Last year, Apple surprised me with new multitasking features in iPadOS 26. We felt this was a real step forward and provided a more Mac-like experience. This year’s iPadOS 27 aimed to enhance everything and deliver the best iPadOS version we’ve seen to date. This update may not be as flashy as last year, but it makes my iPad smarter, faster, more capable, and feels like it performs much better. There are hundreds of new small tweaks and changes, but I wanted to share my five favorite features that you should try.
Check out a hands-on look at iPadOS 27 on the M4 iPad Pro. You can really see the power that makes it special.
1. Magic Keyboard Shortcuts and Automation Triggers
That person caught my attention. With iPadOS 27, you can now use the Remove iPad and Place on Magic Keyboard action to trigger automations and launch shortcuts. The great thing is that it’s very easy to set up and customizable. Here’s what you do:
- Open Shortcuts app
- Create a new shortcut
- tap automation
- Scroll down to keyboard options
- Choose whether to perform an action on connection or disconnection
- And from there the sky is the limit
When I connect the Magic Keyboard, I set it to open in windowed mode with the YouTube app on the left and Safari on the right. It boots in about 1 second and works well. Then, when you disconnect your iPad, it closes all apps, takes you to the home screen, and turns off windowed mode. This is because your content is likely to be visible when you disconnect your iPad. Please tell me what to do with this new trigger point.
2. Natural language shortcuts
This is a big deal. The Shortcuts app has always been a little scary to me. I avoided it, except for some one-step shortcuts. But over the years I’ve seen people harness the power of shortcuts. It can be very powerful there. With iPadOS 27, Apple removes that barrier by allowing you to write shortcuts using natural language, and apps simply create them. The keyboard shortcuts described in the first section were created using natural language prompts. What I said is:
When you place your iPad on top of the Magic Keyboard, it turns on windowed mode and creates shortcuts that open YouTube and Safari side by side.
In addition to creating shortcuts, you can also view the backend to see how the shortcut was created. So not only will you get the answer, but you’ll also see all the work you need to see. I’ve created several shortcuts and automations, from something as simple as texting my wife at noon every day, to creating scene automations that are triggered by specific actions in the office. Again, this is one of those things you’ll have to try for yourself to see exactly what works for you.
When you try to create a new shortcut, you’ll see the natural language input method instead of the traditional shortcut creation method, so you know Apple wants you to use it.
3. Configuring Safari Smart Tabs
This is a great and underrated feature of iPadOS 27. Safari can now automatically organize tabs based on each web page’s topic. This is a big change for me as I always have 15+ tabs open. Here’s how to set it up:
- open safari
- Go to tab overview
- Tap the three dots
- Go to the Organize tab
- Select “Create topics automatically”
Safari uses SiriAI to organize those tabs into related groups. This works well if you have tabs for the same website, or tabs that are generally related to each other. So I have a bunch of tabs open about 9to5Mac, some about travel research, and some about troubleshooting Sony cameras. This feature helps you organize areas of your iPad that are usually very cluttered.
4. Addition of desktop class features
Apple has made a number of small enhancements that make the iPad feel more like a desktop OS. These provide faster window management, improved external display capabilities, and a more polished experience. Some new features include:
- Faster window switching
- Closing windows is now faster
- Faster access to menu bar
- Optional persistent menu bar
- Control Center support on external displays
- Faster file transfer and browsing
- Improved overall responsiveness
These features aren’t flashy on their own, but together they make a huge difference to your everyday experience using your iPad. Especially if you’re looking to make your iPad more like a regular computer. I paired this with a 5K BenQ monitor and it looked great.
5.SiriAI search
One of the great things about SiriAI is indexing. When you first update to iPadOS 27, your device will be indexed for several days or weeks. Indexing makes it easy for Siri to retrieve context whenever it needs it. Therefore, the more you have, the longer it will take. But as a byproduct of all this indexing, Siri searches are light years better than they were a few weeks ago. Apple has combined Spotlight Search and Siri AI into one powerful feature, making it not only powerful but also extremely easy to access. All you need to do is:
- Swipe down to access search
- Enter natural language
- Then search your files, messages, apps, emails, and settings to find what you need.
- Then, you’ll see contextual results for what you were looking for, along with the source of where it was found.
This will be the most impactful feature in iPadOS 27. This removes so many steps from specific actions that need to be performed on the device. The best thing about this is that it is in developer beta 1 stage. That means this is the worst situation and we can only get better from here.
final thoughts
There are many other iPadOS 27 features to consider, but I’d like to highlight some of the more impactful ones that I’ve been using since day one. Of course, this update is primarily about new Siri and Apple Intelligence, but it has unlocked so many opportunities and use cases that we haven’t yet discovered.
What do you think about this update? Have you tried it? Are you impressed? Is it still not enough? Let’s discuss below!
Apple deals
(Tag translation) iPadOS 27
