iPadOS 27 brings even more intelligence to Apple’s iPad line

In it Worldwide Developers Conference On Monday, Apple rolled out iPadOS 27, which will integrate more AI features into the system it runs. iPad and iPad Pro Tablets.

In addition to the long-awaited advancements in the Siri personal assistant, major improvements to the iPad operating system focus less on big feature additions and more on making your everyday activities easier. Many of these improvements are being added across Apple’s product lineup, from iPhone to Macs.

It includes a Spotlight expansion that brings the system-wide search feature in line with Spotlight on macOS and newer Siri AI Features, the ability to hand over tab organization in Safari to AI, and the way automations are created in the Shortcuts app by typing or speaking requests using natural language dictation.

Apple is expected to launch the iPadOS 27 beta today, and the final version will ship in September or October if the company follows its traditional release schedule.

Spotlight search gets a Siri boost

Spotlight, the search bar that appears when you swipe down from the middle of the iPad screen, is set to get smarter in iPadOS 27, moving closer in features to what’s currently in MacOS. In addition to locating apps, files, and documents stored on the device, the new Spotlight Search will let you type natural language requests for Siri AI to process. Apple also says it has redesigned the index of what’s on your device, and new information is indexed more quickly.

It also becomes a place to ask Siri to act on information, such as providing the latest weather and adding calendar appointments. Siri’s visual intelligence can be activated by taking a screenshot or pointing the camera at objects around you.

Let AI organize your tabs in Safari

How much time do you spend trying to track down a website tab in Safari that you’re sure you have open but can’t locate? It’s very easy to accumulate dozens of tabs when shopping or researching topics. Safari’s new tab organization feature, which will be implemented across Apple devices, is designed to do the sorting for you, making it easier to show tabs more quickly.

It’s similar to the Use Stacks feature on MacOS, where a collection of document icons on your desktop are sorted into groups based on file types like images or PDF documents, or other criteria like date modified.

Create shortcuts without feeling like you’re creating flowcharts

The Shortcuts app on iPad, iPhone, and Mac is a powerful way to automate actions, but it always requires you to think like you’re building scaffolding. This makes sense for a logic-based application – for example, take a photo, resize its longest dimension to 2048 pixels and save it in a highly compressed JPEG format. But ironically, this approach made creating shortcuts a labor-intensive and time-consuming process.

In iPadOS 27, relying on the natural language capabilities of Siri AI, you’ll be able to talk more about what you want Shortcuts to do.

However, you may need to get a new iPad to run iPadOS 27

Apple has put a lot of effort into maintaining iOS 27 support all the way to 2019’s iPhone 11, but that’s not the case with the iPad line. To run the latest operating system, you will need one of the following models:

• iPad Pro (M4 and later)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (4th generation and later)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (2nd generation and later)
• iPad Air 13-inch (M2 and later)
• iPad Air 11-inch (M2, M3, and M4)
• iPad Air 11-inch (4th generation and later)
• iPad (A16)
• iPad (9th generation and later)
• iPad mini (A17 Pro)
• iPad Mini (6th generation and later)

Be sure to check out all the breaking news from the conference on CNET’s WWDC live blog.