iPadOS 26 is an Absolute Mess

[Mrbiggestman]

Yes to resizing diagonally. Yes to going to titlebar and hitting the green circle to exit fullscreen mode. No to resizing a fullscreen window without first exiting fullscreen mode.

Is the corner resizing in fullscreen mode or not?
For the title bar, you aren’t going to the traffic light navigation. You just press and hold and swipe down on the title bar to exit fullscreen mode. I still think multitasking on ipad is a way easier experience than that on a mac. Like just not having the windowing resizing when a video is in fullscreen view will be compromise for me getting a macbook in the future. Its like 10x better than PiP mode.

 

[RLRabb]

Is the corner resizing in fullscreen mode or not?
For the title bar, you aren’t going to the traffic light navigation. You just press and hold and swipe down on the title bar to exit fullscreen mode. I still think multitasking on ipad is a way easier experience than that on a mac.

You keep moving the goalposts. I'm no longer interested.

 

[JTK Awesome]

I don’t mean bugs. I expect bugs in a beta.

I mean the UX is a hot mess.

The entire multitasking system is now so convoluted and cumbersome that I am truly worried about how on Earth this was approved. I guarantee the people working on these systems did not want them to go live – this reeks of c-suite pushing things live to appease shareholders and stock analysts.

I really hope some on the leadership team are able to steer the ship back to reliability and ease-of-use focused UX.

This is not a “Jobs would never have done this” kind of post. This is a frustration post at how far Apple has strayed from the values which made them one of the top players in tech - those values, and the products they drive were not built my one man.

I think Apple jumped the shark. Time to repair this breaking organization and get back to fundamentals.

Customer experience, reliability, usability, and functionality.

Edit: I’ve asked the mods for the post to be deleted. I don’t know if they will, but I’m done.
Check my replies below if you like. This was a simple vent/rant that’s turned way too ugly for my liking.
Take care.

I honestly never understood the hate for the old Split-View and slide-over. It worked perfectly well for an iPad-sized screen and an iPad OS.

This current “more Mac like” UX can go in the same compost heap as Stage Manager. I think it was Daring Fireball that said “Let the iPad be an iPad; Let the Mac be a Mac.”

Mac OS’ Expose and Spaces were peak UX IMO. I’d welcome a better iPadOS implementation of that.

PS: I haven’t opened my newly arrived iPP yet. Strongly considering returning it for a basic MacBook, if this is really where the iPad’s OS is going.

 

[Ludatyk]

I honestly never understood the hate for the old Split-View and slide-over. It worked perfectly well for an iPad-sized screen and an iPad OS.

Never was any hate toward pre-existing multitasking (SplitView/SlideOver), but users wanted more control in how they used the iPad. Being limited to only two apps displayed on the iPad was an issue.

This current “more Mac like” UX can go in the same compost heap as Stage Manager. I think it was Daring Fireball that said “Let the iPad be an iPad; Let the Mac be a Mac.”

And this still exist currently under iPadOS 26... users are able to use the iPad in Full Screen mode, like a traditional tablet.

Mac OS’ Expose and Spaces were peak UX IMO. I’d welcome a better iPadOS implementation of that.

Actually there is something similar to macOS Expose under Windows Mode... if you have tons of apps open when you swipe up, you get all your windows arranged in one view.

And Spaces is part of Recent App area under Stage Manager... so there's bits and pieces of macOS added to iPadOS.

 

[Mrbiggestman]

This current “more Mac like” UX can go in the same compost heap as Stage Manager. I think it was Daring Fireball that said “Let the iPad be an iPad; Let the Mac be a Mac.”

Interesting, because its also in the same sense that Apple brought up the idea of the ipad being a computer in the ‘what is a computer?’ advert.