26.1 Beta 2 adds a new version of Slide-over. Not as full as before, but its a start for those who want it back.
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iPadOS 26 is an Absolute Mess
- Thread starter tweaknmod
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Unfortunately you can only have one app in Slide Over at a time. It takes a ton of taps to invoke. And still, no Split View. It’s better than nothing, but still a massive regression compared to ipados 18
Coding on the iPad is never going to be viable unless Apple fixes precision text editing.
I like it… it’s more of a “pin” or “stay on top” kind of a feature. And you can dismiss by moving the window off to the side, bring it back as well.
Well that’s something. Let’s hope they iterate all the way back to slide over. It’s a tacit admission that they got it wrong by removing it completely.
It is still exasperating how the pages stack up. I hate the way things are sliding around.
17 hours with heavy use (what I’d consider heavy use) is not possible, but 17 hours of moderate use does not surprise me.
I’m getting 26 hours of light use on iPadOS 18.
This is the best iPad I have ever used one terms of battery life, beating the iPad 4 on iOS 6; the 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 9; and the Air 5 on iPadOS 15.
Hopefully iPadOS 26 didn’t completely kill it for most. I won’t install it, but I’m not surprised that battery life is good. It’s the best iPad I have ever used.
In my experience, it is slightly worse than my iPhone 16 Plus on iOS 18, which is giving me 27 hours of SOT with the same light use.
Yes I’m having this problem too but have found no solution, I hope one is found soon.
Totally agree. How hard is it just to bring SplitView and the old SlideOver back? iPadOS 26 is just a mess.
Mine ended up being an AT&T issue with the 55+ plan I use. For some reason a few models of iPads and flip phones dropped the hot spot a month after the 55+ plan was launched. AT&T had to move my iPad over to the normal plan which fixed it right away.
While iPadOS does not support native terminal app, I have been using a-Shell for the last 3-years for running run Unix commands. [Not sure if it would fit your programing needs, but maybe].
The performance gets so much worse as the windows stack up too. So you have to close them manually to free up system resources. Reminds me of using a PC back in 2005, when they were all slow and janky.
Depends what your doing though, Static content is normally fine, Loading up an AI model using the Locally AI app can lag the system and sometimes during use. multiple games can depend, when a game is behind another window then it drops FPS but is fairly alright to use overall.
What is really irritating is how the pages stack up. You have pages sticking out at the edges, so when you click on something, I often get one of the covered pages.
It takes about 3 clicks (if you add in pressing the app icon) to open slideover
Have you contacted Apple support? They removed into my iPad and pulled information to send to their engineers. In my case the engineers said it wasn’t on the software/hardware side. Luckily the last person on the mobile provider side worked it out that it was their issue. Hopefully you find a solution soon.
You are probably right. But, we got into this whole iPad windowing thing because a very vocal group of iPad users wanted the OS to be more “Mac-like”. So, you could argue we got here because Apple was listening to its users.
For me, I have no desire to turn my iPad into a laptop. I just use it as a simple tablet one app at a time. So this windows multitasking doesn’t do much for me, but I do understand that there were people clamoring for it.
Turns out that iPadOS 26 — one of the worst operating systems I’ve ever used — also breaks screenshot and image annotations in Photos, Notes, Screenshots and across the operating system as a whole.
people wanted it to be more ‘Mac-like’ since the ipad pro went to M-series. Apple clearly didn’t need desktop class CPU’s and GPU’s when all there users were clearly planning to do is put 2 windows side by side and call it a day.
The way the ipad is right now it may as well not exist. It's like one of those horrible half way house android tablets trying to be it all but good at nothing. All they have to do is bring split screen and slideover back when in fullscreen mode. Numbskulls who want the ipad to be a macbook because they cant buy a macbook can select the windows mode.
I literally am not using my ipad anymore because of this. Yet at the same time glass is brilliant on my iphone 17 pro, apple TV, Macbook air M4 and apple watch. It's just not right on the ipad, no where near. So sad.
yup, exactly my point, I don’t agree to the point where they should completely abolish the ipad but they should start giving less attention to the ipad pro until enough app developers are willing to build and add more features into the ipad.
I still do find that on ipadOS 26 there are some QOL features that even after using a mac mini M4, I am still reaching for my base ipad A16 on most days.
(side note: I did use a windows laptop previously but that was a hot,slow mess)
e.g: the ability to resize a video while the window is still in full screen.
(This might be a hot take) I find that files is way more simplier and easier to use than MacOS finder.
The rear camera is something that I thought I wouldn’t think i would use but has saved me from getting out my phone, sending it over to a computer, copying pasting the text or just forgetting about it completely.
Who would that be? iPad Pros cost more than most MacBooks.