M2 iPad Pro: Jump of faith into iPadOS 26.2?

[Populus]

Hi.

I have an M2 iPad Pro, with 1TB storage and 16GB of RAM. I really love my iPad, it’s my main device until I get an M5 Mac mini next year…

The iPad is currently on iPadOS 18.7, and I use it plugged to an external monitor, mouse and keyboard.

I’ve recently upgraded my iPhone SE 2022 (third gen) to iOS 26.2 from iOS 18.7 and I’m quite happy about it. Honestly, so far, performance is good and efficiency is, I think, better than on iOS 18.7, surprisingly I’m getting awesome battery life out of this little guy.

As you may know, this iPhone SE3 has an A15 SoC. Which is the chip the M2 is based off (same core architecture, but with more CPU and GPU cores). That makes me think that iPadOS 26.2 will also run great and efficiently on my M2 iPad Pro.

I don’t know if iPadOS 26 makes a more extensive use of extended memory in models with 16GB of RAM, I hope so, because I really would like to unleash the power of my 1TB M2 iPad Pro.

Has any of you installed iPadOS 26.2 on their M2 iPad Pro/Air? How’s it running for you?



Mind you, I always put my devices in DFU mode and then perform a clean install on them, it’s what I did with my iPhone SE3, and what I plan to do with my M2 iPad Pro.

I’m all ears/eyes, let me know what’s your experience so far with your M2 device. And I’ll let you know how’s mine once I decide to upgrade my M2 iPad Pro.

Based on my experience so far with my iPhone SE 3, the only thing I’m not quite convinced about, is losing the flat design of iOS 18 in favor of this bulky transparent buttons of Liquid Glass, as the interface looks bigger and, yeah, bulkier, especially on Safari. But, well, I guess that’s inevitable at this point. Sooner or later we’ll have to cave into the Liquid Glass design, whether we like it or not…

Liquid Glass, I’m afraid, is here to stay at least until iOS 28. Because iOS 27 is a much needed under the hood refinement of the operating system, and iOS 28 will likely focus on LLM technology and maybe some new features… my bet is that, if Apple ends up making the interface a little bit more minimalist again (without going all-in flat design again), it will probably be by iOS 29 or 30.

So resisting this new design is pointless unless I want to have my devices outdated for years… Performance and battery life is all I should care about, and there are new fancy, useful features.

Would you make this jump of faith towards iPadOS 26.2, up from 18.7?

Thank you.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I'm running 26.2 and it's working fine on my M2 iPad Air. And no, I don't use DFU or a clean install, just regular upgrade.

Liquid Glass is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ fine for me, to be honest I don't really notice any significant differences (certainly no drawbacks) on iPadOS 26 (or iOS 26) compared to 18. Of course I don't use every individual feature of the UI so there could be some drawback I'm not aware of - but generally speaking, it's just a cosmetic change and not one that affects utility.

 

[Kal Madda]

Hi.

I have an M2 iPad Pro, with 1TB storage and 16GB of RAM. I really love my iPad, it’s my main device until I get an M5 Mac mini next year…

The iPad is currently on iPadOS 18.7, and I use it plugged to an external monitor, mouse and keyboard.

I’ve recently upgraded my iPhone SE 2022 (third gen) to iOS 26.2 from iOS 18.7 and I’m quite happy about it. Honestly, so far, performance is good and efficiency is, I think, better than on iOS 18.7, surprisingly I’m getting awesome battery life out of this little guy.

As you may know, this iPhone SE3 has an A15 SoC. Which is the chip the M2 is based off (same core architecture, but with more CPU and GPU cores). That makes me think that iPadOS 26.2 will also run great and efficiently on my M2 iPad Pro.

I don’t know if iPadOS 26 makes a more extensive use of extended memory in models with 16GB of RAM, I hope so, because I really would like to unleash the power of my 1TB M2 iPad Pro.

Has any of you installed iPadOS 26.2 on their M2 iPad Pro/Air? How’s it running for you?



Mind you, I always put my devices in DFU mode and then perform a clean install on them, it’s what I did with my iPhone SE3, and what I plan to do with my M2 iPad Pro.

I’m all ears/eyes, let me know what’s your experience so far with your M2 device. And I’ll let you know how’s mine once I decide to upgrade my M2 iPad Pro.

Based on my experience so far with my iPhone SE 3, the only thing I’m not quite convinced about, is losing the flat design of iOS 18 in favor of this bulky transparent buttons of Liquid Glass, as the interface looks bigger and, yeah, bulkier, especially on Safari. But, well, I guess that’s inevitable at this point. Sooner or later we’ll have to cave into the Liquid Glass design, whether we like it or not…

Liquid Glass, I’m afraid, is here to stay at least until iOS 28. Because iOS 27 is a much needed under the hood refinement of the operating system, and iOS 28 will likely focus on LLM technology and maybe some new features… my bet is that, if Apple ends up making the interface a little bit more minimalist again (without going all-in flat design again), it will probably be by iOS 29 or 30.

So resisting this new design is pointless unless I want to have my devices outdated for years… Performance and battery life is all I should care about, and there are new fancy, useful features.

Would you make this jump of faith towards iPadOS 26.2, up from 18.7?

Thank you.

I don”t have an M2 iPad, but a family member has my previous M1 iPad Pro running iPadOS 26, and is running great on that. And I would definitely recommend upgrading to iPadOS 26. For use as a primary computer, there’s several improvements to things like multi-windowing, Files, etc. that make it nicer. I think you will like it! 👍🏻🙂

 

[Populus]

I don”t have an M2 iPad, but a family member has my previous M1 iPad Pro running iPadOS 26, and is running great on that. And I would definitely recommend upgrading to iPadOS 26. For use as a primary computer, there’s several improvements to things like multi-windowing, Files, etc. that make it nicer. I think you will like it! 👍🏻🙂

Oh, and the Preview app, finally! And the menu bar…

By the way, do you know anything about the “eject button” for external drives? Was it finally implemented?

 

[Kal Madda]

Oh, and the Preview app, finally! And the menu bar…

By the way, do you know anything about the “eject button” for external drives? Was it finally implemented?

Actually haven’t tested that out yet in the first beta for 26.3, will test it out and let you know. 🙂👍🏻

But yeah, they implemented the Menu Bar exactly the way I was hoping they would! 👍🏻. Love it! 👍🏻

 

[Kal Madda]

Oh, and the Preview app, finally! And the menu bar…

By the way, do you know anything about the “eject button” for external drives? Was it finally implemented?

Got a chance to test it out, still grayed out in the current beta.

 

[RLRabb]

Got a chance to test it out, still grayed out in the current beta.

I’m fairly certain that Eject command is just for servers, to replicate through the menus the functionality of having the “eject” glyph next to the server connection in the sidebar. I believe you are wasting your time waiting for it to be applied to external drives that are physically attached.

 

[Populus]

I’m fairly certain that Eject command is just for servers, to replicate through the menus the functionality of having the “eject” glyph next to the server connection in the sidebar. I believe you are wasting your time waiting for it to be applied to external drives that are physically attached.

I’m not wasting time, I’m just hoping for it to eventually get implemented. Until then, I’ll just be extra careful when unplugging my external SSDs.

 

[It’s always something]

Oh, and the Preview app, finally!

The Preview app still needs some work, like saving state especially.

 

[RLRabb]

I’m not wasting time, I’m just hoping for it to eventually get implemented. Until then, I’ll just be extra careful when unplugging my external SSDs.

Yes, “wasting time” was the wrong choice of words on my part.

 

[Kal Madda]

I’m fairly certain that Eject command is just for servers, to replicate through the menus the functionality of having the “eject” glyph next to the server connection in the sidebar. I believe you are wasting your time waiting for it to be applied to external drives that are physically attached.

Yeah, I think you’re probably right, it’s just that some have been hoping for Apple to add manual eject options for external drives, so that could be a way they implement it, just change that eject buttons behavior to work for both. I think eventually they could just add it in the sidebar too. Technically drives don’t need to be manually ejected from iPadOS, it’s just that some are used to it on Mac, and it would help add some extra confidence in it for those who are worried about improperly ejecting it causing issues. 🙂👍🏻

 

[I7guy]

iOS 26.2 runs great on my iPad Pro m1 11 inch. Apple Intelligence is turned on.

 

[Reverend Benny]

Same here, been running 26.2 now for about a week on my 11" M1 Pro 16gb version. Upgraded from 26.1 and its been great. Haven't been messing around with stage manager and the newer multitask features much tho, but it feels stable and much like iPadOS 18, just uglier. I don't use my iPad as much as my iPhone but it feels like iPadOS has less glitches than my phone has in terms of small annoying graphic bugs.
But maybe its a case of that I use my phone much more and therefore notice them.

 

[Populus]

Seeing that 26.2.1 is not as good (battery wise) as 26.2 on A15 devices, and the M2 is an A15 based SoC… I’ve decided to restore and perform a clean install on my M2 iPad Pro, the only device that remained into iPadOS 18.7, to 26.2, before Apple stops signing it.

Now I’m fully into the Liquid Glass experience!!!

With iPadOS 26 I guess I’m about to experience the biggest change in a recent Apple operating system…

 

[MarkC426]

Just updated my M2 IPP 12.9 to iPadOS 26.3…….wow I love it.
The floating apps option is nice, and the addition of the top menu bars adds so much more functionality similar to the Mac versions…. 😉
This makes me want to try connecting to one of my monitors to try it out.

 

[Populus]

Just updated my M2 IPP 12.9 to iPadOS 26.3…….wow I love it.
The floating apps option is nice, and the addition of the top menu bars adds so much more functionality similar to the Mac versions…. 😉
This makes me want to try connecting to one of my monitors to try it out.

Yeah, the menu bar is a nice addition, and it will be great once most app developers implement it fully. Maybe in two or three years time.

 

[FeliApple]

Yeah, the menu bar is a nice addition, and it will be great once most app developers implement it fully. Maybe in two or three years time.

Thoughts on the M2 on iPadOS 26? I have an M1 Air running iPadOS 15 so I’m curious.

How’s battery life? How does it run overall?

 

[BluefinTuna]

Thoughts on the M2 on iPadOS 26? I have an M1 Air running iPadOS 15 so I’m curious.

How’s battery life? How does it run overall?

It’s horrendous on my iPad Pro 12.9” M2 with 512GB of storage. It’s laggy and the battery life has gone down significantly. Don’t upgrade!

 

[Reverend Benny]

It’s horrendous on my iPad Pro 12.9” M2 with 512GB of storage. It’s laggy and the battery life has gone down significantly. Don’t upgrade!

What OS version?

 

[I7guy]

It’s horrendous on my iPad Pro 12.9” M2 with 512GB of storage. It’s laggy and the battery life has gone down significantly. Don’t upgrade!

Interesting it’s pretty stellar on my IPP M1 11 inch with Apple Intelligence enabled.

 

[Luuthian]

I’ve had no issues. I have the M2 iPad Pro 12.9” and it runs great. Battery life is generally the same even with a couple windows open. I only notice it draining faster if I push it with Discord, Youtube, and Safari, and more, all open at once. But even then it lasts for several hours and who sits on their iPad for five hours with no access to a charger?

The real issue is iOS26 just isn’t very refined. There’s small bugs and visual inconsistencies. Overall I’d say it’s a net positive for larger 13” iPad Pro or Air users despite that though. For 11” iPad owners? Unless you plug it out to a monitor I don’t think it’s a massive upgrade. The screen is just too small to truly use it like a simpler laptop.

All that said, there’s no real reason to put off an upgrade unless you are dead set in waiting for iOS 27. It works fine, with some steps forward and some back. If that sounds like it will frustrate you too much then either go to an Apple Store and play around a bit to see for yourself, or wait 8 months for the next iOS version to clean iOS26 issues up

Edit: Forgot to mention my wife uses an iPad Pro 11” M1 and it’s the same as above. Battery and performance are non issues. The only problems she’s had, and they are occasionally annoying but minor, are the quirks of the new OS itself.

 

[Kal Madda]

I’ve had no issues. I have the M2 iPad Pro 12.9” and it runs great. Battery life is generally the same even with a couple windows open. I only notice it draining faster if I push it with Discord, Youtube, and Safari, and more, all open at once. But even then it lasts for several hours and who sits on their iPad for five hours with no access to a charger?

The real issue is iOS26 just isn’t very refined. There’s small bugs and visual inconsistencies. Overall I’d say it’s a net positive for larger 13” iPad Pro or Air users despite that though. For 11” iPad owners? Unless you plug it out to a monitor I don’t think it’s a massive upgrade. The screen is just too small to truly use it like a simpler laptop.

All that said, there’s no real reason to put off an upgrade unless you are dead set in waiting for iOS 27. It works fine, with some steps forward and some back. If that sounds like it will frustrate you too much then either go to an Apple Store and play around a bit to see for yourself, or wait 8 months for the next iOS version to clean iOS26 issues up

Edit: Forgot to mention my wife uses an iPad Pro 11” M1 and it’s the same as above. Battery and performance are non issues. The only problems she’s had, and they are occasionally annoying but minor, are the quirks of the new OS itself.

So I may be in the minority, but I used an 11” M1 iPad Pro as my primary computer/laptop for about 4 years. I loved it, and generally found the display to be enough for most average things, but I did end up upgrading to the 13” M4. So I don’t know I would say the new changes are completely useless on an 11”. Though I would definitely recommend the “More Space” scaling option for multi-windowing. 🙂👍🏻

Oh, and PSA, if one of those quirks is files opening in Preview rather than Quick Look, there’s a solution. In Files, hold press a file of the file type you’re wanting to open in Quick Look by default. Select “Open With” from the context menu. In the popup for that, at the bottom is an option “Open With Quick Look”. I hope that may be helpful. That’s one of the confusing points I’ve seen people encountering the most often on iPadOS 26. 👍🏻

 

[Populus]

So I may be in the minority, but I used an 11” M1 iPad Pro as my primary computer/laptop for about 4 years. I loved it, and generally found the display to be enough for most average things, but I did end up upgrading to the 13” M4. So I don’t know I would say the new changes are completely useless on an 11”. Though I would definitely recommend the “More Space” scaling option for multi-windowing. 🙂👍🏻

Oh, and PSA, if one of those quirks is files opening in Preview rather than Quick Look, there’s a solution. In Files, hold press a file of the file type you’re wanting to open in Quick Look by default. Select “Open With” from the context menu. In the popup for that, at the bottom is an option “Open With Quick Look”. I hope that may be helpful. That’s one of the confusing points I’ve seen people encountering the most often on iPadOS 26. 👍🏻

Yes, but I’m not sure if it’s folder-specific. I mean, I enabled it on a finder folder and then when I opened another file from another folder, it opened on Preview…

Maybe it was a different type of file…

 

[Kal Madda]

Yes, but I’m not sure if it’s folder-specific. I mean, I enabled it on a finder folder and then when I opened another file from another folder, it opened on Preview…

Maybe it was a different type of file…

Yeah, it’s just for that file type. So if you want to open images with Quick Look by default, you can choose Quick Look, but then you can still open PDFs in Preview. Defaults are set independently like on macOS, only iPadOS also has the option to set Quick Look as default for a file type, where macOS doesn’t have that option. 🙂👍🏻