I just want the UI to look less like a hot mess.
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iPadOS 26 is an Absolute Mess
- Thread starter tweaknmod
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That looks so horrible. Wow. I can’t believe how anyone approved that at Apple.
Apple needs to stop with the yearly releases. They’re just changing **** for the sake of changing it. And with OS 26, these changes aren’t even useful, for the most part.
Definitely. While I do like iPadOS 26 in general, there’s some areas where it’s just a horrible experience - safari being the prime example.
Like who at Apple looked at that and thought it looked good enough to release.
I know it’s bad, but what was shared is on iPadOS 26.1 beta 3 (prior to this, did not look like that). Folks are complaining as if this has been an official release…
This iPadOS 26 debacle just shows me how useless these tech influencers are. Virtually none of them have spoken out about how terrible this release is. We need to stop paying attention to these glorified salespeople.
The only youtuber I know of who has spoken about ipadOS 26 negitives is Max tech after he used it for 2 months and autin Evans
In the Books app, I can no longer pinch-to-zoom in pdf’s, or in epubs that were created with fixed lay-out (think: art books). This is kind of very annoying - one of the advantages of reading stuff on the iPad is that I can enlarge it, rather than needing reading glasses (aging eyes…).
Is this a ‘feature’, or a still-to-be-resolved bug?
Is this a ‘feature’, or a still-to-be-resolved bug?
I don’t get why everyone is complaining, I don’t have any issues reading text on the UI 🤪
I don’t care how many people think iPadOS 26 is a good thing. Right now, in my eyes, I’d rate iPadOS 26 as trash. Sure, I could say “garbage,” but that wouldn’t be accurate enough — it’s not merely unusable or poorly designed. It’s just trash.
Sometimes you literally can’t even swipe — yes, not even left or right. That’s a full-blown P0-level bug, yet it’s happening in a supposedly public release product that’s been through months of internal and public testing. So tell me, if that’s not trash, what is?
In the end, you have no choice but to reboot. I’ve already hit this same P0 bug multiple times. And sure, some people might say, “Oh, it’s just a new release.”
Good grief — I thought today’s consumers were supposed to be more demanding than before. Turns out, they’re more forgiving. At this point, I almost feel like the old witch living in the candy house.
So I have to say this — if anyone still has a choice, do not downgrade to iPadOS 26. Just don’t. And by the way, this is the first time I’ve ever seriously considered rolling back my OS.
I guess I’d better start getting used to this feeling and this kind of workflow…because something tells me this won’t be the last time it happens.
Sometimes you literally can’t even swipe — yes, not even left or right. That’s a full-blown P0-level bug, yet it’s happening in a supposedly public release product that’s been through months of internal and public testing. So tell me, if that’s not trash, what is?
In the end, you have no choice but to reboot. I’ve already hit this same P0 bug multiple times. And sure, some people might say, “Oh, it’s just a new release.”
Good grief — I thought today’s consumers were supposed to be more demanding than before. Turns out, they’re more forgiving. At this point, I almost feel like the old witch living in the candy house.
So I have to say this — if anyone still has a choice, do not downgrade to iPadOS 26. Just don’t. And by the way, this is the first time I’ve ever seriously considered rolling back my OS.
I guess I’d better start getting used to this feeling and this kind of workflow…because something tells me this won’t be the last time it happens.
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That’s weird… running iOS26 for the time being only on a 12.9 A12Z device, and tried with several books (epub or pdf). Swiping pages also requires a swipe from really the edge of the screen now, instead of somewhere on the page. I’ll keep my 2018 11” on iOS18 for now…
EDIT: after a second reboot, it now works… 🙄
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so your saying that not being able to swipe anywhere is a bug and now the whole OS is trash? Sure the freezing up has happens to me sometimes, but thats under intense load from opening lots of apps or loading an Local AI model. Does that make it trash, not neccessarily.
yes, people are more demanding than before, but once you got the feature people most desperatly wanted and it doesn’t feel right, people start complaining about it because there are so many little issues to it.
you are partially true about it being a 2026 OS not entirely true about the release date. The reason why its ‘ipadOS 26’ is because most of the time your going to be using OS26 is in 2026. Thats about it.
Given how carefully you quoted my earlier comments point by point, I’ll try to respond with the same level of seriousness and respect for the detail you’ve shown.
As for the freezing issue — it actually isn’t a freeze. What happens is that the screen just stays there sometimes. It doesn’t really freeze; you can still tap the apps that are on the current page, but that’s all. You can’t swipe left or right to move away from that—well, I don’t even know whether to call it a “page,” “scene,” or maybe just the “home screen.”
Yes, it’s not a freeze, and it doesn’t happen when I have tons of apps open. I rarely have more than seven or eight apps running at once, certainly not ten or more. Since updating to 26, I’ve already run into this issue at least four times, and I can’t reproduce it on purpose. Whenever it does happen, though, it usually comes with a weird side effect: since you can’t swipe between home screens, your instinct is to open the multitasking view to check what went wrong. In that view, all your open apps show up normally—but you can’t close any of them. They still work fine, and you can open and use them, but once you go back to the home screen, you’re still stuck on that same seemingly frozen screen (even though every app on it can still be opened and used).
That’s why I said this is effectively a P0-level bug—and I called it “garbage” with good reason. A P0-level bug in a product that’s supposedly gone through extensive testing is a complete disaster. It’s not just an annoying glitch; it’s something that completely blocks user interaction. So I don’t think calling it garbage is an act of malice or bullying—it’s just a factual evaluation.
I’m sorry if my use of the word “garbage” sounded harsh to you, but I’m glad you seem satisfied with it (apparently so). After all, it’s not like what you said—“people’s expectations have risen and they’re spoiled by new features.” That’s not the case. For an iPad, being able to swipe left or right on the home screen is a basic function. (Honestly, I find it absurd that I even need to call it a “feature.” It’s like saying, “I’m thrilled that my car can actually drive on the road.”)
So if complaining about a P0-level disaster makes me “a user spoiled by fancy new features,” then fine—I’ll still congratulate you. I’m happy that you’re satisfied with iPadOS 26.
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Completely agree. It is unreasonable to expect quality, significant bug-free meaningful updates every 12 months. However the yearly OS/ IOS updates are now hard coded into Apple DNA and they have sort of painted themselves into a corner. Not sure they could go to bi-annual.
In the end forced yearly updates also simply extend the Beta season 3-6 months deep into the yearly release. We all pretty much know that by now, don’t’ we?
ok… so when you go into multitasking view have you tried swiping up from the bottom the screen so it moves it to the side, then swipe up again to remove all the windows (I’m assuming you use the traffic light sytem to close the app window).
As for the Home screen freeze up, I don’t really use multiple homescreen pages for all my apps, I just use files and arrange them accordingly to that set up. Idk whether it will still happen on Beta 3 in which I’m on or whether that issue has been resolved.
yeah Ik you wasn’t talking about me, you were talking about the OS.
I wouldn’t call it a ‘complete disaster’ by the amount of times you’ve had the issue. A complete disaster in my eyes would be if it was a daily thing that would disrupt you constantly that would affect the use of the device.
Since its a .0 update, this bug will probably be resolved in the future anyways.
Just upgraded to the latest public beta and encountered this, I genuinely laughed out loud it was so bad. I suppose it should be sad that a supposedly professional organisation like Apple is so disorganised that they release even a beta in this state.
Well --- It's easily reproducible I guess, so there's that?
The only problem is this isn't a bug ... it's "how they wanted it to be" (apparently).