iPad Hidden Features: 15 Tips Most Users Miss

We’ve been using iPads since the original model in 2010, and we still discover features we didn’t know existed. That’s the iPad’s biggest problem — not the hardware, not iPadOS limitations, but the fact that Apple buries genuinely useful features behind obscure gestures and settings nobody teaches you. Here are 15 features that change how you use the iPad, and most people have never tried a single one.

1. Quick Note — Instant Capture from Any Screen

Drag Apple Pencil diagonally from the bottom-right corner of the screen. A compact note window appears instantly — no need to switch apps, find Notes, or create a new document. Write with Pencil or type with the keyboard.

The brilliant part: Quick Note automatically creates a link to whatever you were viewing when you created it. Make a Quick Note while reading a Safari page, and that note includes a link back to the exact URL. Works in Mail, Maps, and most Apple apps too.

Keyboard shortcut: Globe + Q

2. Five-Finger Pinch = Home

Place all five fingers on the screen and pinch them together. You’re Home. No button pressing, no bottom-bar swiping. Just pinch. It’s faster than any other method of going Home, and it works from any app.

This gesture has existed since iPad 2. Most iPad owners have never used it.

3. Four-Finger Swipe = App Switching

Swipe left or right with four fingers to jump between your recent apps. No need to invoke the App Switcher — just swipe directly between the two or three apps you’re actively using.

In practice, this becomes your primary navigation method. Writing in Notes, need to check something in Safari, swipe right. Done checking, swipe left. It’s seamless once you internalize it.

4. Split View Drag and Drop

This is the feature that makes people rethink what an iPad can do. Open two apps in Split View, then drag items between them — photos, text, files, links. Select text in Safari, hold it, and drag it into Notes. Drag a photo from Files into an email. Drag a link from one Safari tab to another app.

You can even select multiple photos: tap and hold one photo, start dragging it, then tap additional photos with another finger — they stack up. Then drop the whole stack into an email or document.

5. Apple Pencil Double Tap = Tool Switch

If you have Apple Pencil 2nd gen or Apple Pencil Pro, double-tap the flat side of the Pencil (near the tip) to switch tools. The default is switching between your current tool and the eraser.

You can customize this in Settings → Apple Pencil → Double Tap. Options include: switch to last used tool, show color palette, or show ink attributes. In Procreate, double-tap behavior can be customized per-brush, which is incredibly powerful for digital artists.

6. Scribble — Handwriting Becomes Text

Enable Scribble (Settings → Apple Pencil → Scribble), and you can write with Apple Pencil in any text field on the entire system. Safari URL bar? Write on it. Search in Spotlight? Write on it. Reply to a message? Write on it.

iPadOS converts your handwriting to typed text in real time. Scratch a word out (draw a zigzag line through it) to delete. Draw a vertical line between two words to insert a space. Circle text to select it. These gestures work system-wide.

Honestly, the recognition accuracy is impressive even with terrible handwriting. We tested it with deliberately messy scrawl and it still got about 90% right.

7. External Monitor + Stage Manager = Real Desktop

Connect your M-chip iPad to an external monitor, enable Stage Manager, and you get an extended display — not mirroring. The iPad screen and the external monitor show different content. You can have four apps on the iPad screen and four more on the external monitor, all resizable.

This turns the iPad into something genuinely close to a desktop workstation. Pair it with a Magic Keyboard and a mouse, and the only thing reminding you it’s an iPad is the app selection.

8. Sidecar — Your iPad Becomes a Mac Monitor

If you own a Mac, your iPad is already a wireless second monitor. Mac System Settings → Displays → Add Display → select your iPad. Done.

Sidecar gives you a Touch Bar at the bottom of the iPad screen (even for Macs that never had a Touch Bar), and Apple Pencil becomes a precision input device for Mac apps. This means you can use Pencil pressure sensitivity in Photoshop on your Mac through the iPad screen. For artists and designers who need a drawing tablet, this is a free Wacom alternative.

9. Universal Control — One Keyboard, Two Devices

Universal Control is different from Sidecar. Instead of using the iPad as a Mac display, it lets you use your Mac’s keyboard and trackpad to control the iPad directly on its own screen. Move your Mac cursor to the edge of your Mac screen toward the iPad — the cursor slides right onto the iPad.

Type on the iPad with your Mac keyboard. Drag files from Mac to iPad. Copy text on one device, paste on the other. Both devices run their own apps independently; they just share input devices.

Setup: Mac System Settings → Displays → Advanced → enable “Allow your pointer and keyboard to move between any nearby Mac or iPad.”

10. Globe + Down Arrow = Dismiss Keyboard

When the on-screen keyboard is in the way and you need to get rid of it: Globe + Down Arrow on an external keyboard. If you’re using the on-screen keyboard, swipe down on it with one finger from the top of the keyboard area.

Simple, but surprisingly hard to figure out without being told.

11. Screen Recording with Microphone

Open Control Center (swipe down from the top-right corner), long-press the screen recording button (circle icon). A menu appears with a microphone toggle. Turn the mic ON, then start recording.

Now your screen recording captures both what’s on screen AND your voice commentary. Perfect for tutorials, bug reports, or showing someone how to do something on the iPad. The video saves to Photos.

12. Subject Isolation — Lift Subjects from Photos

Open any photo in the Photos app. Touch and hold the main subject (a person, an animal, an object). After a moment, the subject lifts off the background with a glowing outline. You can then Copy it, Share it, or drag it into another app.

This works in Safari images too — touch and hold any image on a webpage, and if iPadOS detects a clear subject, you can isolate it. No Photoshop needed. The edge detection is remarkably good, even with complex backgrounds like hair or fur.

13. No Calculator App? Use Spotlight

Apple famously shipped iPads for over a decade without a built-in Calculator app. (iPadOS 18 finally added one.) But even before that, and still useful now: swipe down from the middle of the Home Screen to open Spotlight Search, then type any math expression.

247 * 18.5 — Spotlight shows the answer immediately. $45 in EUR — currency conversion. 15% of 340 — percentage calculation. Spotlight handles unit conversions too: 72 inches in cm, 100 fahrenheit in celsius.

14. Scan Documents in the Files App

Open the Files app, tap the three-dot menu (···) in the top-right, then tap Scan Documents. The camera opens with automatic edge detection — hold it over a document, and it captures, straightens, and crops automatically. Scan multiple pages, then save as a single PDF.

The quality is surprisingly good for a built-in feature. It adjusts contrast and removes shadows. For scanning receipts, documents, whiteboards, or textbook pages, you genuinely don’t need a third-party scanning app anymore.

15. Apple Pencil Hover (M4 iPad Pro)

If you have an iPad Pro with M4 chip and Apple Pencil Pro, the screen detects the Pencil before it touches the display — up to 12mm above the surface.

In practice, this means: tool previews appear before you make a mark (see exactly what your brush stroke will look like in Procreate), buttons and UI elements highlight as you hover over them, and handwriting recognition starts tracking your hand before contact. It makes the Pencil feel less like a stylus and more like a natural pen floating above paper.

This feature is exclusive to iPad Pro with M4 — the iPad Air doesn’t support it.

Start Using These Today

Here’s our recommendation: pick three features from this list that you’ve never tried. Spend five minutes with each one today. By tomorrow, at least one of them will be part of your daily routine.

The iPad is the most underutilized Apple product. Not because it’s limited, but because its best features are invisible until someone shows them to you.

iPad Air M4 on Amazon (paid link) (paid link)

For a complete first-time setup walkthrough, see our iPad Setup Checklist — 16 settings with step-by-step instructions and a progress tracker.