The new iPad Pro and iPad Air will start arriving to customers in the next 24 hours. It appears that the initial batch of devices will have a special version of iPadOS 17.4 preinstalledbut one iPadOS 17.5 software update will be available in the Settings app immediately, depending on MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris.
iPadOS 17.5 has a special build number of 21F84 on new iPads and modified release notes mentioning improved document scanning:
Apple News+
• Offline mode in Apple News+ gives you access to the Today feed and the News+ tab, even when you don’t have an Internet connection.
• Quartiles is a new, original daily word game now available on Apple News+.
• The dashboard in News+ Puzzles gives you access to new player data for crosswords, mini crosswords and quartiles, including stats and streaks.Tracking notifications
• Cross-platform tracking detection sends notifications to users if a compatible Bluetooth tracker they don’t own moves with them, regardless of the operating system the device is paired with.Document scanning
• Document scanning is improved on the new iPad Air and iPad Pro
New iPad Pro models with the M4 chip feature “adaptive True Tone flash” for improved document scanning. It’s unclear if the feature requires iPadOS 17.5 or if the update simply further optimizes the feature.
Thanks to True Tone Adaptive Flash and AI, the new iPad Pro can eliminate shadows on scanned documents, as Apple explained in a press release:
It also now has a new True Tone adaptive flash that makes scanning documents on the new iPad Pro better than ever. Using AI, the new iPad Pro automatically identifies documents right in the Camera app, and if a shadow gets in the way, it instantly takes multiple photos with the new adaptive flash, stitching the scan together for a significantly better scan.
Improved document scanning will be available in the Camera, Files, and Notes apps, and third-party apps may also offer this functionality.
The new iPad Air does not have adaptive True Tone flash, so it is unclear how document scanning is improved on these models, as Apple states.
iPadOS 17.5 was already released on Monday for all other iPads, with a build number 21F79 and no mention of improved document scanning.