for the sake of my curiosity, name three 🙂 to keep the conversation going
1. If I want to open files of a specific type in a specific app, it now only requires 1 click since I can set default apps for file types (vs the process before of hold pressing each file when I wanted to open it, selecting “share”, and then selecting the app I wanted to open it in. This is significantly streamlined vs the prior system.
2. Creating tiled window combos. Rather than having to manually resize and arrange windows to get somewhat of a tiled view, I can simply use one of the window tiling options from either the Window option in the Menu Bar, or the hold press menu from the traffic light buttons.
3. Maximizing, minimizing and closing windows with a mouse now only requires a single click on one of the traffic light controls, rather than two required with the prior Stage Manager system, which required clicking the 3 dot button to expand a menu that contained those options.
4. Accessing files from specific folders. Now, rather than having to open the Files app, and navigate (several clicks) to get to a specific folder and the files within it, I can simply pin a folder to the App Dock, and a single tap surfaces the files within that folder, quick and easy to access. I could technically kind of pin a folder to the App Dock before by using a Siri Shortcut I had to manually create to open one specific file. And the Siri Shortcut wasn’t nearly as useful, because rather than just popping up in the current workspace, it would open a Files window and pull me away from what I was working on. The App Dock folders feature allows me to quickly access files in folders I commonly use with a single click or tap, and it doesn’t hijack my workspace, or drag me away from it.
5. Options in many apps that support the new Menu Bar are faster to access, and require less clicks to access than they did in the App’s UI before. Many of these are now only 2 clicks rather than 3-5 or so required before.
6. I can now quickly switch between tab groups in Safari within the tap grid view, which wasn’t an option before. So if using Safari with the sidebar minimized, one had to expand the sidebar and then select the tab group they wanted to switch to. Now, one can simply tap the tab group they wanted to switch to while they’re already in the tab grid view, which often means less clicks.
7. In Photos, rather than first having to click the edit button, then the crop button, and then a rotate button to rotate an image, I can simply select Image in the Menu Bar and select the rotate option straight from there.
8, “Show all Windows” is now visible in the hold press menu for the app icon of an app that supports multiple windows, this is far easier and more intuitive to access than the prior multi-step method in Stage Manager.
There are many more I haven’t mentioned here, these are just the tip of the iceberg. These are just a few of the changes I regularly use and find useful in my daily workflow with iPadOS 26.
