iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 let customers reformat exterior drives in addition to make a copy of a file on iCloud completely saved domestically.
Each options had been discovered by builders tinkering with the primary betas of those working techniques, and will make the Recordsdata app on iPhone and iPad extra helpful.
Gradual enhancements to iPadOS and iOS 18 Recordsdata app
iPads have been in a position to entry the contents of exterior drives via Apple’s Recordsdata app since iPadOS 13. Years later, the appliance stays pretty fundamental, however Apple retains bettering it. And iPhone customers have benefitted, as effectively.
The newest modifications apparently weren’t dramatic sufficient to warrant point out in the course of the huge unveil of iPadOS 18 in the course of the WWDC24 keynote, however they shouldn’t be ignored.
Reformat exterior drives in Recordsdata
Final yr, the Recordsdata app in iPadOS 17 added new options for working with SSDs, flash drives and SD playing cards. iPad customers might lastly erase a drive and see how a lot open area remained. When iPadOS 18 launches this autumn, it’ll be attainable to reformat a drive into quite a lot of codecs. As noticed by ByteBits, the choices are ExFAT, MS-DOS (FAT) and APFS.
For these already testing the developer beta, go into the Recordsdata app, swap to Browse, then faucet and maintain on the title of the drive. This can open a pop-up window that features Erase. Faucet on that choice to open a window with the brand new drive formatting choices.
As famous, that is additionally an possibility for iPhone customers. It’s a characteristic that may largely profit these with an iPhone 15 sequence mannequin with a USB-C port, since many exterior drives can plug in with out an adapter. (Right here’s our checklist of finest USB-C hubs for iPhones.)
‘Keep Downloaded’ possibility for iCloud Drive information
iCloud Drive makes collections of information simply obtainable to any Apple machine. The service affords terabytes of capability, making it a superb strategy to maintain intensive collections of information organized into folders. However as a result of the intent is to retailer information within the cloud, copies of information saved on the native machine are short-term. Customers who want frequent entry to a big file would possibly get pissed off when they should repeatedly obtain it from iCloud or just need to make sure the file is at all times accessible.
iPadOS 18 features a new possibility: Hold Downloaded. Set this and a duplicate of the file saved on iCloud can even keep on the iPad. The choice can be obtainable to iPhone customers in iOS 18.
Utilizing the options within the preliminary beta entails merely tapping and holding on a file title, which opens a pop-up window. One of many choices in that window is Hold Downloaded.
Clearly, an alternative choice is to easily retailer vital information on the iPad or iPhone. However then the information aren’t stored collected and arranged with different related ones on iCloud. With Hold Downloaded, the information stay each on-line and native.