By Jason Snell for Macworld

February 6, 2019 4:00 PM PT

How will Apple redesign the iPad home screen?

Buried at the end of Mark Gurman’s high-profile Bloomberg report about future Apple product announcements is a tidbit that’s of enormous interest to anyone who loves using their iPad.

Apple’s next operating system update, iOS 13, will include… iPad-specific upgrades like a new home screen, the ability to tab through multiple versions of a single app like pages in a web browser, and improvements to file management.

That’s a lot of information distilled into a small paragraph, but what jumped out at me most is the idea that the iPad’s home screen—which has spent almost nine years using a spaced-out version of the iPhone’s design—might finally be getting a redesign that addresses the fact that the iPad isn’t the same device as the iPhone.

It’s exciting! After more than a decade using more or less the same old app-launching interface Apple introduced with the original iPhone, it takes some effort imagine how Apple could reinvent the concept of a home screen for the iPad. But reader, I’ve managed to make that effort. Here’s a look at some directions I hope Apple will go, assuming Gurman’s sources are right, when we first see this feature this summer.

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