Whats New With PDFs in iPadOS (and iOS) 17

Apple has recently announced the release of iPadOS (and iOS) 17, which feature several improvements to PDF handling within the Notes app. These new features will make it easier for users to work with PDF files on their iPads and iPhones.

One of the most significant changes in iPadOS 17 is the improved PDF handling. In iPadOS 17, PDFs in the Notes app will appear full width, making it easy to flip through pages, add annotations, or sketch directly in the document using an Apple Pencil. This feature is especially useful for those who frequently work with PDF files on their iPads.

Another new feature in iPadOS 17 is machine learning for PDF fields. This feature allows users to quickly enter information such as names, addresses, and emails from their Contacts into fields in a PDF. This can save time and make working with PDF files more efficient.

Finally, the Notes app will gain the ability to organize PDFs into folders with keywords and tags This feature will allow users to easily find and access their PDF files within the Notes app.

Overall, these new features in iPadOS 17 are designed to make working with PDF files on your iPad easier and more efficient.

iPadOS 17 is expected to be released to the public in the fall of 2023 and includes a plethora of other new features such as:

• Lock Screen widgets

• Interactive widgets on the Home screen

• Free form placement of Windows in Stage Manager

• an improved Messages app

• Improved Autocorrect

Image copyright Apple.com

How To Create Personal Automations Using iOS 13.1

Yesterday, Apple released iOS 13.1 for iPhone and iPadOS for iPad. The feature that has me really excited in this release is Personal Automations.

In past versions of iOS, you could set up Home Automations using the Home or the Shortcuts apps so that your HomeKit enabled accessories could react to changes in conditions around the the home. For example, you could have your garage lights come on automatically at sunset or change the temperature on your thermostat whenever you leave your house.

Personal Automations take this basic concept and applies it to conditions affecting your iPhone or iPad. For example, you can now set your iPhone to being playing a specific music playlist whenever you arrive at home. Or you can automatically send an iMessage at a certain time of the day.

I travel a lot between the UK and the US so when I am away, I have a Personal Automation that sends my children a goodnight message every day at 3PM EST (8PM UK) time.

I also love to fly drones so I have another Personal Automation that turns on Do Not Disturb as soon as I open the DJI GO app. The potential of these automations are only limited by your imagination and can include features such as creating or marking up PDF documents.

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So how do you create a Personal Automation in iOS 13.1?

First, find the Shortcuts app that now comes preinstalled with iOS 13 and open it. Next, at the bottom of the app, select the "Automation" tab and then hit the "+" button at the top right to begin asdding a new Automation.

Select "Personal Automation" and you will be presented with a list of trigger types to pick from. These vary from events such as time of day or alarms to phone setting changes such as when you join WiFi or you open a specific app.

Each choice of trigger will give you further options to tweak just the way you want before you are presented with a screen to add the Actions that will occur when the trigger is fired.

There are so many Actions that I couldn’t possible list all of them in this article and more are being added by third party developers all the time. You can also also chain together different actions together into complete workflows!

Once you are satisfied with your setup, hit the "Done" button to save your Personal Automation.

Two Features We Hope Apple adds for PDFs in iOS 13 (and watchOS 6)

Later today, Apple will open its WWDC conference and announce a slew of enhancements to its operating systems, iOS 13, macOS 10.15, watchOS 6 and tvOS.

As a company, Apple has always been a huge proponent of the PDF format since Mac OS X launched in 2001 and in fact built its Quartz graphics rendering on top of Adobe Imaging Model (aka PDF) in order to provide full support for text anti-aliasing and transparency/opacity.

Fast-forward 18 years later and both iOS and macOS have excellent built in support for PDF including functions such as mark-up and annotation tools as well as printing to PDF documents.

So what are the two features that we would like to see Apple add to PDF support in iOS 13 and watchOS 6?

JavaScript Support in PDF Files

JavaScript support in PDF is very important as it provides the ability to add interactive functionality to PDF documents. Examples of this include the ability to add an expiry date to a PDF so that a message can be displayed if the PDF is opened after a certain date or to add data validation for PDF forms. At the moment, adding any Javascript functions to PDF is not guaranteed to work on iOS or macOS unless the user downloads third-party applications such as PDF Expert (iOS) or Adobe Acrobat Reader (macOS).

Ability to View PDF Files on Apple Watch

This may sound crazy at first but bear with me. One common task I use my Apple Watch for is triaging my email inboxes by flagging important emails to read later and deleting junk emails. As is the case, some emails contain PDF attachments and at the moment, I am unable to view. It would therefore be very useful to have the ability to view a preview of PDF files on the Apple Watch to aid in the triaging process.

What features are looking forward to the most from WWDC 2019? Drop us a tweet to let us know!