iPadOS 26 is an Absolute Mess

[droplink]

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.

 

[RLRabb]

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.

 

[TigerMSTR]

26.1 Beta 2 adds a new version of Slide-over. Not as full as before, but it’s a start for those who want it back.

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

 

[TigerMSTR]

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.

Coding on the iPad is never going to be viable unless Apple fixes precision text editing.

 

[Ludatyk]

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.

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.

 

[steve62388]

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.

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.

 

[transmaster]

It is still exasperating how the pages stack up. I hate the way things are sliding around.

 

[Mrbiggestman]

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 can get 15-17 hours SOT with heavy use and 1-6 windows open.

 

[FeliApple]

I can get 15-17 hours SOT with heavy use and 1-6 windows open. View attachment 2565103

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.

 

[Lewanna68]

I found my personal hotspot greyed out after the update today. I was using it yesterday on iPadOS 18.6.2. it's not even within the cellular data section. I haven't update my iPhone just in case I loose it there as well. Anyone having the same experience?

Yes I’m having this problem too but have found no solution, I hope one is found soon.

 

[Lewanna68]

Since updating ipad to iOS 26 the hotspot is greyed out, is there a fix for this? Thanks

 

[GDF]

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

Totally agree. How hard is it just to bring SplitView and the old SlideOver back? iPadOS 26 is just a mess.

 

[Timmy D]

Yes I’m having this problem too but have found no solution, I hope one is found soon.

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.

 

[hovscorpion12]

Coding on the iPad is never going to be viable unless Apple fixes precision text editing.

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].

 

[TigerMSTR]

It is still exasperating how the pages stack up. I hate the way things are sliding around.

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.

 

[Mrbiggestman]

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.

 

[transmaster]

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.

 

[Lewanna68]

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.

I’m in uk and with o2 they have said the issue is not with them.

 

[Mrbiggestman]

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

It takes about 3 clicks (if you add in pressing the app icon) to open slideover

 

[Timmy D]

I’m in uk and with o2 they have said the issue is not with them.

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.

 

[Mainsail]

The sad thing is we wont get it back Apple do not listen to its users.

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.

 

[TigerMSTR]

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.

 

[Mrbiggestman]

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.

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.

 

[Theninjagecko]

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.

 

[Mrbiggestman]

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.