How to download iPadOS 18 on your iPad right now

iPadOS 18 and iOS 18 share many similarities, but they differ in focus and some features. iPadOS 18 is designed to enhance the iPad experience, making it more versatile and intelligent than ever3. It brings new ways to work with Apple Pencil, offers deeper customization options, introduces new experiences in apps, and supports Apple Intelligence2.

Some key features of iPadOS 18 include:

1. Calculator app: The Calculator app finally arrives on iPad, with a new feature called Math Notes. Math Notes allows you to type or write out math problems and see them instantly solved in your own handwriting.

2. Home Screen customization: iPadOS 18 allows you to place icons freely on the home screen grid, enabling you to better admire your wallpaper and customize the appearance of app icons.

3. Control Center updates: Control Center gets a redesign, allowing you to swipe between different tabs of widgets like Home controls and media playback6. You can also customize the size and layout of everything in Control Center.

4. Apple Intelligence: For iPad Pro and iPad Air models with M1 and later, iPadOS 18 introduces Apple Intelligence, which uses your personal context to give you more helpful and relevant intelligence.

5. Smart Script: This new feature improves the appearance of your handwriting as you write, powered by on-device machine learning. It helps make your handwritten notes more legible and easier to read.

In comparison, iOS 18 focuses on bringing AI-powered features, new customization options, and improvements to apps like Messages, Photos, and Control Center to iPhone users. While both operating systems share many features, iPadOS 18 has a greater emphasis on enhancing the Apple Pencil experience, app customization, and utilizing the larger screen space of iPads.

iOS 18 introduces several new capabilities, primarily focused on AI enhancements. Some of the notable features include:

1. Smart Replies: AI-generated text responses for messages and emails.
2. Generative Retouch Tool for Photos: An AI-powered feature that allows users to edit and retouch photos3.
3. Enhanced Siri: Apple's voice assistant is set to become more natural and contextually aware, offering personalized assistance.
4. Apple Intelligence: A new suite of AI tools that can understand and create language and images, take action across apps, and draw from personal context to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks.
5. Writing Tools: System-wide tools that help users rewrite, proofread, and summarize text across apps like Mail, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps1.
6. Image Playground: An AI-powered feature that allows users to create and share images in Messages, Notes, Keynote, Freeform, Pages, and third-party apps that support the new Image Playground API.
7. Genmojis: AI-generated emojis that users can create by describing the emoji they want.

These features aim to make iOS devices more intelligent and capable, enhancing user experiences across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.