But personally, I just don’t find myself using them often, and I was perfectly okay with the old style of keeping widgets anchored to the left of the main homescreen, where they could be pulled into view when needed and then easily dismissed. I’m sure there are many fantastic widgets out there at this point, and the new XL size - exclusive to the iPad - does open up more possibilities for calendar widgets and other productivity tools. Instead, the company remains weirdly dedicated to its restrictive, always-from-the-top-left placement. Apple still doesn’t even permit empty gaps between icons or widgets. Particularly on iPads, we’re at the point where at least having the option for a more tightly-packed grid would unlock new promise and creativity. In his review of iOS and iPadOS 15 at MacStories, Federico Viticci surmised that Apple chose to “return to a non-dense grid that allows for both widgets and icons at the same time.” But I’m just not on board. It also has to do with how Apple maps out widgets on the homescreen. The best explanation I’ve seen for this reduction in icon density is that it was necessary to support the more flexible widget placement and still keep everything looking somewhat uniform and aesthetically pleasing. The icon spacing in vertical orientation gets almost comical on this large, pixel-rich display if you do drop in some widgets, as you’ll see later. It’s a frustrating change, and it results in a very obvious amount of wasted space at the sides of the screen. So much for my attempts at organization and keeping things tidy. But now, as soon as I switch to vertical / portrait, the grid inexplicably changes to 5 x 6, with icons flowing down into the row below them.
When the iPad is in landscape mode, I still get the 6 x 5 layout. See how icon positioning stayed the same on iPadOS 14? That was nice.īut with iPadOS 15, Apple threw a wrench into all that. This allowed me to set up dedicated rows for things like photo editing (I edit many of my review photos on the iPad), audio apps, video apps, and so on.
I’ve been using the 12.9-inch iPad Pro since 2018, and as of iPadOS 14, the homescreen grid was always 6 x 5 no matter how the iPad was being held. Even with some features like SharePlay missing from the initial release, others like Quick Note and a dramatically simpler approach to multitasking already improve the day-to-day experience of using Apple’s tablets.īut Apple sure did manage to bungle the homescreen.Īs my colleague Chaim mentioned in his review of iPadOS 15, the homescreen layout is no longer consistent between vertical and horizontal orientations.
There’s a lot of promise and potential in iPadOS 15.