Its been a year since iPadOS 26 launched, Here's my thoughts

There are two kinds of iPad owners: the ones who gave up years ago and treat the thing as a fancy Netflix machine, and the stubborn ones like me who kept insisting it could be a real computer

Wes Brennan ·May 30, 2026·5 min read

There are two kinds of iPad owners: the ones who gave up years ago and treat the thing as a fancy Netflix machine, and the stubborn ones like me who kept insisting it could be a real computer if Apple would just let it. For about a decade, the stubborn camp looked a little delusional. Then iPadOS 26 showed up.

I've been running it on my iPad Pro since the first beta dropped last summer, and a full year later I have a lot of thoughts. The short version: this is the biggest leap the iPad has ever taken in software, and I love using it now. The longer version is that I still keep a Mac within arm's reach, and there are days I'm glad I do.

Let me walk you through both sides.

The stuff that finally clicked

It only took fifteen years, but Apple finally gave the iPad real window management, and honestly it changed how I work.

I can grab a window, drag it wherever I want, and size it however makes sense. I keep a couple of apps running close to fullscreen, then park the lighter stuff as little popovers on the left or right. It's the kind of flexibility I had basically given up hoping for on an iPad.

My favorite trick, though, is keeping the dock visible all the time, just like on a Mac. There's a setting for it, and as long as your windows stay off the very bottom of the screen, the dock just stays put. I never realized how much I missed having my apps one tap away until I had it back. You can cram more into the dock than before too, folders included, and personally I take that to the extreme.

Then there's Files. Paired with the new Preview app, managing documents on the iPad finally feels about as good as it does on the Mac. That sentence would have been a punchline a couple of years ago.

I'm a fan of the menu bar too, even if I wish Apple would lean into it harder and make it behave more like the one on macOS. As is, it's a handy way to dig into an app's features without hunting around. And while it has nothing to do with getting work done, having the Journal app on my iPad has been a quiet little joy. I open it almost every day.

For the first time, the software underneath my iPad actually feels worthy of the hardware. That's a big deal.

Where it still makes me grab my Mac

When you use your iPad as your only computer, you find every crack.

Apple loves to talk up "persistent size and placement," the idea that your windows stay exactly where and how you left them. And usually they do. But pretty much every day, or at least every other day, some app crashes and snaps itself back to fullscreen, and I have to set the whole thing up again. I could forgive that on some wheezing old tablet. I'm running one of the most powerful iPads money can buy, with 16GB of RAM and an M5 chip inside. My Mac just doesn't do this, or if it does, nowhere near as often.

Slide Over is my other sore spot. I was thrilled when Apple brought it back in iPadOS 26.1, I really was. But I still can't stack multiple apps in Slide Over the way I could on iPadOS 18. For an update that pushes the iPad forward in almost every direction, going backward on this one stings.

I could keep going, but you get the idea, and I'm sure you've got your own list. To be fair, the Mac isn't flawless here either. Plenty of folks aren't exactly in love with macOS Tahoe.

So, is it worth it?

Absolutely. Even with the gripes, iPadOS 26 is a massive step forward, and more importantly it's a foundation Apple can keep building on. The iPad has never felt this close to replacing a real computer for me.

I do have questions about where all of this goes, especially with foldable iPhones on the horizon and rumors about touchscreen Macs muddying the waters. But the amount of work Apple poured into iPadOS this year tells me they haven't given up on the thing. I haven't either.

So here's hoping iPadOS 27 keeps the momentum going. Fix the window crashes and give me real Slide Over back, Apple, and I might finally leave the Mac in the drawer.

My Favorite iPhone Accessories:

My Favorite Mac Accessories:

My Favorite iPad Accessories:

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