PDFs were designed to be a universal file format. If you send someone a PDF, you can be assured that they’re looking at an identical copy of what you sent — regardless of their operating system or what software they have installed. But what if you need to make changes to a portable document? Luckily, Adobe has packed Acrobat with more advanced features over the years, including the ability to add text and images, adjust fonts, add comments, sign forms, add images and more. The latest versions of Acrobat allow you to merge PDFs, delete pages and convert PDFs to practically every file format, and you can do a lot of this for free. Alternatively, a number of third-party PDF editors offer more options for altering documents, and many are free or include a free tier, too.

How to edit a PDF

In order to edit a PDF, you have a choice between using Adobe’s programs (Acrobat Pro or Acrobat Pro DC) or a third-party PDF editor.

It’s important to note that Adobe offers a number of PDF editing tools for free, but limits this perk to two free transactions every 30 days. You’ll only need to sign up for a free account, which allows you to convert PDFs to a number of different file formats as well as merge, split, delete, reorder, extract and insert new PDF pages. You can also sign a PDF, request a signature and password protect your PDF with a free Adobe account. If you only need to highlight text, add comment or text boxes or draw on the PDF document, Adobe allows you to do this for free with its online tool. And if you don’t want to sign up for an Adobe account, the company still lets you perform one task and download the file for free.

But if you need to fix a typo, change the font, add new text or do anything more advanced, you’ll need to pay for an Adobe Acrobat Pro subscription. While there’s no real substitute for Acrobat (given the company is the literal creator of PDFs), some users may balk at the $14.99 per month subscription price for Acrobat Pro DC. If your workplace or school doesn’t allow you to access Acrobat’s premium software for free, you can try a 7-day free trial of Acrobat Pro DC. Just remember to cancel the trial before the trial period is over.

There are also numerous PDF editors that offer editing tools for free like Sejda, PDFescape, SodaPDF, PDF Candy and many others. Keep in mind that free editing programs won’t have as wide of an array of tools as Adobe Acrobat, and many have limits on storage. But if you need to quickly delete a chunk of text or add a few images, a third-party PDF editor is a budget-friendly alternative. Be sure to shop around in order to make sure you find the right program for your project.

How to sign a PDF

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If you need to sign a lease or a tax form, you’ll have your choice of free form-filling programs. Adobe Acrobat has a free online PDF form filler tool that lets you fill out PDF form fields, add text boxes, checkmarks, circles and other symbols. The program also includes e-signing tools that allow you to add your signature or initials to any form.

If you don’t want to visit a website every time you need to sign a PDF, Windows users can download the free Acrobat Reader application and use the “Fill & Sign” functionality, macOS users can open a PDF in preview, click the Toolbox button and then click Sign. On mobile, Adobe’s Fill & Sign application does exactly what it sounds like and is available for Android and iOS.

Many third-party PDF editors include form-filling and e-signing tools. If you need to quickly sign a document, DocFly lets you directly drop or upload your document and either write out, draw or upload an image of your signature. You can get three free downloads per month, or pay extra for a monthly or annual subscription. Some signing programs with free tiers include DocuSign, HelloSign, PandaDoc and eSign.

How to combine or merge PDF files

Luckily, Adobe allows users to combine or merge PDF documents for free. Simply drag and drop your files, select the ones you’d like to merge and then reorder them if needed. Adobe’s tool lets users create a merged PDF of up to 1,500 pages and combine up to 100 files, with each file limited to 500 pages. You can also delete, move or rotate pages. Adobe’s tool works on any web browser and is compatible with any operating system, including Windows, Mac and Linux.

How to convert a PDF to Microsoft Word or another file format

In a similar fashion, Adobe allows users to convert PDFs to Word documents for free with its online tool. Keep in mind that fonts, images and alignment can go haywire when you switch between file formats (though Adobe does its best), and you may not be able to convert some protected PDFs at all. Just open the browser of your choice, go to Adobe’s site and either drag and drop or upload a PDF. Adobe will then convert it to a fully editable Microsoft Word document. The company’s free tool also allows you to convert PDFs to JPGs, Excel and Powerpoint documents, as well as vice versa.

If you need to convert your PDF to HTML, you’ll need to pay for the premium version. There are also a number of free conversion tools, like CloudConvert.

Apple may be several weeks away from releasing iOS 16, macOS Ventura and other major updates, but that isn't precluding one last hurrah for current-generation software. The company has released iOS 15.6, iPadOS 15.6 and macOS 12.5, all of which provide more control over live sports in the TV app. You can restart matches already in progress, and you'll find typical playback options like pause, fast-forward and rewind.

The new software also fixes a Safari bug that could revert a tab to a previous page. You can expect the customary round of security patches (most of which fix holes allowing arbitrary code), including equivalents for older macOS versions like Big Sur and Catalina. Equally new watchOS 8.7 and tvOS 15.6 releases, meanwhile, deliver bug and security fixes to Apple Watch and Apple TV users alongside generic "improvements."

The timing suggests these may be the last significant updates for existing software. Apple has historically shipped major versions of iOS, macOS and other software as soon as September, and there aren't hints of iOS 15.7 or similar upgrades on the horizon. The company is shifting its priorities, and the modest changes in these latest updates reflect that changing focus.

Microsoft is giving select PC gamers free access to four classic games by Bethesda and id Software, which it acquired as part of its $7.5 billion ZeniMax purchase in 2020. And three of them wouldn't have been released if the tech giant isn't acquiring Activision Blizzard, as well. In a post on the Xbox blog, Microsoft has revealed that Xbox Insiders on Windows PC can now preview Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders, HeXen: Beyond Heretic, HeXen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel, The Elder Scrolls: Arena and Quake Champions. 

It's not surprising that the offer is only available for PC users part of Microsoft's Insider program — as Ars Technica notes, the first four games in the list were originally released in the mid-90s and run via DOSBox emulation. DOSBox runs software for MS-DOS compatible games, but it's a pretty inelegant solution for making old titles playable. 

The Elder Scrolls: Arena is an open-world action RPG published by Bethesda, with a first person perspective and features melee combat and magic. Meanwhile, Heretic, its sequel HeXen: Beyond Heretic and the latter's expansion pack, HeXen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel, are all first-person dark fantasy shooters. They were built using a modified version of the Doom engine, and though they were published by id Software, they were developed by Raven Software. Activision acquired the rights to those games when it purchased Raven in 1997.

Microsoft first announced that it's purchasing Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in January this year and expects the deal to close no later than June 2023 if regulators give it their approval. It's an all-cash deal that values Activision at $95 a share. Microsoft plans to add Activision Blizzard games to the Xbox Game Pass as part of the acquisition, and some of those games may be like the Heretic-HeXen series, which Activision doesn't fully own.

Transit app Moovit is aiming to be more helpful when it comes to helping users get to their destination. Starting today, the app is rolling out more personalized trip-planning features in 3,500 cities across 112 countries to build on its existing route suggestions.

One of new functions is called Smart Cards. Intel-owned Moovit will populate travel suggestions on the home screen based on factors such as your location, the time of day and week, your previous activity and items you mark as favorites. For instance, if you're out and about and you have your home set as a favorite destination, Moovit will automatically suggest the best transit options to get back there. On the flip side, if you have your work address saved, the app will offer transit suggestions for traveling there during weekday morning commute hours.

A "recent trips" card will display transit options for destinations you've searched within the last 30 days on the same day of the week and at around the same time. You'll also get transit suggestions for a nearby stop that you've marked as a favorite and departure details for nearby stations. In addition, you'll have the option to return to your last trip itinerary. You can swipe between all these cards, which will appear just below the search bar.

Moovit

Another of the three new features is called Smart Trips. You'll be able to set your preferred transit options when you set up the app or through the preferences menu on the Suggested Routes screen. That should be useful for those who, for instance, prefer not to take the subway. While you can select transit options in Google Maps, it's on a trip-by-trip basis. Being able to save preferred modes of transport should save Moovit users some time.

The last of the new features is Smart Returns. You can quickly select a trip back to the last location you departed from. You'll be able to set a departure time for the return journey on the Itinerary screen and receive a notification with suggested routes when it's time for you to get going.

Whether or not you’re returning to in-person classes this fall, you’ll likely need a slew of services and software to get your classwork done, manage your time and relax after a long day of lectures. Don’t worry about adding to your ever-growing student debt in the process, though. There’s an increasing number of free services and tools that have surprisingly robust features, ranging from office suites to pro-quality media editors. You might not need to pay a cent to listen to a hot new album or indulge in a TV marathon, either. Our recommendations could help you thrive this school year while leaving some money for extracurricular fun.

Google Docs

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You’re probably going to need a productivity suite at school. Thankfully, the days of having to buy an expensive software bundle are long gone. Google Docs can handle the document creation you’ll need over a semester, whether it’s writing term papers, crunching data in spreadsheets or whipping up group presentations. Automatic cloud saves can spare you the heartache of losing progress.

You may want to subscribe to a Google One plan if the free 15GB of Drive storage proves too limiting. And as capable as Docs may be, there may be some classes where professors insist on paid services like Microsoft 365. If you’re free to choose your work tools, however, Docs is an easy choice — particularly if you already rely on Calendar, Meet and other parts of the Google ecosystem.

Todoist

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Student life is defined by time management. You’ll likely have to juggle multiple assignments, study sessions and a personal life (remember that?) without missing a beat. Todoist is our pick for keeping yourself on track. You can not only create the usual to-do lists, but set up task boards, set priorities and even delegate items to others — helpful if it’s a roommate’s turn to buy dinner.

The free Todoist plan will likely be enough for school with support for five active projects, five collaborators and 5MB file uploads. You’ll only want to shell out $36 per year for a Pro account if you have many on-the-go projects (up to 300), need to upload large files or want to set reminder alerts. Whatever you need, this might be key to getting a paper done on time.

Inmagine Pixlr E

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It used to be that free image editors were underpowered or ungainly, and you could generally forget about web versions. That’s not the case with Pixlr E. Inmagine’s more advanced free editor offers many of the tools that previously required a subscription or a hefty offline app, such as image healing, visual effects and multi-layer compositing. It works with Photoshop files (PSD) and other common formats, too. You might not need much more if you want to touch up a presentation picture or crop a snapshot for photography class.

There are limitations. Pixlr E is ad-supported, and you’ll miss out on the $59 Premium level’s AI-powered tools, 8K by 8K resolution support and templates. You’ll also want to investigate tools like Inkscape if you’re creating vector illustrations or need a host of artistic apps. Pixlr is far more affordable than Adobe Creative Suite, mind you, and the browser-based technology might prove a lifesaver if you have to edit a project on an unfamiliar computer.

Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve

Blackmagic

You might not have to pay for a costly video editing package to make it through film school. Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve provides an in-depth bundle of editing, color correction, audio and effects tools at no cost. You could make a short film for class using the same core tools used to produce Hollywood blockbusters, complete with multi-user collaboration.

In fact, you’ll likely have little need for paid editing products unless your coursework has very specific requirements. You’ll only want to think about spending $295 for DaVinci Resolve Studio if you want to edit footage beyond 4K at 60 frames per second, work with more video formats or rely on advanced 3D, AI and HDR tools. Unless your professors demand that you use a rival tool like Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro, this should be enough to learn the fundamentals.

Blender

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If you’re creating 3D artwork for games or videos at school, you’ll want a strong modeling suite — and one of the more capable packages happens to be free. Blender provides a wide range of modeling, animation and sculpting tools for 3D content, while budding movie producers can take advantage of built-in compositing, motion tracking, story art drawing and simple video editing. You might have everything you need to create a CG short film.

You’ll want to be sure that Blender can fulfill your class requirements, and you might want more focused software like Natron (an equally free compositing tool) to supplement your work. With that said, Blender’s open source code and extensible design work in its favor. It’s easy to find a bevy of free or low-cost add-ons that can meet your needs, and you can even write your own extensions if you’re comfortable with scripting.

Audacity

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Some courses may need an audio editor, whether it’s to create a podcast, tweak game sound effects or finesse a song. If you’re in that boat, Audacity can sometimes do the trick. The free, open source editor gives you the essentials for capturing and editing multi-track recordings, including support for effects and plugins.

Audacity won’t replace heavy-duty digital audio workstations like Audition, Logic Pro, Pro Tools or Reason. Those offer non-destructive editing, and often include a slew of effects generators and other tools aimed at music and video production. This is a good place to learn some basics, though, and may well be all you need if a class isn’t particularly demanding.

Evernote Scannable

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Paper is still a reality in the classroom, whether it comes in the form of a handout, a sketched diagram or a friend’s handwritten notes. But you won’t have to worry about how you’ll digitize them. There are a number of free document scanning apps available, and Evernote Scannable is one of the best. You just have to point your camera at documents to produce easily readable PDF and JPEG files you can share with the rest of the class. While you can sync content with Evernote, it’s not required.

Scannable is limited to iPads and iPhones as of this writing, so you’ll want to look to alternatives like Microsoft Lens if you prefer Android (there’s also an iOS version). Microsoft’s app is also a good pick if you want to export scans in Office formats or convert handwritten text. Either way, you might not have to worry about lugging a binder around campus.

Spotify

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Let’s be frank: you’re going to need some study music, and Spotify still provides the best free soundtrack for those lengthy learning sessions. The no-charge tier will periodically interrupt your listening with ads, but you can create playlists, follow podcasts and enjoy much of the core Spotify experience. You can stream songs on mobile and smart speakers, too, so the music won’t stop when you leave your desk.

You may still want to pay for service. Spotify’s mobile app makes you listen to all but a handful of playlists in shuffle mode, and you’ll have a limited number of skips per hour. The higher maximum audio quality (320Kbps versus 160Kbps) is also worthwhile if your audio system can do it justice. Mercifully, you might not have to deal with the full $10 monthly fee if you upgrade. Students can get Premium for $5 per month, and you’re eligible for up to four years. The free plan is nonetheless a good way to test the waters, and might just do the trick if you’re searching for some background tunes.

PDF Candy

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There’s a distinct possibility you’ll encounter PDF documents at school, whether it’s a research paper or the class syllabus. You won’t have to pay for apps like Adobe Acrobat to edit those files, at least. PDF Candy offers a free web-based editor. You can modify PDFs, convert to and from common formats (including Word and PowerPoint), extract images and otherwise take control. This might do the job if you need to flesh out scanned class notes or extract a quote from a scientific study.

There are time and size limits for the free version (up to 500MB per task), and you should also consider the $48 yearly or $99 lifetime plans if you want faster web processing or the Windows app’s offline editing. Alternatives like Acrobat are also better if you need commenting, mobile editing and other advanced features. Still, the free web tool is difficult to beat for basic utilities.

Peacock

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You won’t need to pay for a streaming video service to help yourself unwind after a mind-frying midterm. NBCUniversal’s Peacock is one of the few major streamers to offer completely free viewing. You’ll have to live with ads and won’t get the full breadth of content (more on that in a moment), but it might be just what you need if you’d rather watch back-to-back episodes of The Office than hunt down YouTube videos.

The no-cost version only includes a portion of what the service has to offer. You may want to spend $5 per month for Peacock Premium to get originals like Bel-Air, every season of The Office, next-day access to current NBC shows and live sports. And if you despise ads with a bitter passion, your only choice is to pay for a $10 per month Premium Plus membership. Competing services like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix often don’t have any free option, however. This lets you splurge for a sports event or must-see show without losing access to the entire video catalog when you stop paying.

Snapchat’s messaging and video chat features are no longer limited to just the mobile app. More than a decade after the Snapchat app first launched, company is introducing Snapchat for Web, a new browser-based version of its service.

Snapchat+ subscribers will gain access to the new web app first, but will eventually it will be available to all of the users. It will support messaging and video calling for now, though the company plans to add support for its augmented reality lenses and the ability to send photo and video Snaps “soon.” 

Snap also tried to build some of its signature privacy features into the web version. For example, it will block screenshot attempts it’s able to detect, like those taken with keyboard shortcuts. The company also added a “privacy screen” that blocks the contents of users' chats if they click away into a separate window.

Snap

It’s not the first time Snap has experimented with desktop or browser-based features. The company previously made some Stories posts viewable on web browsers, and brought its AR effects to the desktop with its Snap Camera app. But it is the first time some of Snapchat’s core messaging features will be available to users outside of the mobile app.

The change could help Snapchat increase engagement with its most dedicated users. A Snap spokesperson noted that video calling has become more popular among Snapchat users in recent years, and that a desktop experience can be more conducive to longer video calls. It could also help Snap replicate the experience of apps like Discord where teens tend to use chats as places to hang out while doing other online activities.

Notably, there are no ads or other revenue-generating features in Snapchat for Web, though a spokesperson said the company could eventually bring other aspects of the mobile app to the browser version of the service — if there’s enough demand.

Text-to-image generation is the hot algorithmic process right now, with OpenAI’s Craiyon (formerly DALL-E mini) and Google’s Imagen AIs unleashing tidal waves of wonderfully weird procedurally generated art synthesized from human and computer imaginations. On Tuesday, Meta revealed that it too has developed an AI image generation engine, one that it hopes will help to build immersive worlds in the Metaverse and create high digital art.

A lot of work into creating an image based on just the phrase, “there's a horse in the hospital,” when using a generation AI. First the phrase itself is fed through a transformer model, a neural network that parses the words of the sentence and develops a contextual understanding of their relationship to one another. Once it gets the gist of what the user is describing, the AI will synthesize a new image using a set of GANs (generative adversarial networks).

Thanks to efforts in recent years to train ML models on increasingly expandisve, high-definition image sets with well-curated text descriptions, today’s state-of-the-art AIs can create photorealistic images of most whatever nonsense you feed them. The specific creation process differs between AIs.

Meta AI

For example, Google’s Imagen uses a Diffusion model, “which learns to convert a pattern of random dots to images,” per a June Keyword blog. “These images first start as low resolution and then progressively increase in resolution.” Google’s Parti AI, on the other hand, “first converts a collection of images into a sequence of code entries, similar to puzzle pieces. A given text prompt is then translated into these code entries and a new image is created.”

While these systems can create most anything described to them, the user doesn’t have any control over the specific aspects of the output image. “To realize AI’s potential to push creative expression forward,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated in Tuesday’s blog, “people should be able to shape and control the content a system generates.”

The company’s “exploratory AI research concept,” dubbed Make-A-Scene, does just that by incorporating user-created sketches to its text-based image generation, outputting a 2,048 x 2,048-pixel image. This combination allows the user to not just describe what they want in the image but also dictate the image’s overall composition as well. “It demonstrates how people can use both text and simple drawings to convey their vision with greater specificity, using a variety of elements, forms, arrangements, depth, compositions, and structures,” Zuckerberg said.

In testing, a panel of human evaluators overwhelmingly chose the text-and-sketch image over the text-only image as better aligned with the original sketch (99.54 percent of the time) and better aligned with the original text description 66 percent of the time. To further develop the technology, Meta has shared its Make-A-Scene demo with prominent AI artists including Sofia Crespo, Scott Eaton, Alexander Reben, and Refik Anadol, who will use the system and provide feedback. There’s no word on when the AI will be made available to the public.

The iOS 16 public beta is here, which means you can get a taste of Apple’s upcoming mobile software before its stable release. As we saw at WWDC in June, the iPhone is slated to get a whole new lock screen, edit and send options in iMessage, improved dictation, a Medication tracker, new sharing features and more. iOS 16 is shaping up to be a beefier update than years past, and you might (understandably) be itching to test it out.

As always, I have to remind you that installing any beta software comes with risks. Some of your favorite apps might stop working, or worse, your phone might be completely bricked. If you’re still set on running the beta, please make sure to back up your data. You can access the preview by enrolling on Apple’s website, which will push a download option to your phone’s Software Update section.

Just as with the iOS 15 public beta last year, basically all the features announced at WWDC are ready for testing. The only things missing would require developers to make some changes, like integrating an API for the new live activity update box on the lock screen. And the redesigned CarPlay, won’t be available until next year. I can’t get into every single change, and will save my more complete evaluations for our full review when iOS 16 is officially released.

Screenshots

New lock screens are a visual refresh

Once my phone restarted after installing the beta, the change was obvious. Instead of the clock and list of notifications my eyes had grown tired of, there was a box at the bottom of the page telling me the software had updated. The clock font was a thicker, blockier style, which I immediately wanted to change. I long-pressed the wallpaper, but that brought up the page for me to enter my passcode.

I found a bug where I couldn’t access the editor or switch pages until I set up Face ID. Basically, you can’t tweak or change lock screens without logging into your phone, but when you enter your passcode, the system takes you straight to your home page, bypassing the lock screen altogether. Face ID allows your iPhone to stay on the page after having unlocked your phone.

Once I got into the Lock Screen creator, I could choose from eight styles and two colors for the clock, as well as add up to five widgets across two boxes at the top of the page. I picked the weather, air quality and UV index widgets, and then added two more profiles with different wallpapers featuring my favorite photos (you can also choose your preferred emoji, people or color). There’s also options based on the weather or “Astronomy,” which uses your position to show where you are on a globe. It can also display the moon or solar system.

Each page can be linked to a Focus mode, though there must always be a default lock screen that isn’t tied to anything. Speaking of, Apple also added Focus filters to let you have finer control over what you want to interact with in certain modes. You can choose which tab groups appear in Safari with your Work profile and pick a different calendar to see when set to Play. iOS 16 also offers Allow and Silence lists when you’re setting up your Focus modes, and will provide suggestions around Lock Screen content that would be relevant to each profile.

Screenshots

The revamped Lock Screen also features a new “live activity box” at the bottom. The idea is that when you’re following a sporting match or recording an interview for example, you can stay updated without having to leave the app open. Developers need to integrate the new API for this to work. Right now, it works with Spotify and Apple’s timer app, making it easy to pause or skip ahead in my music and cancel my countdowns.

Messages gets better

One of the most useful changes coming with iOS 16 is the ability to edit and unsend chats in iMessage. For now, this works best with people who are also using the public beta — anyone on iOS 15 will see a second message that says “Edited to” followed by your new words. Just like what people on Android used to see when iPhone users used emoji reactions on texts.

You’ll have 15 minutes after sending a message to access the options for “Undo Send” or “Edit.” When you rescind a message, by the way, your friend will see an alert saying “[friend’s name] unsent a message.” Texts that had been updated have the word “Edited” next to the read receipt below the bubble.

Screenshots

Apple also updated the dictation experience. Now, when you tap the microphone on the iPhone’s keyboard, the QWERTY setup stays in place instead of being taken over by a waveform animation. A small tab with a microphone icon appears over the input field when you’re not speaking, so you know dictation is still enabled.

You can tap mistakes in the box and continue dictating to fix them, which is similar to what Google did with its updated voice engine on the Pixel 6. Unlike on Android, though, iOS 16 doesn’t allow you to speak commands like “Send” or “Delete all”. This dictation interface didn’t appear when I was typing in the App Store’s search bar, though, so despite this being a systemwide feature, it still appears to be missing in places.

Visual Lookup is the most fun

Of all the updates the iOS 16 beta brings, my favorite has to be in visual lookup. Or, as I prefer to call it, the quicker-sticker-maker. Basically, you can long-press a subject in any picture in the Photos app and copy it without the background and paste it somewhere else.

I was impressed with how accurately the system picked out subjects, whether it was a coworker smizing against a blue sky, or a model in a flowing dress in front of a building. Sadly, it doesn’t work on things in the background — I couldn’t get it to highlight a dog behind its owner.

Screenshots

When you paste your selection into a Message field, it’s automatically sent as a cutout with a transparent background — i.e. a sticker. But often, the system would think I was trying to send a picture and add a black background, which took away from the effect. This is a known bug, though, so it shouldn’t be happening by the time iOS 16 is ready for its stable release.

Apple also added video support for Live Text, which scans images for text and picks them out so you can interact with them. This will work in the Photos app, as well as anything that uses the iOS player, which includes fullscreen videos from articles on the web. Third-party services with custom controls won’t automatically support this, but developers can integrate the ability if they wish.

Medications and health features still need work

I was looking forward to seeing the new Medications feature in the Health app and, satisfyingly, it’s straightforward and intuitive. I easily found my daily pill, and Apple offers US users the option to scan their packaging label. The database is still somewhat sparse, and I couldn’t find the specific brand and dosage of Vitamin B12 that I take every day, but I imagine as more people use this and plug their own pills in, there will be more entries soon.

While it’s helpful that you can choose frequency intervals like daily, alternate days, specific days of the week and more, I wish there were a way to choose an end date. You can set a specific day to start your meds, but for short-term situations like a course of antibiotics, for example, you’ll have to manually delete the entry after you’re done.

Screenshots

The most intriguing aspect of Medications is that if you enter substances that have risky interactions, the system should flag it for you. This isn’t limited to drugs — Apple also prompts you to add whether you consume alcohol, marijuana or tobacco. Through this, I found out that my birth control might increase the effects of marijuana, and the Health app labeled this as a Moderate drug interaction.

I’m allergic to a few different drugs, including some major antibiotics, and I’ve listed this information in my medical ID in the Health app in case of an emergency. When I added one of the antibiotics in Medications, I wasn’t alerted about it. Granted, the information in the medical ID is simply a list of words as opposed to a piece of data Apple can use to match against other information. And I probably wouldn’t encounter a situation where I’m dispensed medication that contains something I’m deathly allergic to. But it would be nice to see Apple think about how to approach situations like this.

Concerns about medical privacy are at an all-time high and I almost didn’t want to list my birth control in Medications, though I do feel that Apple’s privacy policy is one of the better ones around. Still, if there was a way for this information to be hidden behind a passcode, I would feel a bit better.

Sharing, accessibility and a long list of other updates

I’ve barely covered the list of changes iOS 16 will bring, but we’ve covered what will have the biggest impact on your daily experience. If you frequently collaborate with others, the new Safari group tabs can be helpful. I created a group and shared it with fellow deputy editor Nate Ingraham as we tested the new software. I had the Engadget home page and Apple’s iOS summary open, and the next day he had added some other reference pages, but he also noticed I had been looking up the cast of Ms. Marvel.

Sharing photos with your friends and family is also easier if they’re using iOS. You can create a shared photo album and images added will be synced with all members. Family Sharing has also been updated to make child accounts easier to set up, and your kids can send you Screen Time requests through Messages (and you can approve or decline from the chat, too).

Screenshots

I didn’t have time to check out some of the other new features like the assistive Door Detection tool or Sound Recognition. But I did try Live Captions, which provides subtitles for audio playing through all apps on your phone. Though Apple’s version is occasionally inaccurate and slightly slow compared to Android, I appreciate that I can tap the box on iOS and choose to pause Live Captions or tap the microphone icon to switch to transcribing sounds in my surroundings. I can also minimize the Live Captions box on iOS, leaving only a floating circle on the screen that stays out of the way till I need subtitles again.

Apple also added a new Safety Check tool that “allows you to disconnect from people, apps and devices you no longer want to be connected to.” You can review the people and apps that have access to your location, photos, calendar or contacts and revoke permissions, or choose nuclear options like “Emergency Reset” or “Select All and Stop Sharing.” Changing these options requires you to sign in, either with a passcode or by Face ID. There’s also a new Lockdown Mode that the company announced earlier this month, which is “an extreme, optional protection” for those who “believe you may be personally targeted by a highly sophisticated cyberattack.”

I’ve been enjoying the iOS 16 public beta, and though I still hesitate to recommend installing beta software, most people who aren’t risk-averse will enjoy the updates. If you’re worried about stability and losing your data, you can always wait till the final release (typically in the fall) to get the new features.

When Apple put its M1 processor in the 2021 iPad Pro and iPad Air, I couldn’t help but wonder what all that power was for. The A-series chips that Apple had used in earlier models ran iPadOS extremely well, so seeing the same processor found in computers like the MacBook Air and Mac Mini was a surprise.

With iPadOS 16, which I’ve been testing in beta for the last few weeks, it’s now obvious why Apple put the M1 in its latest iPads. It enables some significant new features around multitasking that make the iPad a lot more flexible, and it enables some entirely new workflows: things that iPad power users have been requesting for years. Apple calls this new multitasking scheme Stage Manager.

And even though Stage Manager will only work on the three M1-powered iPad models, it’s easily the most significant change to iPadOS in years, as well as the most notable feature that’s currently available in the iPadOS 16 beta. As usual, a host of features that Apple announced at WWDC last month aren’t yet fully enabled in the beta software.

Resizable, overlapping app windows is the most immediately obvious benefit that Stage Manager offers, but Vivek Bhardwaj from Worldwide Product Marketing at Apple told Engadget in an interview that the company looks at Stage Manager as far more than, in his words, “a little iteration on multitasking.” The broader goal was to figure out how to make apps more capable on the iPad. “When we took a step back, we realized that there’s an opportunity for us to have apps running not just on iPad but on an external display, to be able to multitask with multiple apps, and have arrangements and flexibility like users have never had before,” Bhardwaj said.

Despite the bugs that I’ve encountered running iPadOS 16 on a 2021 iPad Pro (more on that later), Bhardwaj’s assessment feels accurate. Stage Manager makes the iPad feel much closer to a Mac than it ever has before while still retaining the simplicity that the iPad is known for. That shows up in some limitations — you can have at most four apps “on stage” at once, so you can’t stack as many windows and apps as you want. But it’s a reasonable limitation: Even on a 12.9-inch iPad Pro, having more than three apps running on a single stage can feel cramped. But because iPadOS keeps four more recent stages on the left (each of which can also hold up to four apps), it’s easier than ever to jump between a host of different apps.

For example, I’m writing this story in a Pages document, with a Notes instance running next to it. I have Slack and Messages running in a communication-focused stage, a few Safari windows, and my email readily accessible via the left-side recent apps view. I can also get to any app in my dock with one tap or use Spotlight to search for any app on my iPad if I need something that isn’t readily available. There’s definitely a learning curve here, but it’s undoubtedly a more powerful and flexible way to use an iPad than we’ve ever had before. It’s significant that Apple is giving iPad users complexity and customization at the expense of simplicity, something the company usually avoids.

This is doubly true when you hook up an iPad to an external display. Before, you’d just get a mirror image of what is on your iPad’s screen, but now the external display is an entirely separate workspace. With Stage Manager, you can have a distinct set of apps running on that monitor, something that makes using an iPad with another display significantly more useful than it ever was before — and another example of why Stage Manager requires an M1-powered iPad.

That said, in its unfinished form, Stage Manager is a bit rough around the edges. When I was using my iPad with an external display, the system crashed and threw me back to the home screen not infrequently, which obviously kills productivity gains. There are also quirks with apps behaving unpredictably when resizing their windows. I’d expect these things to be improved by the time iPadOS 16 is officially released this fall, but just be aware that the beta still feels very much like a beta.

Stage Manager, which is also coming to macOS Ventura, provides a clear example of how Apple differentiates its platforms even when they share features. “On the iPad, we looked at how do we optimize [Stage Manager] for multitouch?” Bhardwaj said. “Because we know people are going to want to interact with it, we had to make adjusting windows and overlapping windows not feel overwhelming, not feel like you have to have fine cursor control and pixel-perfect arrangement.” That led to a lot of automation in terms of how windows interact with each other and where they’re placed when you add apps to a stage or resize them.

On the Mac, though, the behavior is different because of the user’s expectations for the platform and the tools you use to interact with it — specifically, a mouse rather than your fingers. “People actually need fine-grained control because that’s the behavior and usage of Mac,” Bhardwaj said.

Before Apple showed off Stage Manager at WWDC, the rest of the iPadOS 16 preview was dominated by new collaboration features. In a world that’s been remade by the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work is more common than ever, and Apple is clearly trying to make the iPad even more of a productivity tool than before. And it’s doing so by using its incredibly popular Messages app as an entry point.

Apple’s new collaboration API means that you can share things like a Pages, Numbers or Keynote document with a group via Messages, and the recipients will be able to all work on the document in real time. Previously, this would just send a copy of the document, but now everyone in your group will be able to make changes, with updates tracked in the Messages thread. You can also jump directly from a document into a FaceTime call with your group. “Communication often is the first place where we start ideation,” Bhardwaj said. “When you look at Messages or FaceTime, our customers have been using them for a long time; it’s such an integral part of the way our sets speak to family, friends, teammates, colleagues.”

Google and Microsoft have had real-time collaboration for years, and it’s not new to Apple’s iWork suite either. What is new is the deep integration with Messages and FaceTime. That likely won’t be enough to draw in users who are already committed to using Google Docs or Microsoft Office, but Apple’s new collaboration features aren’t limited to just those apps. For example, you can share a group of tabs from Safari, or share content from Notes and Reminders. And Apple is also extending SharePlay, which it introduced last year as a way to watch videos or listen to music with friends, to Messages as well. Additionally, you can now use SharePlay with games, so you compete with a friend over FaceTime.

Perhaps most importantly, though, Apple is making a Collaboration API available to third-party developers. Offering a more seamless way to collaborate using Messages, one of the most crucial apps Apple offers, could be an important new tool. “For developers, they want to meet the user where they’re at, where the conversation is happening,” said Bhardwaj. “For many people, that’s in apps like Messages and FaceTime. So this is exciting for a developer because a conversation that was organically already happening can now be a great jumping-off point into their app.” We won’t know if this happens until after iPadOS 16 is out, of course, but the ubiquity of Messages on Apple’s hardware make it a logical tool for developers to support.

Freeform, a new app that unfortunately isn’t available in the iPadOS 16 beta, is perhaps the best example of how Apple sees communication and collaboration intersecting. From a FaceTime call, you can create a new Freeform board, which is a space that everyone you invite can contribute to, whether that’s adding text, web links, documents or notes and drawings made with an Apple Pencil. Each contributor is highlighted as they add things to the space, and you can tap on someone’s name from the share menu to see exactly what they’re up to. Adding more material is simply a matter of zooming out and picking a free space.

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The easy comparison is that it’s a virtual marker board — not at all something meant for formal presentation, but a good place to brainstorm. While Freeform will also be available on iPhones and Macs, it feels uniquely suited to the iPad. It looks like it’ll be most easily navigated via a large touch screen, and Apple Pencil users will likely find it a good place to use their stylus.

Naturally, there’s a host of new features in iPadOS 16 that are shared with macOS Ventura and iOS 16. The Mail app now supports scheduling emails, undoing send and a much-improved search interface, while the Messages app lets you edit and undo sending as well. The Photos app now includes a shared photo library, with new pictures and edits automatically syncing between family members. And there’s an official Weather app, some 12 years after Apple shipped its first iPad! (Joking aside, the Weather app is really nice, with tappable modules that show lots of detail on various conditions.)

In a lot of ways, it’s a typical iPadOS update: There are a host of new features, most of which are nice to have but won’t fundamentally change the way you use an iPad. But, the combination of features like Stage Manager, Freeform and the new collaboration tools point to how Apple intends to make the iPad more suited to productivity than it has been before. We’ll have to wait until iPadOS 16 is finalized and released this fall to judge how successful this update is. But after feeling like iPad hardware was outpacing what its software could do, we’re glad to see Apple making some big changes to iPadOS this year.

It's rare for Apple to reshape the way people work on Macs, but that's precisely what the company is trying to do with Stage Manager in macOS Ventura. At first glance, it's just a quick visual way to swap between your recently used applications. But after testing the first Ventura public beta over the past week, I think it may also solve window management issues that have plagued Macs since OS X debuted 21 years ago. Or, maybe, I've just always hated Apple's Dock.

On top of Stage Manager, Ventura also has plenty of upgrades that should make life a bit easier for Apple users. Mail gets the biggest overhaul, but there's also better collaboration with Safari's Tab Groups, as well as much-needed features in Messages. At the very least, it's a far more expansive update than last year's Monterey.

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Stage Manager: Making sense of the Mac madness

In my nearly two decades of using Macs — as a college student, IT support worker and tech journalist — I've never found OS X's Dock to be very useful. Sure, when it was first released, it was a huge visual upgrade over the simplistic taskbars in Windows and Linux. (I remember marveling at the fact that a Dock icon could show a running video.) But on its own, the Dock is a confusing mishmash of shortcuts and running application indicators, something reviews at the time also criticized.

If you want to find a specific Safari window, for example, you have to press Control, click on the Dock icon and then select it from the dropdown. In comparison, the far uglier Windows XP let me zero in on specific apps (and their sub-windows) with a single click on the task bar. Perhaps aware of this usability quirk, Apple introduced Exposé in 2003 as an easy way to see everything you're running all at once. Since then, I've religiously assigned hot corners on every Mac I've used to trigger specific Exposé functions (one corner shows everything that's open, another shows me windows just for my current app, while another brings me right to the desktop). Who needs a confusing Dock when you can get a God's-eye view of your entire system?

Fast-forward almost twenty years, and we have Stage Manager, yet another on-screen tool for jumping between your apps. But while it may just seem like additional screen clutter, its main function is to help you focus by actually decluttering your screen. When you select a recent app from Stage Manager, it centers that app on your screen and makes other windows disappear. Hit the app shortcut again, and you'll cycle through open windows.

While it seems restrictive at first, like an attempt at bringing an iPad-esque workflow onto Macs, Stage Manager also lets you group apps together and, crucially, remembers exactly where you position your windows. While writing this preview, I kept Safari and Evernote grouped together, so I could write and research without worrying about pings from Slack or WhatsApp. You could do something similar with Apple's Spaces virtual desktops feature, but I always found that hard to manage. Stage Manager makes it as easy as hitting a single icon on your screen.

If you're a Mac pro-user already set in your ways, you can ignore Stage Manager entirely (it can be turned on and off from the Title Bar, and disabled in System Preferences). But as someone who's struggled with Apple's attempts at window management over the years, I'm finding it to be a refreshing way to make sense of macOS. You can also automatically hide Stage Manager until you need to use it, just like the Dock. (Personally, I've found it to be most useful when I hide the Dock and leave Stage Manager running on the side.)

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Other updates: Mail, Messages and more

I haven't used a desktop email application in years — it's just easier to hop into multiple Gmail accounts in a browser — but those who do will appreciate Apple's Mail updates in Ventura. For one, the search function has been entirely reworked, so it should be easier to locate a specific message. It's also finally getting some much-needed features, like scheduled send, undo sending, rich-text link embedding and alerts about missing attachments and recipients. Those are the sorts of features that have kept me glued to Gmail's web interface for years, so it's nice to see them finally make their way to the desktop. (But really, I'd love to know what took Apple so long.)

Similarly, I think everyone would appreciate the changes coming to Messages. That includes the ability to edit texts, delete them entirely, and mark them as unread. I wasn't able to test these features much, since they require your friends and colleagues to be running Monterey as well, but we're not expecting any major surprises with how they work. Monterey also treats older versions of macOS similar to Android users — when I edited a message to an iMessage group, my friends received a separate text notifying them of the changes. For me, it just appeared as an edit within the existing message.

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Here are a few other notable changes in Monterey to look out for:

• Continuity Camera: It lets you use your iPhone as a high-quality webcam. I haven't been able to get this feature working properly yet, but on paper it's a compelling way to beef up your video chats without investing in a more expensive webcam.

• Shared Tab Groups in Safari: An easy way to collaborate with friends when planning for a trip, or any other group activity.

• Passkeys in Safari: Instead of passwords, Passkey is a biometric way to authenticate with websites, and it's tied to your iCloud account. I wasn't able to test this yet, but theoretically it's far more secure than traditional passwords.

• Strong password editing in Safari: Finally, there's a way to tweak Safari's auto-generated passwords to meet requirements from certain sites.

• Collaboration through Messages: This will let you join up with friends to work together in Notes, Keynote and other Apple software, as well as some third-party apps.

• Apple's Freeform app for collaboration: This isn't available to test yet, but it looks like an intriguing Apple spin on a whiteboard app.