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It’s tempting to replicate your current laptop setup, but that can lead to frustration. That might mean rethinking how you use peripherals with the iPad. An iPad can’t be used with multiple wired peripherals unless it’s paired with a dock. Older models have the inconvenient Lightning connector and newer models have the more useful USB-C port. Take a different approach to peripheralsĮvery iPad has one port. These task-specific apps can prove a better choice than a more general document, spreadsheet, or presentation app if most of your productivity is focused on that particular task. You can find productivity apps aimed at journaling, note-taking, document markup, and much more. There’s a hoard of apps specific to the iPad, as well. The only big downside is price: an Office 365 subscription starts at $6.99 per month Remove non-product link (discounted to about $5.83 per month if you pay annually). All the Office apps on iPad are fast and play nice with the iPad’s features and multitasking. Microsoft’s Office apps are another great choice. They’re fast and feel more at home on the iPad because the apps share an interface found in other key apps, like the Files app. Mail, Pages, and Numbers all work well for personal use. What do you use if you ditch Google? Apple’s own apps are an obvious but often forgotten solution.
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It’s also not useful if you’re working offline or have a spotty Internet connection. This can cause performance issues on less powerful iPads, however. You sorta-kinda fix Google’s lackluster apps by using Docs, Sheets, and other Google services in Safari, just as you would on a laptop. The Google Docs and Google Sheets apps are notoriously bad. Leaning on Google can cause problems for iPad owners. The last bit will, I think, be key in helping users making the switch from a laptop feel comfortable on the iPad. It will add a status bar for file transfers, support for external drives formatted in NTFS, and drag-to-select when using a mouse or touchpad. IPadOS 15 will make several key improvements to the Files app. This is the best way to share, copy, move, or delete files.

If you want to move multiple files, first tap Select in the upper right-hand corner, select the files you want to manipulate, and then use the shortcuts that appear at the bottom of the Files app. Just touch a file for a second with your finger or an Apple Pencil, or right-click with a touchpad. However, it’s often quicker and easier to move and manipulate files with the context menu. It’s even possible to move directly between folders by opening two Files app views in Split View, and to move files from the Files app to other compatible apps, like Notes or an image editor. You can drag-and-drop files with touch, the touchpad, or an Apple Pencil. It’s easy to mistakenly think other cloud services must be used independently of the Files app.
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New iPad owners often miss this because cloud services like OneDrive and Google Drive have their own iPad apps and, in fact, you must download them before you can add these services to the Files app. Once added, these services appear in Files exactly like local storage. Apple’s own iCloud Drive is listed by default, and you can also add OneDrive or Google Drive. Files doesn’t treat cloud storage differently from local storage.


Personally, I just skip this and lean on cloud storage, which is another common point of confusion. That’s a departure from most laptops, where you’d often save to a general-purpose folder labeled “Photos” or “Documents.” You can create folders in the Files app and then use them to save files from multiple apps, but they’re not there by default. In other words, you’ll save files to a folder with the same name as the app you’re using to save the file. The On My iPad folder will include folders for apps you’ve used to save files to your local storage. All iPads will include the On My iPad (which is local storage), iCloud Drive, and Recently Deleted locations. It instead lumps your storage into several big buckets named Locations.
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The Files app doesn’t show drive directories like the Explorer and Finder apps on Windows or MacOS laptops.
