Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Especially if one is on an iPad Mini (as I am).

The new windowing situation is not better for such a small screen.

Really maddening that Apple nuked SlideOver & SplitView.
iPadOS 18 is absolutely beautiful on my 11th-gen iPad. Battery efficiency as good as 32-bit iPads, great standby battery life, Split View and slide over, great OS design

I absolutely love it.
 
  • Love
Reactions: turbineseaplane
The sad thing is we wont get it back Apple do not listen to its users.

I'm on an iPad Mini 5, which was starting to feel "it's age" anyhow, so it'll be living out its golden years and retirement here on iOS 18 for sure.

I don't need "glass" all over the place to drag performance into the ditch.
 
  • Like
Reactions: foggygray
iPadOS 26 is pretty much a mess as nothing is where it should be, there are features that used to exist and were accidentally removed and there are weird bugs that make no sense. Here’s a few examples:


  1. Try to view an email message full screen in Mail.
Works for me…

IMG_2884.png
 
I'm on an iPad Mini 5, which was starting to feel "it's age" anyhow, so it'll be living out its golden years and retirement here on iOS 18 for sure.

I don't need "glass" all over the place to drag performance into the ditch.
I turned as much of the glass stuff off as I could find in Settings, but it didn’t really make any difference in battery usage or with the Safari Stutter. 😕 My iPad A16 is acting like it’s years old, and I got it in April.
 
  • Sad
Reactions: turbineseaplane
I pay for youtube premium, i noticed, when i download the app and use it for the first time, apparently is not the premium version, it is only after a crash or two that the premium version is loaded on ios 26 and ipados26. Pretty annoying.

Someone else with the same issue?
 
  • Like
Reactions: foggygray
After using iPad OS 26 for a week, I concluded that there are no significant changes from the earlier versions. Yes, there are some cosmetic design changes or Liquid glass but that doesn't contribute to improved workflow, there are improvements in the window design and Files are sligthly better, but all in all, it is still very much phone OS. It is still behind the desktop OS in many aspects.
 
Reduce transparency in accessibility really helps (at least it did in RC). They even let you add a toggle in control centre !
Then when you turn off transparency in the Accessibility settings….the settings to make it easier to use for people with visual impairment…you get this lunacy:

IMG_1707.jpeg


IMG_1706.jpeg



They are barely visible at regular magnification.
 
I pay for youtube premium, i noticed, when i download the app and use it for the first time, apparently is not the premium version, it is only after a crash or two that the premium version is loaded on ios 26 and ipados26. Pretty annoying.

Someone else with the same issue?
I am having considerable trouble with how YouTube loads pages. Overlapping, difficulty closing pages properly. Trouble opening the YouTube home page.
 
After using iPad OS 26 for a week, I concluded that there are no significant changes from the earlier versions. Yes, there are some cosmetic design changes or Liquid glass but that doesn't contribute to improved workflow, there are improvements in the window design and Files are sligthly better, but all in all, it is still very much phone OS. It is still behind the desktop OS in many aspects.
The true background multitasking seems to be a huge improvement. You can start a Files copy and then move off to some other app and it will continue. Presumably all apps can/will do that (eg Plex syncing episodes of a TV show to local storage for watching off-network).
 
I turned as much of the glass stuff off as I could find in Settings, but it didn’t really make any difference in battery usage or with the Safari Stutter. 😕 My iPad A16 is acting like it’s years old, and I got it in April.
This is so sad. I have the 11th-gen iPad A16 on iPadOS 18 and it is completely perfect in every way, including screen-on (26 hours of SOT with light use) and standby (barely drops, a welcome change from my very poor Air 5 on iPadOS 15).

To see that iPadOS 26 killed it after barely six months is abhorrent.

How many hours of battery life are you getting? Can you share a screenshot? Also, in what way is performance poor?
 
I am happy to report that iPadOS 26.0.1 fixed the page stacking problem. Happy happy joy joy!

They got rid of the macOS page control, the red, yellow, and green cartouche, at least with YouTube.
 
Last edited:
I have another problem I am going to report today. My iPad is set for dark mode. On Apple Music, when I pull up the virtual keyboard, it opens in dark mode. But when I tap a letter or number, it flashes to white, and when I remove my finger, it returns to dark mode. So as I type, it quickly flashes back and forth between dark and white, ultra annoying.
 
  • Like
Reactions: That70sGAdawg
This is super annoying. I hate this view for the Downloaded videos. I have no idea what one is what now in the Downloaded videos section I had made for the kids. I dont see anywhere to change the view on this to what was there before iOS26. Is it even possible?
IMG_0030.PNG
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0004.PNG
    IMG_0004.PNG
    693.2 KB · Views: 12
I'm so happy I didn't update and blocked it.

I feel terrible for everyone who updated and regrets it and now has zero recourse.

Apple shouldn't be allowed to force everyone to stay on something they hate or that made their existing devices so much worse like this.
 
I hate it and I wish I had not updated.
The interface change makes the iPad worse looking and reduces my usable space.
The "eye-candy" is not good in that it is false, a skeuomorphism of a non-existing glass button physical interface.
Its like someone taking revenge on Aqua in Mac OS 10.0

And it takes up more space, the nuances of tabs in Safari are gone, the alignments are all strange and the new round buttons are a strange obsession.

My greatest gripe with iOS has always been text editing and the new update does nothing to fix this.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.