. When you're in the app switching window, you may drag and drop apps to make new split-screen or full-screen combinations. The multitasking dots light up to indicate which program in split-screen is active, which is an improvement over the previous bar. Swiping down on the multitasking dots now acts almost like a home button, dismissing the program and allowing you to choose a new one. There are still a number of methods to move things about and arrange them, as well as keyboard shortcuts — so much so that Apple has included a new menu to display system and multitasking shortcuts when you hold the globe key. But there's still a lot of squabbling going on. I'm never sure what version of an open app or app windows will open when I touch in on my homescreen because iPadOS is so unpredictable. Opening a new window is still a muddled procedure that requires dragging and dropping items in split view. Slide-over panels continue to exist in their own, perplexing universe. Split view is still annoyingly inflexible, allowing you to only have two applications open at a time with a third visible as a slide-over panel, rather than any alternative arrangement (like one large app on the left and two smaller ones on the right). In the end, the new multitasking and split-screen views are more of a refinement of the existing system than a revolutionary new way to utilize an iPad. Those who enjoy the iPad's software capabilities will appreciate the additional features and improvements. Those looking for a major revamp of the windowing system in iPadOS 15 — particularly in light of Apple's M1 improvement in the new iPad Pro — will be disappointed. Apple may make some minor modifications or revisions before the release of iPadOS 15 this autumn, but the company is unlikely to make any major design changes. iPadOS is still primarily an iPad operating system with iPad apps, as Apple appears to want. A Samsung-like “Quick Notes” function is also new, allowing users to write down an idea, highlight content on a website, or add a link for context by swiping up from the bottom corner of the display or using a keyboard shortcut. Quick Notes are kept in their own section of the Notes app and may be viewed from any Apple device. They're handy, however, like many other iPadOS 15 features, you're unlikely to figure out how to utilize them without help. THE MOST EXCELLENT OF THE REST As is customary, iOS and iPadOS will be getting a slew of new features, both big and little. On the public beta, here are a few of the more notable ones to check out: The addition of Live Text, which allows you to aim your camera at any scribbled or typed text to capture a phone number or email address, translate it, or enter it right into a text field, is perhaps the most technically stunning feature of the upgrades. This is a system-level function, which means it's available whenever you're looking at a picture, whether it's in the live camera stream, on the web, or straight from the keyboard. A new “Shared with You” feature is available on both operating systems, and it displays images, Apple Music tracks, links, Apple TV Plus material, and podcasts that were shared over iMessage in dedicated rows inside those applications. If someone messages you a great shot or their favorite music, the thinking goes, you'll be able to view it (and reply to it) via the Photos or Music applications. For the time being, the feature is restricted to Apple services only, thus sending a Spotify song to someone will not display in Spotify. It's also possible that the number of times users give each other links to TV Plus episodes is overestimated, but displaying shared links and images is undeniably beneficial (at least, when the feature works properly). The Weather app has been updated to include a vertical, Dark Sky-style 10-day forecast as well as Dark Sky-style temperature and precipitation maps. It appears to be attractive. Hashtags will be added to Notes and Reminders for categorizing and organizing them, and the Memories feature in Photos will be entirely revamped. Finally, you can finally dress up your Memoji avatars. On this, I have no view. . ¯_(?)_/¯ We can't test a lot of the other exciting new features just yet. For the time being, Apple's beta is only distributing fresh maps in the San Francisco Bay Area (though it will be available in much more areas when the final program is released this autumn). Before we can see how IDs and keys in Wallet operate, we'll have to wait for more widespread backing from state governments, hotels, and businesses. Many features will have to wait for third-party developers, such as Focus statuses and SharePlay in third-party applications, which will also have to wait for app upgrades. The most striking aspect of my time with the betas, though, is how simple it is to overlook the newest improvements. The majority of the improvements here are quieter, behind-the-scenes enhancements, with the exception of the most visible updates like bigger alerts or the new Safari look. They're things that provide you more choices and ways to utilize your gadgets, but they're only that. Focus modes are wonderful for individuals who want to utilize them and incorporate them into their workflow, but iOS makes no effort to promote or encourage you to use them. It's a mature approach to software that's refreshing to see, even if it means iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 aren't the most thrilling releases ever.