iPadOS 26 is an Absolute Mess

[Sami13496]

The fundamental reason behind all the challenges with iPads is that, outside of very specific use cases like artists drawing and similar, it’s basically just a big-screen iPhone that’s great for watching YouTube and movies. But if you actually want to get real work done, it’s just easier to grab a MacBook. And that’s why with iOS 26, Apple is once again trying to push it more in the direction of the MacBook, which will fail again, because why not just grab a MacBook in the first place? The iPad as a MacBook wannabe ends up being a compromise-filled, not-quite-a-Mac contraption with a keyboard and cursor added on top. In short, the iPad no longer knows what it is or what it wants to be. Hence the growing UX problems.

To OP, thanks for posting, I value your input.

To all of you commenting that the post is pointless or unnecessary, did you know you can simply choose not to reply? I don’t think we need a panel of self-appointed judges here to decide which opinions or topics are OK for posting and which aren’t. Mods can handle that type of stuff.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Apple is once again trying to push it more in the direction of the MacBook, which will fail again, because why not just grab a MacBook in the first place? The iPad as a MacBook wannabe ends up being a compromise-filled, not-quite-a-Mac contraption with a keyboard and cursor added on top. In short, the iPad no longer knows what it is or what it wants to be. Hence the growing UX problems.

I completely agree with your take

The problem is that there is no solution here. The more they make the iPad Mac-like the more it ruins the iPad for those that love it for what it is and has been traditionally.

All they are doing is changing where it falls on that spectrum.

In the meantime, for those of us with an iPad mini, they are making things worse.

 

[MrTSolar]

I respectfully disagree:

Different to what you expect and know is not a mess. It means you got a knowledge gap. However, UI wise, many new implementations are controversial nevertheless.

Stop ranting. Start learning.

Adding steps unnecessarily and making the system overall harder and more aggravating to use is a mess. That’s the problem here. For my workflow, SlideOver provided the perfect functionality for the apps that supported it.

Just this morning, I’m filling out a website form for work and need to reference a photo for information. In the past, I’d just invoke Spotlight, type “pho”, tap and drag the Photos app out, and then drop it to open in SlideOver, assuming I didn’t already have Photos in the SlideOver stack off-screen (in which case, drag my finger in from the right edge to open Photos instead). This let me interact with Photos and Safari simultaneously, with both apps always visible, and without Safari refreshing the page in the background. When done, slide Photos off the screen.

However, with the new windowing system (and Stage Manager isn’t much better, hence why I almost never used it on 18 and prior), the best way to do this is to pull out my iPhone and reference the photo there. The next best way I found is to shrink Safari to half-screen, open Photos, fling it to the open half, copy the relevant data, and then submit the form BEFORE I even think about closing photos and re-sizing Safari. I found that last bit out on the second try because at first I maximized Safari before submitting and the page deleted half of the information I had just entered. You can’t just pop a small Photos app out over top anymore because as soon as you focus on Safari, it hides the Photos app (any combination of apps really, these two were specific to my case). SlideOver cannot be properly emulated if you need to interact with the full-screen app while the smaller app is open, and I use SlideOver almost daily on my iPad.

My other bone of contention is the Preview app, but at least that one has a decent workaround by checking “Preview with Quick Look” on the relevant file types.

As for my interpretation of what people were asking of the iPad, the multitasking system (Split View/SlideOver alongside Stage Manager as choices) was never the problem. Most people wanted more powerful apps for the iPad. Final Cut Pro for iPad is plenty powerful enough for my needs, but some other people wanted the full blown Final Cut Pro on iPad (or Logic Pro, which isn’t on iPad at all). It wasn’t about the OS, it was about the apps. IMO, iPadOS 26 brings the worst of MacOS multitasking to iPad, made even worse by completely removing the simpler system that iPad used. I can learn to live with this, but all I’m asking to be happy with 26 is to give me toggles to enable classic multitasking on the Full Screen setting. The OS is already insanely bloated, so what’s another few hundred MB to keep the better system as an option?

(And yes, I’ve submitted feedback to Apple through Feedback).

 

[richpjr]

I completely agree with your take

The problem is that there is no solution here. The more they make the iPad Mac-like the more it ruins the iPad for those that love it for what it is and has been traditionally.

All they are doing is changing where it falls on that spectrum.

In the meantime, for those of us with an iPad mini, they are making things worse.

I don't have an iPad mini so can't comment on how it works there, but for MY uses, it makes the iPad much more usable and does not ruin the experience at all. But obviously everyone's workflow and use case is different.

 

[Bungaree.Chubbins]

@tweaknmod

Your original post here is extremely on point.
Please don't let folks deter you from posting your feelings.

Not everything is roses and sunshine with Apple anymore and it's important to say it out loud when you see it, as you did.

However, if people on the MacRumors forum were even vaguely close to the truth, Apple would have failed and shut down years ago. People just like to have a good whinge about things they don't like, which is fair enough.

I don't have any opinion about iPadOS 26, since my iPad is so old it's stuck on iPadOS 15. I'm not one who has been wanting more multitasking on my iPhone or iPad, so the changes are a bit irrelevant to me.

 

[turbineseaplane]

my iPad is so old it's stuck on iPadOS 15. I'm not one who has been wanting more multitasking on my iPhone or iPad, so the changes are a bit irrelevant to me.

I wish I could go back to that, or any version, if I wanted to.

 

[nathan_reilly]

I can’t say this experience is encouraging me to continue to participate in these forums. I doubt you’ll care, based on your comment, but the sentiment remains.

Perhaps we’re all a bit neuro spicy here but we just want you to come out clear with your points, and if you don’t we are gonna make sure you realize how annoying it is. Your post fits a stereotype of someone classically obsessed with a bygone apple with certain “values” and now everything is so bleak, yada yada, shareholders, yada yada. And one of the hallmarks of that sort of post is the vagueness. Like “everything before was better but I can’t exactly say how”. So a lot of us are responding to that, and the general feeling is that if less people make posts like you did, that’s a good thing

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

This is way more than an App -- It's the entire UI concept across multiple platforms.

This is indeed basically "set" for the year at this point, people are correct.

No, it’s not.
iOS 7.0 and 7.1 were quite different.
While the *general idea* will likely remain the same, tweaks in response to common customer Feedback will absolutely change overtime.
things will get reversed, optional views will be added, it’s likely 26.0 through 26.5 will be quite a ride.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Perhaps we’re all a bit neuro spicy here but we just want you to come out clear with your points, and if you don’t we are gonna make sure you realize how annoying it is. Your post fits a stereotype of someone classically obsessed with a bygone apple with certain “values” and now everything is so bleak, yada yada, shareholders, yada yada. And one of the hallmarks of that sort of post is the vagueness. Like “everything before was better but I can’t exactly say how”. So a lot of us are responding to that, and the general feeling is that if less people make posts like you did, that’s a good thing

it’s absolutely the vagueness that drives me up the wall, and makes me think that a lot of people think things used to be “better” because of nostalgia, and the fact that things were significantly more limited.
of course an iPad in 2010 is going to be incredibly simple compared to one in 2025, thing had 16 GB of storage and 256 MB of RAM with like maybe 20 built-in applications. Thats not the world we live in anymore.

 

[Atomic1977]

iPad is what iPad is a device for fun and learning and internet browsing and YouTube videos. And nothing else matters.

 

[01cowherd]

The problem is that there is no solution here. The more they make the iPad Mac-like the more it ruins the iPad for those that love it for what it is and has been traditionally.

And it's due to poor implementation by Apple. They should've replaced Stage Manager with the windowed mode and then had Stage Manager as a toggle in windowed mode. Then you still have three options: no multitasking, split screen/slide over, and windowed mode/stage manager. I really can't imagine that keeping the old code is that much of a maintenance burden that they had to get rid of it, considering Mac has how many multitasking modes they added over the years.

 

[aperfectcircle]

The fundamental reason behind all the challenges with iPads is that, outside of very specific use cases like artists drawing and similar, it’s basically just a big-screen iPhone that’s great for watching YouTube and movies. But if you actually want to get real work done, it’s just easier to grab a MacBook. And that’s why with iOS 26, Apple is once again trying to push it more in the direction of the MacBook, which will fail again, because why not just grab a MacBook in the first place? The iPad as a MacBook wannabe ends up being a compromise-filled, not-quite-a-Mac contraption with a keyboard and cursor added on top. In short, the iPad no longer knows what it is or what it wants to be. Hence the growing UX problems.

To OP, thanks for posting, I value your input.

To all of you commenting that the post is pointless or unnecessary, did you know you can simply choose not to reply? I don’t think we need a panel of self-appointed judges here to decide which opinions or topics are OK for posting and which aren’t. Mods can handle that type of stuff.

As a full on replacement for real work, I can agree. But as a companion device, I love my iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard. I can do 80% of work just fine with it. I will often take the iPad if I’m going on site to a client or popping out to work in a cafe for an hour or too. It’s much more convenient to just grab the iPad than undocking my MacBook Pro. Granted the bulk of my work is email and office apps, and as long as I don’t need to do anything overly complex in Excel, the iPad is a great productivity device for me. I have all my files synced to iCloud so I can pick up a board paper I had started on the Mac and continue working on the iPad. I couldn’t move fully to the iPad at this stage, but its usefulness for me today is far greater than it was a few years back. I’m not sure it’ll ever get to that point without being able to run macOS.

 

[Bungaree.Chubbins]

I wish I could go back to that, or any version, if I wanted to.

I really wish I could upgrade, but I can’t afford a new iPad at the moment.

 

[Sami13496]

As a full on replacement for real work, I can agree. But as a companion device, I love my iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard. I can do 80% of work just fine with it. I will often take the iPad if I’m going on site to a client or popping out to work in a cafe for an hour or too. It’s much more convenient to just grab the iPad than undocking my MacBook Pro. Granted the bulk of my work is email and office apps, and as long as I don’t need to do anything overly complex in Excel, the iPad is a great productivity device for me. I have all my files synced to iCloud so I can pick up a board paper I had started on the Mac and continue working on the iPad. I couldn’t move fully to the iPad at this stage, but its usefulness for me today is far greater than it was a few years back. I’m not sure it’ll ever get to that point without being able to run macOS.

Thanks for sharing your experience. You’re right, there are probably as many ways to use an iPad as there are users. What I’ve mainly been wondering about is the fact that the iPad was originally designed for a specific use case: something in between a smartphone (which can be too small for certain tasks) and a Mac (which can be overkill or cumbersome for quick, casual use).

To me, ideal iPad use cases include things like watching content (movies, shows, etc.), browsing the web, taking notes, and other light tasks that are simply more enjoyable on a larger screen compared to a smartphone.

But now that the iPad is being pushed more in the direction of the Mac, and some people even suggest it should run macOS, I find myself questioning the point. At that stage, what’s the purpose of the iPad? Why not just use, say, a 13-inch MacBook Air? It already runs macOS, and it comes with an excellent built-in keyboard and trackpad.

So I just don’t fully understand why some iPad users want to turn the iPad into something more like a Mac, essentially wishing for features that already exist in the MacBook, which is available today.

 

[aperfectcircle]

Thanks for sharing your experience. You’re right, there are probably as many ways to use an iPad as there are users. What I’ve mainly been wondering about is the fact that the iPad was originally designed for a specific use case: something in between a smartphone (which can be too small for certain tasks) and a Mac (which can be overkill or cumbersome for quick, casual use).

To me, ideal iPad use cases include things like watching content (movies, shows, etc.), browsing the web, taking notes, and other light tasks that are simply more enjoyable on a larger screen compared to a smartphone.

But now that the iPad is being pushed more in the direction of the Mac, and some people even suggest it should run macOS, I find myself questioning the point. At that stage, what’s the purpose of the iPad? Why not just use, say, a 13-inch MacBook Air? It already runs macOS, and it comes with an excellent built-in keyboard and trackpad.

So I just don’t fully understand why some iPad users want to turn the iPad into something more like a Mac, essentially wishing for features that already exist in the MacBook, which is available today.

Yeah, the lines are being blurred. You have people like my mother who uses hers predominantly for content consumption, FaceTime, messaging and light gaming, then you’ve got some professionals who are able to use it fully for work or as a now pretty capable companion device.

I don’t think it should run macOS, though I can understand why some people may wish for that option. Personally I don’t like touch on a laptop/when doing work, and I rarely use the touch screen when doing actual work in the iPad. I’ll switch to touch when using it for content consumption. But a lot of people really like their touch screen windows laptops and hate that MacBooks don’t have touch, so that’s probably one group who’d like an iPad with macOS (or a MacBook with touch).

 

[brilliantthings]

I agree with the OP. I can't articulate exactly why but I'm really not enjoying multitasking on iPadOS 26.
It's such a deterrent that I keep putting my iPad away and pulling out my Mac.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

And it's due to poor implementation by Apple. They should've replaced Stage Manager with the windowed mode and then had Stage Manager as a toggle in windowed mode. Then you still have three options: no multitasking, split screen/slide over, and windowed mode/stage manager. I really can't imagine that keeping the old code is that much of a maintenance burden that they had to get rid of it, considering Mac has how many multitasking modes they added over the years.

those are literally the three options that are available, right now, in the 26 beta.
The three options…
“Full Screen”
“Windowed Mode”
“Stage Manager”
you can swap between them in the settings, you can swap between them in the control center.

we have reached the point where MR complainers are literally complaining about things that they want that… Apple has already done.

 

[richpjr]

Thanks for sharing your experience. You’re right, there are probably as many ways to use an iPad as there are users. What I’ve mainly been wondering about is the fact that the iPad was originally designed for a specific use case: something in between a smartphone (which can be too small for certain tasks) and a Mac (which can be overkill or cumbersome for quick, casual use).

To me, ideal iPad use cases include things like watching content (movies, shows, etc.), browsing the web, taking notes, and other light tasks that are simply more enjoyable on a larger screen compared to a smartphone.

But now that the iPad is being pushed more in the direction of the Mac, and some people even suggest it should run macOS, I find myself questioning the point. At that stage, what’s the purpose of the iPad? Why not just use, say, a 13-inch MacBook Air? It already runs macOS, and it comes with an excellent built-in keyboard and trackpad.

So I just don’t fully understand why some iPad users want to turn the iPad into something more like a Mac, essentially wishing for features that already exist in the MacBook, which is available today.

As someone with both 11 and 13" M4 iPad Pros, a Mac, a Windows gaming PC and a Kindle, I have gone the route of the best device for certain tasks. Each of my iPads are used for very different tasks. Having said that, I'd love to be able to consolidate down to fewer devices. The 13" iPad Pro is certainly powerful enough hardware wise for most of the tasks I do on my Mac. The OS has been the limiting factor. iPadOS 26 brings the iPad closer to what I would need to consolidate devices. It's not there yet, but slowly moving towards it. I don't need it running macOS but I also need a device I don't have to fight to get things done, as well as more professional apps.

 

[Sami13496]

As someone with both 11 and 13" M4 iPad Pros, a Mac, a Windows gaming PC and a Kindle, I have gone the route of the best device for certain tasks. Each of my iPads are used for very different tasks. Having said that, I'd love to be able to consolidate down to fewer devices. The 13" iPad Pro is certainly powerful enough hardware wise for most of the tasks I do on my Mac. The OS has been the limiting factor. iPadOS 26 brings the iPad closer to what I would need to consolidate devices. It's not there yet, but slowly moving towards it. I don't need it running macOS but I also need a device I don't have to fight to get things done, as well as more professional apps.

I probably don’t understand your use case deeply enough, but, wouldn’t that issue be solved by having an 11-inch iPad Pro and a 13-inch MacBook Air (two devices), instead of having two iPads and a Mac (three devices)?

Or if iPadOS 26 became more like macOS, that would also solve the problem, but then again, I don’t fully understand why not just pick up a 13-inch MacBook Air straight from the shelf in the first place.

 

[01cowherd]

those are literally the three options that are available, right now, in the 26 beta.
The three options…
“Full Screen”
“Windowed Mode”
“Stage Manager”
you can swap between them in the settings, you can swap between them in the control center.

we have reached the point where MR complainers are literally complaining about things that they want that… Apple has already done.

Not at all what I said, but go off

 

[richpjr]

I probably don’t understand your use case deeply enough, but, wouldn’t that issue be solved by having an 11-inch iPad Pro and a 13-inch MacBook Air (two devices), instead of having two iPads and a Mac (three devices)?

Or if iPadOS 26 became more like macOS, that would also solve the problem, but then again, I don’t fully understand why not just pick up a 13-inch MacBook Air straight from the shelf in the first place.

I use my 11" iPad as a walk around the house media consumption device (the 13" is too big for this). My 13" iPad is used with an Apple Pencil for drawing, photo/video editing and with a Magic Keyboard as a laptop, mainly sitting at a desk. My Mac is used for development and recording music and for any task where the limitations of iPadOS get in the way. It would be painful to do some of these tasks on the other devices, though I could if I had to.

 

[TigerMSTR]

I agree with you, op. iPadOS 26 has made the iPad incredibly difficult to use overall. Frankly, I don’t see how I can continue to use the iPad for my work if this is how it will work going forward. It’s just dozens of poor UX decisions in this operating system that make it very difficult to use overall.

In particular, I want to see the return of traditional Split View and Slide Over. I cannot fathom why they removed it.

I’ll be downgrading to iPadOS 18, and I’ll give Apple a year to sort out this situation before I give up and sell my iPad.

And this sucks, because I really loved using my iPad.