iPadOS 13 is the first release of iPadOS, announced at WWDC 2019 and released on September 24, 2019 — the moment Apple formally split the iPad's software from iOS after nine years of shared branding. The number started at 13 to stay in lockstep with its iOS sibling, a convention every release since has kept.

The debut made the case for the split with tablet-only features: a denser home screen with a pinned Today widget column, Sidecar (turning the iPad into a Mac's second display and Pencil tablet), desktop-class Safari that requested full websites and made Google Docs usable, improved Split View and multi-window support for the same app, and a floating compact keyboard. The Files app gained external-drive and SMB support, and the Pencil's latency dropped.

Home-screen widget column; Sidecar; desktop-class Safari with a download manager; multi-window App Exposé; Files with USB drives, SMB, and zip support; custom fonts; floating keyboard with swipe typing; full-page Pencil markup; and — shared with iOS 13 — Dark Mode, Sign in with Apple, and the QuickPath keyboard. Mouse and trackpad support arrived in beta form through Accessibility, formalized later in 13.4 with full pointer support — the release's most consequential addition, landing alongside the Magic Keyboard.

iPad Air 2 and later, iPad mini 4 and later, iPad (5th generation) and later, and all iPad Pro models — matching the devices iOS 12 supported on the tablet side.

iPadOS 13 established the iPad as a first-class platform with its own trajectory, and 13.4's pointer support — a cursor rethought as a shape-shifting highlight — reframed the tablet as a laptop alternative, paving the road every later release (Stage Manager, iPadOS 26's windowing) walked further.