Apple releases iPadOS 17 with interactive widget support and a redesigned lock screen

Apple’s iPadOS 17 update is now rolling out to all users. The newest version includes a redesigned lock screen with support for widgets, an updated Stage Manager, PDF Autofill support, and the ability to use external USB-based mic and camera support.

The company has redesigned the lock screen to bring customizations such as different wallpapers, fonts, and widgets. Widgets show up on the left side of the screen when the iPad is in portrait mode. Apple launched lock screen customization on iOS 16 last year, and now the company is bringing it to iPads. Because of the larger screen size, you can stack up many widgets such as a calendar, world clock, reminders, weather, and more.

Additionally, iPadOS 17 adds support for live activities to track things like your Uber Eats order, score of sports matches, and timers (yes, plural).

Interactive widgets are also coming to the new iPadOS that let you do things like start timers, control music, turn on/off smart devices, and mark tasks as done.

Stage Manager, which was introduced as an organizer for multiple app windows last year, now lets you resize them with more flexibility. However, you can still add only four apps to one stage.

iPadOS 17 has made it easier to autofill PDFs and scanned documents with fields such as name, address, email, and phone number. There is also support for digital signatures through Apple Pencil.

Apple is also introducing its Health app on the iPad. The company has designed the iPad version to show you more information on the large screen.

The new software version on iPad will let you use an external USB-based external mic and camera. Reincubate is introducing Camo Studio for iPad to let streamers and content creators take advantage of this feature.

The update also brings some features such as ML-powered autocorrect, live stickers in messages, offline maps, updated notes apps with PDF, and live collaboration support, with mood tracking, which were also launched on iOS 17.

iPadOS 17 is available for iPad Pro 12.9-inch (2nd generation and later), iPad Pro 10.5-inch, iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation and later), iPad Air (3rd generation and later), iPad (6th generation and later) and iPad mini (5th generation and later).