Apple Product Managers Discuss Cool New iPadOS 18 Features

With iPadOS 18, Apple added some useful iPad-specific features in the Notes app, including Smart Script and Math Notes. Both of these additions are designed to work with the Apple Pencil, and they're some of the neater new features on Apple's tablets. Apple product manager Ty Jordan and engineering manager Jenny Chen recently did an interview with Chris Lawley to discuss the work that went into the ‌iPadOS 18‌ updates.


Smart Script is one of the ways that Apple is using machine learning in ‌iPadOS 18‌. It refines handwritten text, making your handwriting look neater without losing the personal flare that makes it your handwriting rather than generic writing. Smart Script learns your handwriting style, which Jordan said makes it as useful as typed text.

You'll notice that as soon as you start writing words, it refines your handwriting. You'll notice that it spell checks, so if you make a spelling mistake, it'll be underlined. It can also do some really cool things with reflowing your text, so if you tap and hold your Pencil, you can move words around, and you'll see that it reflows in your paragraph so you can get some more space.

You can even paste typed text as your own handwritten text right in the middle of a paragraph, so a lot of things that we take for granted with typed text, you can now do with handwritten text.

Smart Script learns continually and while it is designed to work quickly, it will get better over time as you write more, especially for features such as paste as handwriting. Recognition does not persist from note to note, however. Apple wanted the feature to feel personal and not like a font, which is why it refines dynamically with each note.

It's very contextual. So, for example, if you were to go to a previous paragraph where you had some band handwriting, we're going to match the handwriting that was refined there and not sort of try to replicate what you've had in other notes.

As for Math Notes, Jordan said that Apple took the time to "really reimagine" the calculator feature could be designed for the iPad's interface. If you're unfamiliar with the feature, Math Notes on ‌iPad‌ lets you write out equations with the ‌Apple Pencil‌, with the Notes app solving the equation automatically when an equals sign is added.

It sort of works like magic. It combines the natural input of a pencil with the amazing on-device machine learning models that Jenny and her teams work on. You just write math like on a piece of paper and like magic, it just gives you the answer. It's so simple and intuitive.

Math Notes is able to recognize variables and the numbers associated with them. So if you define variables like price and area in one part of the note, and then write "price x area," Math Notes is able to provide an answer using the numbers specified earlier. Jordan explains:

I'll do my best shot and go back to high school. So a variable is just a named value, right? So you probably know a lot of them from school, like X and Y, and you could declare a variable with that [...] but you can do this with any word that you want.

I've personally loved using it for natural experiences, where I might declare like drinks equal something and food equals something else, and then I can just say that plus that and divided by the number of people, and I get an answer. So it just creates this very natural way to work with your math.

Math Notes is intelligent enough to understand the difference between separate variables in a note, so if you have multiple math problems with the same variable like X, it won't get confused. You can have graphs added automatically in Math Notes if an equation can be grafted, which Chen says uses the work that Apple has previously done for the Swift Charts API.

If you're interested in more context on the new Notes features in ‌iPadOS 18‌, the full video is well worth watching. Both Math Notes and Smart Script are available in the ‌iPadOS 18‌ beta, which developers and public beta testers can download. The new features will launch in the fall.

Related Roundups: iOS 18, iPadOS 18
Related Forums: iOS 18, iPadOS 18

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Top Rated Comments

Apple Knowledge Navigator Avatar
8 months ago
Math Notes is one of the few genuinely ‘only Apple’ experiences that I’ve seen in a long time. It really does add a natural and human element to something that ordinarily doesn’t always fit right in a workflow, which is switching back and forth with a calculator. Good job!
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MikeSmoke Avatar
8 months ago
It would be nice to see some of this spill over to music notation software.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
terminator-jq Avatar
8 months ago
There's a few cool features but at the end of the day, we are just over 3 years into iPads having desktop class M chips... The current iPad Pro literally introduced the M4 generation. Seeing the slow growth of iPad OS was disappointing after the introduction of the M1 iPad. It was even more annoying after the M2 iPad Pro (not to mention the M1 making it to the Air). At this point the [Hardware Power : OS Capabilities] ratio has gotten ridiculous.

iPad OS needs a serious overhaul. They need to unlink iPad OS from iOS in a bigger way (especially since Vision OS is based on iPad OS which impacts yet another system). With as much talent as Apple has, I really don't understand how they haven't found more ways to make the iPad more of a computer and less of a giant iPhone. We don't need MAC OS on iPad but we DO need something that gets us halfway there. A few things I'd like to see:

1. iPad needs to have the same freedom Mac OS has of being able to download and install software both from the App Store as well as from 3rd party sources.

2. We need to see more Pro apps from Apple. There's no reason Xcode shouldn't have an iPad version. iPad pros now cost $999 for the base model! Easily in laptop territory. For those prices, people need the ability to get real work done and make that investment back.

3. A longshot but it would be awesome if Apple had a "Rosetta" style system for M chip iPads that allowed you to run MAC OS software that was built for AS. Obviously most software would only be usable with a connected keyboard & mouse. Again, complete long shot but it sure would make the iPad more of a complete computing solution. A program like Blender will almost certainly never get a dedicated iPad version but performance wise, iPads with M1 or newer are capable.

These types of updates would also make the power difference between iPad models more crucial. Currently, there's very few apps that actually push the M4 enough to notice a difference over the M2.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Simmias Avatar
8 months ago
I owned both Apple Pencil 1 and Apple Pencil 2 and never found a use for them. Now that I’ve upgraded to an M4 iPad Pro, I have no intention of buying another pencil. These new features look cool, but don’t change my mind on that.

As far as handwriting, typing is just a better and faster method of text input. As far as making diagrams or charts, this is easier and neater using shapes in Keynote or PPT. As far as math, apps like Soulver limit the need for handwritten equations.

I’m happy for visual artists or people who still like the idea of handwritten notes for nostalgic or aesthetic reasons, but I personally struggle to see the utility of Apple Pencil outside a few small niches. And Steve Job‘s comment on the downsides of styluses (“you have to get it and put it away…yuck”) still apply. I often lost my pencil when it detached from my iPad and spent a long time rummaging in bags and drawers to find it.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
stevemiller Avatar
8 months ago
in fairness i'm reacting more to the headline than the content here - but "product managers discuss..." just gives the exact middle-management-driven-product-design energy that has made me tap out on apple stuff lately.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
zachz Avatar
8 months ago

I owned both Apple Pencil 1 and Apple Pencil 2 and never found a use for them. Now that I’ve upgraded to an M4 iPad Pro, I have no intention of buying another pencil. These new features look cool, but don’t change my mind on that.

As far as handwriting, typing is just a better and faster method of text input. As far as making diagrams or charts, this is easier and neater using shapes in Keynote or PPT. As far as math, apps like Soulver limit the need for handwritten equations.

I’m happy for visual artists or people who still like the idea of handwritten notes for nostalgic or aesthetic reasons, but I personally struggle to see the utility of Apple Pencil outside a few small niches. And Steve Job‘s comment on the downsides of styluses (“you have to get it and put it away…yuck”) still apply. I often lost my pencil when it detached from my iPad and spent a long time rummaging in bags and drawers to find it.
As someone with 0 artistic ability and above average typing speed, the Apple Pencil is great for handwriting notes not for aesthetic purposes (mine looked like garbage, worse than on paper actually) and not for nostalgic purposes (I’m too young to get nostalgic over writing), but for having a digital notebook to organize written notes. While in school I’ve tried typing notes but it’s far too easy to just start transcribing what is being said, whereas handwriting helped me understand what was being said and retain the information.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)