I’ve been a big fan of the iPad for a long time. I stopped bringing my laptop to school with me years ago, instead relying on my trusty little iPad Mini 2 with a Bluetooth keyboard and a stylus I bought on Amazon. That iPad was a great little device. I think it’s safe to say that it was my most-beloved piece of tech. It was just such a joy to use. Over time, however, it had gotten a little… slow.

So I bought the new 10.5” iPad Pro back in July. It’s an incredible device. The screen is beautiful, everything is lighting fast, and the Apple Pencil was a game changer for taking notes at school. But a big part of why I bought a new iPad was what I saw of iOS 11 when it was unveiled last summer at WWDC. So after spending three months drooling over the new features, I’ve finally had some time to actually use iOS 11.

And it’s amazing.

Seriously, it’s made using and being productive on the iPad better than ever. It’s also made using the iPad more fun than ever. So, in a slight deviation from my usual focus on specific apps, here are my favorite three features of iOS 11.

One: Better Multitasking

Having all those apps accessible on the new dock, without having to go back to the home screen, makes iOS so much faster and easier to use. I love being able to have all my most-used apps right there, all the time, and the predictive/recent area over to the right is great too. The fact that side by side apps stay paired together is really nice as well – I’ve found it’s super helpful to keep my email and todo list next to each other all the time. 2Do doesn’t need much of the screen, so it stays on the side, leaving most of the real estate for Airmail. Awesome.

Two: Drag and Drop

Why did we not have this before? It’s amazing. The other day I was in a lab at school, and I had some screenshots from the lab computer that I had uploaded to iCloud Drive so I could put them into Notability. Before, I would have had to import them, one at a time, using a photo picker in Notability. But instead, I just pulled up the files app over Notability and dropped all four images in at once. Amazing. The WordPress app supports this too!

Three: Screenshots and Screen Recording

Two features here: You can now take a screen recording of your iPad or iPhone directly on the device, without connecting it to your computer. Pretty neat! Screenshots are even better though. When you take a screenshot, it now appears in a little bubble in the corner of your screen. You can then tap this to bring up an editor, and do stuff like put red arrows pointing to the thing you want to draw attention to. You can then share this screenshot directly from the editor. Or, if you don’t need to edit, you can just drag and drop the bubble directly into whatever app you’re using! ••

Fun fact: You can’t screenshot the screenshot bubble! It just doesn’t show up. That’s the reason the status bar is red in that screenshot above – I actually had to do a screen recording to get that capture.