With iPadOS 17.1 being released today, Apple tablets now officially support the upcoming USB-C Apple Pencil, announced by the company a week ago. This accessory offers many of the features of Apple Pencil 2, although it lacks some important functions.
Despite that, Apple is also adding a few other features with iPadOS 17.1. Here’s why you should download this new operating system now.
AirDrop with Cellular Data: Teased during the WWDC 2023 keynote, you can now continue to send and receive content when Wi-Fi is unavailable during AirDrop.
Apple Music Playlist Suggestions: When adding a song to a playlist, Apple Music now suggests a few songs based on the music available on the list.
Apple Music Favorite Songs: Apple Music also lets you favorite songs, albums, playlists, and artists. Your favorite music is automatically added to your Library and improves your recommendations.
Apple Music Playlist Covers: The service lets you create custom playlist covers. Apple offers eight different options.
The iPadOS 17.1 update also includes these improvements:
- Option to choose a specific album to use with Photo Shuffle on the Lock Screen
- Home Key support for Matter locks
- Improved reliability of Screen Time settings syncing across devices
- Fixes an issue that may cause the keyboard to be less responsive
For future updates, we expect iPadOS 17 to add new emojis, the upcoming journal app, which Apple says will let you “capture your thoughts on life’s big events or everyday activities and add details to any entry with photos, music, audio recordings, and more by marking important moments and revisiting them later to find new insights or set new goals,” and AirPlay into hotel rooms.
Device compatibility
iPadOS 17.1 is compatible with the following iPads:
- iPad Pro (2nd gen or newer)
- iPad Air (3rd gen or newer)
- iPad mini 5 and iPad mini 6
- iPad (6th gen or newer)
Despite iPadOS 17.1, Apple is also releasing iOS 17.1, watchOS 10.1, macOS Sonoma 14.1, and tvOS 17.1.
