iPadOS 26 is an Absolute Mess

[Silly John Fatty]

You really have no choice. Except to sell your stuff and get iOS 18 and iPadOS 18. Send feedback to Apple.

Of course I have a choice. Typical American fatalism. I can protest and I can enact a change. And sometimes, when people are smart, many of them do that, and that's how the world runs. Of course I have already sent feedback to Apple!

It actually made the rest of the settings app better.

You may not like the changes but irrational they are not.

You need 1-2 more steps for many things that already existed before. That's not better, that's worse. It's not "form follows function" but "function follows form", and yes, that's irrational. It's not about liking it or not. It's less functional and its utility has decreased.

“We” like our devices. “We” like iOS and iPadOS 26. To out all of this negative stuff into a MR is too much negative emotional energy. It’s easier to love forward. People complain Apple has stagnated. Well here’s a real positive change and people are now complaining. Apple can’t please 100% of the users 100% of the time.

There's no real positive change here. It's a design update. A room filler because they had no other ideas. You know what's innovative? The way we'll use computers in the future. Which will be talking into the computer and saying "Do this" and it'll be done. No adjusting of windows. No clicking or fiddling with little stuff. No learning of thousands of useless features that change all the time and just waste your time. This will be the future of personal computers and you can't do anything about it. Apple's not doing it.

Well yeah. That’s the way I feel about my Apple devices. I use them to make things better easier faster for me.

That's why you like iOS 26 where many things take more steps. 😂

One doesn’t have to engage more to get utility from them.

Exactly. Sadly, I have to, because they incorporated more steps for the same things now. I wish I wouldn't have to use computers at all. But I do, because they simplify things. And I hate when they don't.

These theories are confused with social media.

These theories I mentioned are standard textbook Marketing theories from Philips Kotler, the #1 Marketing expert in the world who pretty much put in place modern Marketing, and obviously every large corporation follows these theories. Do you think Apple is a church or something? It's a big company, they want to make profit. And yes, they follow standard business theories. They want you to spend time with their devices, invest yourself in them, and engage with them. Nothing surprising here.

Then don’t. Spend as little or as much time as you want. Are you spending excessive time because you have an extra tap on the screen the now gives more options.

I'd love to spend as little time as I could, but it's difficult when you make people click 3 things that were previously 1 click. Do you know how quickly this accumulates over a day, a week, a year? Who is going to pay for this? Apple?

I dont know how people want to spend their time, that’s above my pay grade. But I am happy that Apple lets people move around virtual little icons and make them different colors and customize them to their hearts content. People should their time doing what they want.

Because you use these devices superficially, for looks. They're your home, not a tool for work.

And since you want to enjoy life more - how much time did you spend on this post?

Roughly 1 minute so far I'd say.

Well that's an absurd statement. I really liked how that got changed. It means my Settings app looks significantly more clean. I never got why this wasn't done intially. Android has been doing this for years and nobody complained.

You said it yourself: For you, it's about looks. Not about what it does. It needs to "look clean" for you. So basically you're trading utility for looks. That's fine. Apple should allow it, but not force it. Form follows function is my philosophy. Since iOS 26 doesn't do that, it's irrational by category.

Agreed. I'd even say that getting to app settings is actually easier in iPadOS 26. When in the app, just pull down the menu bar > [App Name] > [App Name] Settings. Or if you're using a keyboard, then use the "Command ," shortcut. Both of these will work with any app. No longer am I having to leave the app and hunt for it through Settings.

View attachment 2597642

Knowing your math is a clear advantage! Let's assume we're on the Home Screen and we want to go to Safari settings.

Pre iOS 26:

Step 1: Tap "Settings"
Step 2: Scroll down to "Safari"

iOS 26:

Step 1: Tap "Settings"
Step 2: Scroll down to "Apps" and click it
Step 3: Open it and scroll down to "Safari"

You see? One more step. Now let's try your in-app method.

Step 1: Open Safari
Step 2: Pull down menu bar
Step 3: Open Safari settings.

Do you understand? 3 > 2. It's very simple. Two is smaller than three. No big math here.

This applies to so many things in iOS 26. Just found another such case:

Previously, when I had a single tab open in Safari, I could still close it with a single click. Because the tab bar would appear even if only one tab was open. It was a setting that existed. Always show tab bar, or something like that. So you could press the little X on that tab and close it and return to your Safari home screen with all your book marks, etc.

So now this isn't possible anymore. You now have to press the two squares in the top right corner and then close the tab. Which means: 2 steps instead of 1 now.

Same with managing windows. Previously, you had three dots at the top of a window and you could decide to close it there. Now you have to tab for the three dots, which are now red, yellow, green (as on the Mac) to appear. So once more step. On top of that, these three buttons aren't in the center anymore, which means that for example in ChatGPT they cover the menu symbol on the left. Yup, can't access the menu symbol to see the list with my chats because the three colored buttons are in front of it. IT'S A MESS!

I've now delivered 5-6 examples in this thread and another for cases where you need more steps than you previously needed in iOS and iPadOS 26. I'm not sure why people are going wild. We're talking about simple maths and empirical facts here. People react with some weird kind of emotional protector role. Are these people married to Apple? Is Apple their child? It's a very strange, impulsive behaviour. There's no reason to protect Apple for adding steps to exisiting features. None. At all. Like, ever.

 

[I7guy]

Of course I have a choice. Typical American fatalism. I can protest and I can enact a change. And sometimes, when people are smart, many of them do that, and that's how the world runs. Of course I have already sent feedback to Apple!

Perfect Apple in my opinion sees all feedback and makes some adjustments as needed. Don’t know how they balance out “this sucks” vs “this is great.”

You need 1-2 more steps for many things that already existed before.

At the joy of making the overall workflow much more efficient. Does your overall workflow consist of tapping through settings menus testing every path? Because the extra 3 milliseconds to get to the apps whereby the settings app is overall better, seems like a good trade off.

That's not better, that's worse. It's not "form follows function" but "function follows form", and yes, that's irrational. It's not about liking it or not. It's less functional and its utility has decreased.

It’s better.

There's no real positive change here. It's a design update. A room filler because they had no other ideas. You know what's innovative? The way we'll use computers in the future. Which will be talking into the computer and saying "Do this" and it'll be done. No adjusting of windows. No clicking or fiddling with little stuff. No learning of thousands of useless features that change all the time and just waste your time. This will be the future of personal computers and you can't do anything about it. Apple's not doing it.



That's why you like iOS 26 where many things take more steps. 😂

Yes, because overall things flow better.

Exactly. Sadly, I have to, because they incorporated more steps for the same things now. I wish I wouldn't have to use computers at all. But I do, because they simplify things. And I hate when they don't.

You’ve only been documenting one step 🤣 whereby the entirety of the workflow is better.

These theories I mentioned are standard textbook Marketing theories from Philips Kotler, the #1 Marketing expert in the world who pretty much put in place modern Marketing, and obviously every large corporation follows these theories. Do you think Apple is a church or something? It's a big company, they want to make profit. And yes, they follow standard business theories. They want you to spend time with their devices, invest yourself in them, and engage with them. Nothing surprising

As I said these theories are confused with social media.

I'd love to spend as little time as I could, but it's difficult when you make people click 3 things that were previously 1 click. Do you know how quickly this accumulates over a day, a week, a year? Who is going to pay for this? Apple?

Sorry I’m having a hard time being in your ball court when your major use case is testing out settings clicks.

Because you use these devices superficially, for looks. They're your home, not a tool for work.

You’re in the valley of wrong here.

Roughly 1 minute so far I'd say.



You said it yourself: For you, it's about looks. Not about what it does. It needs to "look clean" for you. So basically you're trading utility for looks. That's fine. Apple should allow it, but not force it. Form follows function is my philosophy. Since iOS 26 doesn't do that, it's irrational by category.

Sure it needs to look good and function good. Form and function. iOS 26 does do that.

Knowing your math is a clear advantage! Let's assume we're on the Home Screen and we want to go to Safari settings.

Pre iOS 26:

Step 1: Tap "Settings"
Step 2: Scroll down to "Safari"

iOS 26:

Step 1: Tap "Settings"
Step 2: Scroll down to "Apps" and click it
Step 3: Open it and scroll down to "Safari"

You see? One more step. Now let's try your in-app method.

Step 1: Open Safari
Step 2: Pull down menu bar
Step 3: Open Safari settings.

Do you understand? 3 > 2. It's very simple. Two is smaller than three. No big math here.

The settings app is far better with this change. Efficiency overall is traded for a click.

This applies to so many things in iOS 26. Just found another such case:

Previously, when I had a single tab open in Safari, I could still close it with a single click. Because the tab bar would appear even if only one tab was open. It was a setting that existed. Always show tab bar, or something like that. So you could press the little X on that tab and close it and return to your Safari home screen with all your book marks, etc.

So now this isn't possible anymore. You now have to press the two squares in the top right corner and then close the tab. Which means: 2 steps instead of 1 now.

Same with managing windows. Previously, you had three dots at the top of a window and you could decide to close it there. Now you have to tab for the three dots, which are now red, yellow, green (as on the Mac) to appear. So once more step. On top of that, these three buttons aren't in the center anymore, which means that for example in ChatGPT they cover the menu symbol on the left. Yup, can't access the menu symbol to see the list with my chats because the three colored buttons are in front of it. IT'S A MESS!

I've now delivered 5-6 examples in this thread and another for cases where you need more steps than you previously needed in iOS and iPadOS 26. I'm not sure why people are going wild. We're talking about simple maths and empirical facts here. People react with some weird kind of emotional protector role. Are these people married to Apple? Is Apple their child? It's a very strange, impulsive behaviour. There's no reason to protect Apple for adding steps to exisiting features. None. At all. Like, ever.

The amount of time spent criticizing minor things in iOS 26, (and to be clear I think these are fine because overall to me it’s a net positive) will never be regained by your claimed work efficiency. That’s what I don’t understand. Anyway I thing sometimes criticism happen for criticism sake.