Quite the opposite from my view - I want Apple to actually innovate and dedicate time and thought to making iPadOS far more capable without shoehorning macOS on it.
iPadOS 16 was overdue catchup on stuff that should have been done years ago. If they just consistently were putting some focus on making the iPad better (apart from the usual iPhone features that get added..) then the iPad would be such a better device.
I’m all for iPadOS improving, but I disagree with you that Apple hasn’t focused enough on improving it. They’ve practically spent the last year focusing on improving iPadOS, as I’ve already mentioned. The biggest difference between the Mac and iPad now I think is the apps that they run, there are still some Mac apps that aren’t available on iPadOS yet. But Apple is clearly working to try to reduce that barrier, that’s why we’re getting Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro on the iPad. We’ve seen a sudden influx of niche, pro desktop apps hitting the iPad in the last year, why do you think that is? It’s no coincidence, it’s never been easier to port a Mac app to the iPad, and now that iPadOS has introduced things like Virtual Memory Swap, multi-windows, etc., many Mac developers are taking notice and porting their apps to the iPad to expand their market on the newer platform. Vision Pro’s use of iPadOS apps may continue to encourage these developers to port their apps to the iPad. And because you can write one code base for your app that will run on iPadOS and macOS, many new softwares are shipping with iPad versions right out the gate, instead of porting over as an afterthought. Last years iPadOS 16 update will continue to impact the future of the iPad for a while to come, and I’d argue it’s one of the biggest “paradigm shifting” updates to iPadOS probably since ever.
Now for those who think iPadOS 17 doesn’t add anything worthwhile that’s new, there are several major improvements. Number one in “biggest improvement” I’d say is external webcam support. This got kind of glossed over, but this will have a big impact for those of us who do video conferencing work, or even potentially podcasts or YouTube. Instead of having to use the camera built into the iPad for video conferencing, you now can use your external camera of choice, and even though the preview page seems to imply it has to be an external monitor’s webcam, it actually doesn’t have to be, it can be a standalone plug-in webcam. This also works for plug-in microphones as well. This will be a major improvement.
Also, interactive widgets are a big deal. It’s one of the things I’ve seen the most request for in the last couple years. Now we have them on the iPad, Mac, and iPhone.
There are also several new additions I’ve noticed that weren’t covered in the Preview of the keynote, such as several improvements to the iPadOS Settings app. Now, there is a new menu within Settings called “Multitasking & Gestures” that combines settings that use to be spread throughout the Settings app in separate menus into one place for easier discovery and use. There are also some minor changes in the Files app, and other apps such as Mail have received enhancements as well. It seems like Apple is focusing on making a slew of improvements to system apps that they didn’t mention in either the keynote or the preview. And this is only the first developer beta, I’m sure that there will be more improvements and smaller features added throughout the update cycle that weren’t mentioned. Remember, some of the biggest fundamental changes have come in out-of-the-blue updates in the middle of the update cycle, such as cursor support, and keyboard shortcut support. Even if we don’t get any fundamental changes beyond what Apple has told us about for iPadOS 17, I don’t see it as a tragedy. We’re still getting some nice features, and some app developers still haven’t taken advantage of all the new features from iPadOS 16, so I’m sure we’re going to see more improvements on that front.
In summary, I understand why some people are disappointed, but I really do think based on the changes they’ve already made just in the first developer beta, that it’s going to be a very nice update, probably about on par with iPadOS 15. And often somewhat smaller updates (like iPadOS 15 which was considered small at the time) are the foundation for larger updates like iPadOS 16, after all, many of the features we see in iPadOS 16 required foundational work that was done in iPadOS 15 in order to work.
