iPadOS 17 is officially announced with Live Widgets and Health for iPad

Apple WWDC '23 Live Blog: Unveiling Cupertino's latest innovations

Let's break down all the new features:

Interactive Widgets

One of the big changes to iPadOS this year is the addition of interactive widgets. You can now add these to your iPad's home screen, and not only view crucial information but also interact with it right from the widget. You can, for example, turn your smart lights on and off from the home screen, play or shuffle songs via the music widget, or enjoy quizzes or other trivia.

Lock screen personalization

Lock screen customization comes to the iPad with iPadOS 17. You can now tap and hold to change the wallpaper, and there's a whole set of great options that look stunning on the iPad's big screen. Furthermore, you can add widgets right on the left of the lock screen, giving you the ability to glance over important information without the need to unlock your device.

Live activities

With iPadOS 17, you can keep track of different activities directly on your lock screen. For example, you can set a timer (or multiple timers) and keep track of the time, or see the progress of your Uber delivery.

Health for iPad

The Health app is coming to the iPad with iPadOS 17, taking full advantage of the big screen, and showing you more health data and metrics. It syncs with other devices, like your Apple Watch or iPhone, and you can view interactive charts and other important info across all your devices.

PDF changes

There's a change to how your iPad will be able to handle PDFs with the new iPadOS 17, too. Not only are they integrated into Notes, and you can use annotations, live collaboration to work with friends and colleagues on them, but iPadOS 17 will be able to automatically identify fields in PDFs and let you quickly fill them.

There are other slight improvements to Stage Manager, Freeform also gets new drawing tools, new feature called "follow along," allowing you to follow your favorite creators. Some of the newly announced iOS 17 features will also be available with the iPadOS 17, such as the ability to AirDrop when out of range, leave a FaceTime message, use Live Stickers in messages, download maps and use them offline, summon Siri by saying just "Siri," and also enjoy improved predictive text.

Which iPads will support iPadOS 17?

The following iPads will support iPadOS 17, which is most likely to release this autumn:

• iPad (6th generation and later)
• iPad mini (5th generation and later)
• iPad Air (3rd generation and later)
• 12.9-inch iPad Pro (2nd generation and later)
• 10.5-inch iPad Pro
• 11-inch iPad Pro (1st generation and later)