10 Things An iPad Can Do That Your iPhone Can’t

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To the untrained eye, it may seem that the iPad is just a very large iPhone. In the past, they both used the same operating system “iOS” and — again, to the untrained eye — seemed to be the same sort of device, just delivered in different sizes. In the year 2019 Apple publicly split the operating system in two, leaving iOS for iPhone and iPadOS for iPad — making clear that these were meant to be two distinct ecosystems.

Since the iPhone is designed as a primary device and can do a lot of things the iPad can’t — like using the Apple Wallet app with NFC for contactless payments — it may seem like the iPad is the inferior device. But — despite the fact that it’s extraordinarily rare that a person would be in a situation where they’re deciding to buy either an iPad or an iPhone — today we’re looking at a number of features which exist only on the iPad (and do not exist or are given significantly different sets of abilities in the iPhone).

iPadOS has come a long way since its official 2019 release, maturing into a powerful platform that makes the iPad (almost) good enough to replace a Mac. Gone are the days when the iPad was (effectively) a larger version of Apple’s smartphone. Today the iPad is its own island, complete with features that either do not or cannot exist on the iPhone.