My 11“ MacBook Air got me through most of my college courses. It was a fantastic laptop!
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The iPad Just Got a Lot More Like a Mac Thanks to These 20+ New Features
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That is disappointing to hear. I don’t understand why they would do this and hope they bring it back! Please provide feedback to Apple.
What!??
That's one of the few multi-tasking things I actually use on my iPad Mini
These are great enhancements to iPadOS and does bring iPadOS closer to macOS, but more optimized for the iPad!
With iPadOS 26, Apple is moving the iPad closer to the Mac than ever before with a host of productivity and multitasking improvements.
Here's everything Apple today announced for the iPad that's set to make the device more Mac-like:
- App windows on iPad can now be freely resized.
- Multiple windows can be open at once, including multiple instances of the same app.
- Windows can be snapped into halves, thirds, or quarters using new tiling gestures.
- Each window has red, yellow, and green traffic-light controls for closing, minimizing, and maximizing.
- Apps remember their window size and position when reopened.
- On external displays, app windows remember their layout.
- A swipe-up Exposé gesture reveals all open windows, similar to Mission Control on Mac.
- A new menu bar appears on swipe or cursor hover, giving access to app commands like on Mac.
- Third-party apps can implement their own menu bar options.
- Users can search for commands in the menu bar.
- The cursor is now a true pointer, rather than a morphing circle.
- Cursor interactions on iPad now match the behavior and precision found on macOS.
- The Files app now features resizable columns and collapsible folders.
- Folders in the Files app can be customized with colors, icons, and emoji.
- Users can assign a default app for opening each file type.
- Folders can be dragged into the Dock for quick access, like Finder stacks in the macOS Dock.
- The Preview app, long a macOS staple, is now available on iPad for PDF and image editing.
- Background Tasks allow long-running operations to continue while using other apps.
- Users can choose different microphones for each app or website, reflecting macOS input/output controls.
- Audio and video from video calls can be captured locally in high quality.
- Notes can now be exported as Markdown files.
The line between the iPad and the Mac is now more blurred than ever. Do you think these new features are enough to enhance the iPad? Let us know in the comments.
Article Link: The iPad Just Got a Lot More Like a Mac Thanks to These 20+ New Features
iPadOS is macOS optimized for the iPad. Android UX is a joke and Apple did not copy it.
Put macOS on an iPad then people would complain it's too complicated.
Files is more optimized for the iPad and feels more like a port of Finder, so finder is not needed. The traditional desktop is also not really needed either.
It’s still not “macOS”.
Which, everyone else knew it wouldn’t be when the rumors came out that it’d be “more like macOS”.
I never used third-party apps for reading PDF since the Files app was added that included Preview in the application.
I asked myself this and tried my first developer beta on my mini 6 tonight. I did a series of things that I would typically do on my Mac only, things that i could do on both but are easier on the mac if I'm not on on the go, and things that I would typically do on the iPad anyways. So far, the answer is still no, but a weaker no than before. In the past, I would put off some tasks till I got home to my Mac Mini M4 just because i needed more than split screen and slide over. Now, those things would be possible with the iPad. However, I still can't handle external drives like I want and external displays still act like a mirror instead of letting me push an app over to just the external. We're closer but not all the way there for me. Productivity is definitely way up while i'm on the go though.
I used it all the time on my mini as well, but it really wouldn't fit with the new window management. It's a trade off for being able to have 4 automatically sized windows on the screen or 6 if you manually shrink and place them as tight as possible. I think it's a good trade off, but they should've included the old way as part of the Full screen Apps only option.
You mean, sliding across the screen to switch between apps? That is still there, just the little bar indicator is not.
I don't think that Files is a replacement for a proper desktop. Without Finder, iPad is still a very limited device as the only place you can store files is Files, which itself is very strange app. It is not Finder, not a desktop but just like a garbage bin everyone throws things into.
I think that make sense, since they applied window mode to all iPad now. Maybe they want to replace the two app side by side multitasking with this new window multitasking system.
You can slide between full-screen apps, as well as drag multiple apps on top of each other to quickly and simply initiate split-screen multitasking, on macOS. And you could do it before on iPadOS. I don’t know why they got rid of both of these features in the iPad’s new advanced multitasking system.
That + the loss of Slide Over actually make this new version less optimal for my use cases… I do appreciate the menu bar options and the stoplight controls, though.
That + the loss of Slide Over actually make this new version less optimal for my use cases… I do appreciate the menu bar options and the stoplight controls, though.
If anything the Files app is a wrapper around what would be a Documents folder on a Mac, I reckon 🤷♂️
Is it still there? I am not able to slide between iPads on my M4 iPad Pro (unless I specifically choose the hobbled single-app mode) on iPadOS 26.
Well I do know that it is an equivalent file management app for iPadOS. It has all the same organization functions like Finder on macOS. What it does not have is what people do not need to do with Finder is accessing or monkeying with system locations.
Having Finder does not mean system libraries can be easily accessed. These are two different things
Slide between iPads?
I meant slide to switch apps is there - thought the bar which indicates that you can slide has not been removed.
A kind reminder that iPad DOES have a keyboard and mouse accessory. Yes you have to buy it but it’s there.
macOS will never happen as long as Apple continues the path of infinitely closing the gap between macOS and iPadOS without crossing the line. In fact, expect macOS to become iPadOS than the other way around.
It’s more likely that Apple will ditch macOS and install iPadOS on future Mac at some point, just disable touch support but keep everything as-is. Apple will never bring macOS to iPad but can and might bring iPadOS to Mac and deprecate macOS. Go figure.
Action speaks for themselves.
Yes because at its core iPadOS is STILL iOS with a fancy customised interface for iPad bigger screen and that’s about it. I’d argue macOS being replaced by iPadOS is probably more likely than iPadOS on iPad being replaced by macOS.