THE BEST IOS 9 FEATURES

Apple is well-known for its walled-off app ecosystem, but it's doing something surprisingly open with iOS 9. Although the iPhone and iPad operating system isn't out until this fall, anyone with an Apple ID and a compatible device can download the preview version right now. The iOS 9 public beta test launched late last week, and it's the first time that Apple has allowed average users to test out a major iOS version release before launch.

The public beta is not a fully complete build of the new OS, but it introduces several of the features and apps that many millions of people will be enjoying in a few short months. Granted, this early version of iOS 9 is unfinished and potentially buggy software, so installing it on your everyday device is risky; and whatever you do, be sure to back up your phone or tablet before installing anything. Apple says to have a local backup, not just an iCloud one.

If you're eager to get a start digging into the next generation of iOS features, hit this link to sign up and get started. I've been poking around the iOS 9 public beta on iPad for the past few days, and these are the features that have made the strongest initial impression.

1. iPad Split-Screen Support

Apple is aiming to make the iPad more productive with the introduction of split-screen support. The iPad Air 2 gets the full range of features, including the ability to run apps side-by-side, letting you use both and move content between them. Other recent iPads at least still get the other perks: Slide Over, seen above, lets you pull over an app that takes up one-third of the screen.

In the beta, it's handy to be able to pull over Maps to look up a location while browsing Safari, or pull over my Mail inbox to keep tabs on email without leaving another app. And the full version will integrate third-party apps, which should be handy for things like Twitter and Facebook. The beta also spotlights the picture-in-picture mode, which lets you load up a video and keep it running in a window, even while navigating elsewhere. It's pretty cool—you can move the window around and resize it without performance dips. It does block whatever's behind the window, so it can be a little cumbersome if you're doing more than something like watching a live stream and browsing the web.

2. Keyboard Improvements

Split-screen support isn't Apple's only route to boosting productivity: some very helpful keyboard additions play a role, as well. Now you can hold two fingers down on the iPad's QuickType keyboard to turn it into a trackpad, which lets you easily navigate through text in an instant—no more trying to tap the exact spot in a document or use the magnifying glass.

That might sound like a small fix, but it's easily one of the most useful, intuitive upgrades found in iOS 9. Frankly, it's an awesome productivity tweak—it definitely makes document navigation faster, particularly when writing, or typing out emails. And for all iOS devices, the keyboard now only shows capital letters when the shift or caps lock is engaged, so no more getting confused by the unclear shift/caps key. (At last.)

3. The News App

Essentially, Apple has made its own Flipboard. That might not sound like much on the surface, especially since adding a publication that's not on Apple's roster doesn't look like much. (News just seems like a minimal-looking RSS reader in those cases.) But for the websites and magazines that tailor their content to the News app, their stories can look downright fantastic.

With text and formatting pulled from the sources, along with brilliant high-res images, animated bits, and occasional video embeds, it's just like reading a digital magazine—only you don't have to pay for this stuff. News makes reading long features a lot more enjoyable, and it's much more than you'll get from an average RSS feed wrangler, so here's hoping loads of publications beyond current names like Wired, ESPN, and the New York Times take advantage of it.

4. Spotlight and Siri

ne big focus of iOS 9 is making Spotlight search and Siri much more useful (according to Apple, Siri will be 40% faster and more accurate), and they'll work in tandem to anticipate your needs and serve up recommendations. The iOS 9 beta offers a taste of this: Spotlight automatically generates app, web, and news suggestions based on your everyday usage.

Right now, the tweaks don't make a huge impression (especially on an iPad), but it's just a taste of what's to come. In the full version, developers can make their apps searchable, which means Spotlight can find things in the apps and games you use, plus Siri's predictive elements will suggest apps and services to use at the times you might want them. It'll be interesting to see how this feature develops in the coming months.

5. Aesthetic Shifts

New to iOS 9 is a revised Recent Apps screen, which uses a cascading design that makes it a lot easier to flip through your active apps. It makes multitasking easier, and definitely fits in with Apple's seeming focus on increased productivity. Elsewhere, there are little visual tweaks to sharing and Safari, as well as a switch to the Apple Watch's San Francisco font throughout the operating system. Though the nips and tucks are minor, they look and feel nice, and it's fun to get an early look at what's ahead for iOS.

What's Still Ahead

The initial public beta version has a lot of the noteworthy features coming in iOS 9, but there's more to look forward to. For example, Apple Pay has yet to get its promised support for store credit and loyalty cards. The addition of transit information into Apple's Maps is still being built out. And then there's that extended battery life that Apple's promised—the claim is up to an hour more than on iOS 8. That's not all of it, either; hopefully we'll see more features trickle into later versions of the iOS 9 beta for us to try.