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iPadOS 26 is an Absolute Mess
- Thread starter tweaknmod
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literally timeless design 😁
I wish we could get an "iPad Classic Mode"
I don't have iPads for them to be more and more "like a Mac".
If I want something "like a Mac" ... I buy a Mac.
I don't have iPads for them to be more and more "like a Mac".
If I want something "like a Mac" ... I buy a Mac.
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The biggest issue I’ve had is the redrawing of icons and folders. This occurred with the first release of iOS 26. I had 26 initially on my iPad Pro and not my phone. I have mostly folders, many of them, on my home screens, all containing a lot of apps and web links.
I went to the trouble of resetting my Home Screen layout which gets rid of all your folders. But leaves you with many more pages of Home Screens. After doing this there was no redrawing of any icon. But, after reordering everything back into folders to reduce the number of Home Screens, all the redrawing came back. This affects both my 17 Pro Max and M5 iPad Pro.
My guess is that the devices cannot handle the burden of Liquid Glass and whatever else is in 26, and a lot of onscreen icons within folders. It looks really bad on my iPad with the huge screen and, somewhat, less so on my 17PM. I believe this is permanent until Apple does away with Liquid Glass or some other feature that is taxing the system, maybe in iOS 27 or later. Should be doable since no other iOS had this problem.
I went to the trouble of resetting my Home Screen layout which gets rid of all your folders. But leaves you with many more pages of Home Screens. After doing this there was no redrawing of any icon. But, after reordering everything back into folders to reduce the number of Home Screens, all the redrawing came back. This affects both my 17 Pro Max and M5 iPad Pro.
My guess is that the devices cannot handle the burden of Liquid Glass and whatever else is in 26, and a lot of onscreen icons within folders. It looks really bad on my iPad with the huge screen and, somewhat, less so on my 17PM. I believe this is permanent until Apple does away with Liquid Glass or some other feature that is taxing the system, maybe in iOS 27 or later. Should be doable since no other iOS had this problem.
How can these devices not handle it? At least the Pro models have the exact same hardware as the top-end Macs.
You would think. But it was proved to me when I reset the Home Screen layout which got rid of all my folders and left me with dozens and dozens of icons across many pages of home screens. But, there was no redrawing no matter how often I swiped back and forth through all those screens. As soon as I recreated my folders, and mind you I deleted a lot of old apps and web links that were no longer used or functional, the redrawing came right back, even though I was now down to only 2 home screens. I’ve heard from others who don’t experience much of this and do use folders, but, very few of them with only a couple of icons within them. I use a ton of folders, enough to fill 2 screens, with a lot of icons in them. The devices just can’t handle all of them and 26. Whether it’s Liquid Glass or something else that bogs the devices down I don’t know. But, I have the very latest devices and this really has me lit up.
But if I wanted an ipad with the performance of a Mac? would I get a mac or an ipad?
I think the biggest question is can you do what you need to do on an iPad, if not buy a Mac. These days you’d probably save money. For me, I can do everything that I want and need to do on my iPad. My Mac only serves as backup storage. That wasn’t true 10 years ago, but in recent years, I really have no need of a Mac, and that was true way before iOS 26 that really added nothing useful for me. Visually, it appeals to me, but functionally seems to be a bit of a mess.
I can't believe they can't or won't fix the redraws around the folder icons. Flickering mess on my iPad M3 and my 17 pro
same, I have a M4 mac mini and an ipad A16. I only use the M4 mac mini to run external software like the Metal HUD, have word open, storage dump, play some games on it as well. ipad A16 does everything else including what the mac mini can do.
Whenever I see reports like this, I realize I'm obviously very much in the power user category, even just with browsing.
I could never -- and I mean NEVER -- get by with just the gimped "appliance style" browsing situation on an iPad, to say nothing of all the other system tweaks, apps, services, usages, etc.
When one gets a full featured desktop browser dialed in with extensions (especially ones not allowed on iOS) and customization it's just an entirely different and better world of computing.
To be honest, I think so. On my phone, my primary issue is the redrawing of icons, but it’s not as persistent nor as glaring as it is on my big 13” iPad Pro. But on the iPad, 26.1 ushered in a whole host of other issues, primarily with Safari for me. I don’t experience those issues on my 17 Pro Max phone on 26.1. However, there is a fair amount of stuttering when scrolling through certain apps, and some things when tapped have a delayed launch such as when I’m in Settings on the apps screen and tap on the Phone app, there is a delay before it appears making me think I need to tap on it again. So 26 definitely bogs down even the latest and greatest devices. 26.2 has solved nothing on the ipad for me.
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Yep. I had a 2019 5K 27" that I loved. But it was getting less and less use as I was always on the iPad. I knew macOS 26 was dropping support for it so I sold it and was debating between an M4 MacBook Air or M4 iPad. Once iPadOS26 came out and I tried DB4 on my older M1 12.9 iPad and I saw all of the added multitasking it was an easy decision for me.
Gave the M1 to my son who was heading to college and picked up an M4 iPad. The scary thing is I haven't even missed the 5K. When I need that screen, I hook up to my 32" 4K that I also use for work.
And when I'm just lounging watching TV, since the M4 is so light I have no problems using it without the keyboard on my lap.
I was thinking of getting an iPad mini as the current version keeps being on sale on Amazon. But I am mortally afraid if I buy one now it will be on iPad OS26. Or if it isn’t it will demand an update to it using my cloud backup even though my iPhone is still on iOS 18.7.2.
If there is an irresistible price for the mini, you could buy it and just keep it unused until the mid-cycle of 26, maybe 26.5 or .6. Overall, even though 26 is quite visually appealing to me (when it works) ios 18 was a lot smoother in functionality. There are those who really appreciate the windowed apps option that 26 brought to the iPad, but, for those of who have no need of it, there really aren’t any real benefits or improvements in this release. With the first release of 26.0 there were some visual issues (icon redrawing) but functionally everything was quite smooth for me. 26.1 brought a host of new problems on my iPad and 26.2 didn’t resolve any of them, actually created one additional issue for me. So, I’d buy if that price might increase overtime, otherwise I’d wait. If you really value the windows feature then this would work for you, otherwise you’ll really miss 18.
The hardware is rebelling against the software.
I like 26.1 but I still get this glitch, and it even looks worse than before.
For me on my M5 iPad Pro 26.2 brought a new issue. When in the Mail app, starting a new email message, after entering a send-to address and typing in the subject line and body of the message the Send button (arrow) remains grey as in my screenshot. I’ve cropped the screenshot to only show the subject and the buttons. Oddly enough if I’m in Safari and use the share button to pick Mail as an option, as soon as I type into the subject line or body the button turns blue as it should. In 26.1 on my phone, and on my wife’s iPad Pro the button behaves normally: always turns blue when it’s supposed to.
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same with me. I spend most of the time using browsers and yeah I do want external extension support but most of the time the browser extensions are either:
A: needing it because there is bit of trouble on the desktop version so I need an alternative that actually works but iPad is most fine.
B: Its not avaible on the iPad but is avaible on the Mac but its more of a dispensible feature that I’m fine without.
either way its fine because I’m not dependant on Mac, if one web app doesn’t work ipad, I’ll move to another one until the one app works.
Rn most if not all the apps I use on Mac mini work on my ipad and with direction their going, I’m probably going to keep this setup for a long time as for me I see a phone and laptop combo more of a hardware contradiction than the ipad’s all in one software.
The Pros have the same RAM too (8GB or 16GB or 12GB and 16GB on the newest ones). Maybe someone has a Mac with 32GB or more, but that's diminishing returns for large 3D models or image processing.
I’m not updating my iPad Pro or iPhone Pro until….as it seems to be going now, 26.5 🖖