I am running it on a basic iPad 9th Gen. Its been just fine not sure why it has been so unstable for you. Besides the divisive UI changes ( Not a huge fan and I agree feels dated and amateur) The windowed mode is an absolute game changer. It's the biggest change since the first ever iPad OS. This is what it needed to make this a more useful device. I am on Beta 3 now. Regarding performance it has been getting better with each one. I am using it for daily use no problem and find it very stable.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Genuinely surprised at how weak iPadOS 26 is
- Thread starter woolypants
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
The trackpad gestures are an absolute **** show with multitasking enabled, I don’t think they’ll get it right for another entire OS or two, if they actually make changes.
They need a toggle for 3 (or 4) finger drag even if they bury it in accessibility options. I like the OS overall, new UI is good in places like Photos, Mail (really like this), and elsewhere but it’s actually faster to use full screen mode and swipe rapidly vs. the windowing system.
It’s the right direction but I will probably sit out yet another round of iPad updates and wait until iPadOS27 to get the M6 or whatever they come out with once a ~15” borderless iPad which surely must be coming releases.
They need a toggle for 3 (or 4) finger drag even if they bury it in accessibility options. I like the OS overall, new UI is good in places like Photos, Mail (really like this), and elsewhere but it’s actually faster to use full screen mode and swipe rapidly vs. the windowing system.
It’s the right direction but I will probably sit out yet another round of iPad updates and wait until iPadOS27 to get the M6 or whatever they come out with once a ~15” borderless iPad which surely must be coming releases.
You mean this one??
Attachments
Try using a 13" iPad Pro on a Magic Keyboard case for a day and let me know if your opinion is still the same. I recently went on a trip and didn't even take a laptop because I knew I could do everything from my iPad. That's a game changer in my opinion.
I believe those are the menus you get when in Windows option, which I don’t use. But even without Windows, the icon in my screenshot at the top right of the screen when in Files gives you a select all option.
Attachments
I do actually agree. I really missed skeuomorphism when it went and although I adapted my tastes, and admired the bold choices that Ive had made in terms of colours, my feelings never really went away.
I remember teaching my 80 year-old mother how to send a photo she had just taken to my sister. Rather than teach her, I asked her which of the buttons she thought would do the job.
"Is it the one with the arrow going out of the box?" she asked.
And honestly, I was so pleased. THAT is good UI design. That made sense, right? Something being sent out of a box. A photo being sent OUT of the iPhone.
She worked it out by herself. Yes, it's skeurmorphic. But it worked.
Not long after, Apple flattened everything and stylised it. Still an arrow going out of a box, but it's now diagrammatic in nature, rather than realistic. It's figurative rather than realistic. It's the equivalent of a floppy disk icon for "save" amongst the younger generation who've never seen a floppy disk in their lives. It's a symbol. It's not literal.
But does the glass UI get back to this? No! And there's no intention to do so. Apple is just changing things because they felt they had to. I think it was Daring Fireball's Gruber who predicted this. They would go hard on UI changes because Apple Intelligence, which they would've gone hard on, had failed to materialise. And I guess that plan worked because here we are talking about glass UI rather than moaning about Apple Intelligence being weak.
Is Microsoft Office for iPad/iOS any better nowadays? It was laughably bad when I tried to switch to an iPad Air M1 for my daily driver around three years ago. I remember opening a large doc in Word and it just slowing to a crawl, watching as the screen redrew itself and the cursor lagged behind my typing. And Excel was literally hilarious. I think some formulae weren't even an option.
I also missed things that Apple do not consider legit, such as the ability to download torrents, or playing back MKV files. Accessing our NAS was also painful. These are kinda edge cases, but also kinda mainstream use cases.
It drives me mad how people have weaponised the 🤣 emoji. It's just such a dumb way to point out you're an idiot whose only response is to laugh at somebody else's opinion, or at something you simply dislike, to try and undermine its validity. If people do any of this in real life, without actually engaging with the person, we consider them to be subnormal.
Interesting. I was actually considering possibly going to an air from my mini 6 to get more windowing space. The mini 6 does a great job with the OS26 style windowing though, and I decided against it.
The iPad Air 13in is probably the minimum for actual work. The smaller sizes are best for casual use, or just media/games.
The Mini 6 does excel in games and casual browsing, but I’ve been using it as a Chromebook replacement for two years and as a digital notebook for one year for my school work. I’ve typed papers with external and the on screen keyboard. I’ve done 95% of building slideshows (no transition support from Google on mobile devices).I’ve done general school assignment work. The old windowing system made this difficult and taxing at times, which was why I supplemented it with a desktop Mac, but running the new beta and trying some of the same workflow suggested that I’ll be using the Mac less. It’s easier to handle big multitasking now. The extra screen real estate of an Air would be a plus, but then I’d lose the ultra portability. I often put the mini in my pant’s pocket going between classes.
Agree totally. It's most often used for nefarious reasons as opposed to genuinely laughing with someone or honestly finding their post humorous.
Unfortunately, I think it's part of a larger problem. The rise of "Main Character Syndrome" leads a lot of people to not only believe that their views are superior to everyone else's, but that those differing opinions need to be ridiculed. I have started to feel like an old man yelling at clouds, but people really need to learn that the world is made up of a lot of different viewpoints. It's ok to disagree with others, but do so respectfully. I don't agree with OP's original statements about iPad OS 26, but that doesn't mean my thoughts on it are better...just different.
IDK. I interpreted the post as being more about most of the new "features" constituting "change for the sake of change" rather than wanting "transformative" changes.
I'm old-fashioned in that I value more of a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach, especially when it comes to things I interact on a regular basis, so I understand the OP's complaint.
I agree. I want my electronics to be stable and reliable – the less time I have to spend dealing with unnecessary changes the better.
This used to be something of a strength with Apple products in general.
(it's been a minute on that, I'll admit)
I use plenty of MKV videos and regularly interface with my NAS through multiple apps without any issues.
The key word here is unnecessary. A lot of people feel strongly that some of these changes were very necessary to make their iPad more useful.
Fair enough – but the backlash seems to most strongly be targeted at Liquid Glass, and I’m very skeptical that improves usefulness.
Agree. UI improvements, while nice, are about as useful to me as the never ending new emoji's that they keep adding.
Didn’t someone earlier in this very thread point out all the ways one can “select all”?
If not, or if you don’t want to find it, I literally clicked one button and then this popped up:
Attachments
The switch to a proper curser is enough for me to update when the public beta comes out.