A lot of people are hoping to see some dramatic changes to iPadOS to suit the M1 iPads. However, iPadOS covers a wide range of iPad models, most of which are not nearly as beefy as the latest high end models. This presents a number of problems for dreams that the next version of iPadOS will contain a lot of power user desired features:
- External display support: This will at least be limited to what the A14 chip which currently powers the iPad Air can do. Otherwise, it feels like the volume just won’t be there to tempt software developers to support it.
- Multitasking: Basic iPad multitasking is supported all the way back to the base model, with lots of users. For that reason alone, I can see incremental improvements to how it works but not a completely new model. Further, multitasking puts strain on overall system resources that I don’t think the current iPadOS computing model can really support.
The M1 powers both the iPad Pro models and entry level Macs, but I don’t think you can really see a merge of MacOS and iPadOS anytime soon. The underlying computing architectures across the gamut of devices are just too different.