iPad as a laptop replacement

[richpjr]

I mean when you listen music or a podcast episode and just want to click a video on Safari. When you do that the music or podcast will automatically stop in the background and you have to manually go back to the app tops play again. This is something I never understood why they do this for mobile devices when computer can handle this since forever. For me, it's completely against productivity as I often listen live radio and want to watch some video without the need to actually listen it. Also, with this current state, the background audio will occasionally stop when visiting some random websites or opening certain apps.

So for me, this alone is a major dealbreaker to use my iPad as my main computer.

Still broken in the new version...

 

[bondr006]

I install it because I have a spare iPad so its almost no risk at all to do it. I say almost because there's always a tiny chance the update brick the device (ipadOS 18 on M4 pro last year) but other than that, the worse thing that could happen is just wiping it and go back to iPadOS 18.

The thing I'll never understand is people installing early beta on their main phones. I mean...I rely too much on my phone for taking the risk of installing a dev beta on it and potentially have problem with receiving calls and such like it frequently happened over the years. But like I've said, if you have any spare device laying around, there's no reason why you shouldn't try it.

Well, I have an iPad 9th gen., but it's not set up to do the things I do with my M1 iPad Pro, which is the iPad I badly want to put it on. I use my iPad Pro for my real estate and property management business and would be screwed without it...for I have no laptop.

 

[bondr006]

The lack of a true simultaneous audio and the absence of clamshell mode when connected to an external monitor stop me for using my iPad as a true full ledge computer replacement. But yeah, for what I see, the improvements for windows and files are noticeable. Also, the addition of the journal and phone app is a nice add on I didn't see coming.

What do you mean by simultaneous audio?

I mean when you listen music or a podcast episode and just want to click a video on Safari. When you do that the music or podcast will automatically stop in the background and you have to manually go back to the app tops play again. This is something I never understood why they do this for mobile devices when computer can handle this since forever. For me, it's completely against productivity as I often listen live radio and want to watch some video without the need to actually listen it. Also, with this current state, the background audio will occasionally stop when visiting some random websites or opening certain apps.

So for me, this alone is a major dealbreaker to use my iPad as my main computer.

This is no issue for me. I never listen to more than one audio source at a time, even on my desktop. If I ever wanted to, I always have my iPhone or iPad, so with 3 devices, I can always listen to multiple audio sources in the unlikely event I need to.

 

[Webcat86]

This is no issue for me. I never listen to more than one audio source at a time, even on my desktop. If I ever wanted to, I always have my iPhone or iPad, so with 3 devices, I can always listen to multiple audio sources in the unlikely event I need to.

I suspect it's a non-issue for the overwhelming majority of people. Listening to multiple sources of audio at the same time? The only time this can be much of an issue is if you're watching a video on mute while listening to music, or something like that. And I've never had a need to try that on my iPad.

 

[Kal Madda]

I suspect it's a non-issue for the overwhelming majority of people. Listening to multiple sources of audio at the same time? The only time this can be much of an issue is if you're watching a video on mute while listening to music, or something like that. And I've never had a need to try that on my iPad.

Yeah, and you could always play music on your iPhone while playing other audio on the iPad. 👍🏻

 

[Webcat86]

Yeah, and you could always play music on your iPhone while playing other audio on the iPad. 👍🏻

The idea of this being a dealbreaker is absurd

 

[Ludatyk]

I suspect it's a non-issue for the overwhelming majority of people. Listening to multiple sources of audio at the same time? The only time this can be much of an issue is if you're watching a video on mute while listening to music, or something like that. And I've never had a need to try that on my iPad.

I agree, that it's not a highly demand feature for majority of folks. But I use it quite a bit on my Galaxy Fold... I'd have Youtube video for some tutorial (muted) while music/podcast plays in the background.

Or using splitscreen multitasking... watching some sporting event on YT TV while having some movie or tv show play as well.

The idea of this being a dealbreaker is absurd

Yeah, then they mask it with productivity... using some example of listening to radio and watching video. I'm not sure how that has something to do with productivity lol.

 

[Webcat86]

I agree, that it's not a highly demand feature for majority of folks. But I use it quite a bit on my Galaxy Fold... I'd have Youtube video for some tutorial (muted) while music/podcast plays in the background.

Or using splitscreen multitasking... watching some sporting event on YT TV while having some movie or tv show play as well.


Yeah, then they mask it with productivity... using some example of listening to radio and watching video. I'm not sure how that has something to do with productivity lol.

Yeah having something on mute I can understand. But that has to be a pretty niche use case I’d have thought

 

[Kal Madda]

Yeah having something on mute I can understand. But that has to be a pretty niche use case I’d have thought

Yeah, and another thing we should remember is Apple could always decide to add something minor like that later in the update cycle. With how niche this seems, I wouldn’t be shocked if Apple didn’t announce it at WWDC even if they intended to incorporate it at some point. We’re on the first beta, a change like that could basically turn up at any time unannounced. 👍🏻

 

[Ludatyk]

Oh yeah, I have to go ahead and admit... this liquid glass design from Apple is so impressive! It's crazy how light reflects on the apps!

Yeah having something on mute I can understand. But that has to be a pretty niche use case I’d have thought

Certainly true, that's why it's not enabled by default for Samsung Galaxy devices. I'd have to go into the Galaxy Store and download Sound Assistant in order to use the feature. Heck, Android hasn't adopted simultaneous audio stream yet.

 

[Kal Madda]

Oh yeah, I have to go ahead and admit... this liquid glass design from Apple is so impressive! It's crazy how light reflects on the apps!


Certainly true, that's why it's not enabled by default for Samsung Galaxy devices. I'd have to go into the Galaxy Store and download Sound Assistant in order to use the feature. Heck, Android hasn't adopted simultaneous audio stream yet.

Yeah, I’m really liking the new liquid glass design! And they absolutely nailed the light reflections! It adds a new look without completely removing any traces of familiarity, I think it strikes a great balance for a redesign. 👍🏻. I also like that Control Center no longer blurs the entire display when using it, it just pops down as a smaller menu exactly like on macOS, keeping your workspace visible! 👍🏻

 

[Ludatyk]

I also like that Control Center no longer blurs the entire display when using it, it just pops down as a smaller menu exactly like on macOS, keeping your workspace visible! 👍🏻

Have you checked to see if you can enable the Control Center on the external display… I recall it was a minor annoyance for you?

 

[Kal Madda]

I really like the multi-windowing implementation on iPadOS 26 as well. It’s hard to describe, but it’s like it perfectly mixes both Freeform windowing and the prior snapping behavior I liked with Stage Manager. When I’m really close to an app window being centered or aligned, it can kind of snap into alignment or center position. But then if I grab it and pull it around, I can position it anywhere on the screen, including partially off-screen (don’t know why anyone would want to do that, but it’s an option). It absolutely perfectly balances both styles, I can still precisely align and center my app windows, and others can move app windows wherever they want in whatever chaotic (to my sensibilities, lol) way that they want! It’s a win win for everyone! That and the fact it’s on by default, and built into iPadOS on every device that runs iPadOS 26, it really makes a big difference. Also, we can now add however many app windows we want in a Stage with Stage Manager, something I don’t know I particularly want to do myself, but something I was hoping they would add! 👍🏻. The new multi-windowing system is so awesome! 👍🏻

 

[Kal Madda]

Have you checked to see if you can enable the Control Center on the external display… I recall it was a minor annoyance for you?

Thanks for asking. 👍🏻 I checked, and sadly it still doesn’t seem to show up on the external display, but also seems like that aspect may still be under work, because I noticed it formed a little gray block when I clicked there on the monitor, so maybe they’re working on that? Would be great, but it isn’t a big deal if they don’t, I’ve largely gotten used to it, and I usually have my iPad positioned within easy reach since I’m using the Magic Keyboard Case to control the setup. 👍🏻.

 

[RLRabb]

I wrote this on another thread, but will ask here as well:
I have a question for the beta users: if I want to keep certain apps bundled together in a single space/stage (for example, Mail, Calendar, and Messages), with no other apps in that stage/space, and have those apps come up together when I tap any of those icons in the dock, do I still need Stage Manager turned on? It seems from the description in the Settings app that if you want more than one work space to keep persistent apps grouped together, Stage Manager needs to be enabled.

 

[Webcat86]

I really like the multi-windowing implementation on iPadOS 26 as well. It’s hard to describe, but it’s like it perfectly mixes both Freeform windowing and the prior snapping behavior I liked with Stage Manager. When I’m really close to an app window being centered or aligned, it can kind of snap into alignment or center position. But then if I grab it and pull it around, I can position it anywhere on the screen, including partially off-screen (don’t know why anyone would want to do that, but it’s an option). It absolutely perfectly balances both styles, I can still precisely align and center my app windows, and others can move app windows wherever they want in whatever chaotic (to my sensibilities, lol) way that they want! It’s a win win for everyone! That and the fact it’s on by default, and built into iPadOS on every device that runs iPadOS 26, it really makes a big difference. Also, we can now add however many app windows we want in a Stage with Stage Manager, something I don’t know I particularly want to do myself, but something I was hoping they would add! 👍🏻. The new multi-windowing system is so awesome! 👍🏻

This is great to hear. I never really got to grips with SM and just used it to resize windows. But it does make me wonder how all iPad variants can do this multitasking but SM was restricted to specific ones.

 

[Ludatyk]

I wrote this on another thread, but will ask here as well:
I have a question for the beta users: if I want to keep certain apps bundled together in a single space/stage (for example, Mail, Calendar, and Messages), with no other apps in that stage/space, and have those apps come up together when I tap any of those icons in the dock, do I still need Stage Manager turned on? It seems from the description in the Settings app that if you want more than one work space to keep persistent apps grouped together, Stage Manager needs to be enabled.

Well, Apple made changes in iPadOS 26 for multitasking… there’s Stage Manager that we all have been accustomed to for these past few years and the introduction of new windowing system.

So, you don’t necessarily have to use Stage Manager… you can use the new multitasking system.

 

[Kal Madda]

I wrote this on another thread, but will ask here as well:
I have a question for the beta users: if I want to keep certain apps bundled together in a single space/stage (for example, Mail, Calendar, and Messages), with no other apps in that stage/space, and have those apps come up together when I tap any of those icons in the dock, do I still need Stage Manager turned on? It seems from the description in the Settings app that if you want more than one work space to keep persistent apps grouped together, Stage Manager needs to be enabled.

I have Stage Manager enabled, but I did briefly tinker with Stage Manager turned off. I believe the only way to keep multiple persistent workspaces is Stage Manager, but the windows and everything behaves exactly the same with Stage Manager as without it, minus the window grouping. And Stage Manager no longer has a four app window limit, so you can group as many apps into a stage as you want. I can specifically test it out more later and see if what you’re describing works, but I don’t think it does without Stage Manager.

 

[RLRabb]

Well, Apple made changes in iPadOS 26 for multitasking… there’s Stage Manager that we all have been accustomed to for these past few years and the introduction of new windowing system.

So, you don’t necessarily have to use Stage Manager… you can use the new multitasking system.

Edit: Kal seems to have answered my question. I figured that was probably how it would work. And I'm OK with that, as I've been using Stage Manager without any real issues for several years now.

 

[richpjr]

I suspect it's a non-issue for the overwhelming majority of people. Listening to multiple sources of audio at the same time? The only time this can be much of an issue is if you're watching a video on mute while listening to music, or something like that. And I've never had a need to try that on my iPad.

Listening to music while browsing the web and having a site start playing a video and pausing music is where I run into it most.

 

[Ludatyk]

I have Stage Manager enabled, but I did briefly tinker with Stage Manager turned off. I believe the only way to keep multiple persistent workspaces is Stage Manager, but the windows and everything behaves exactly the same with Stage Manager as without it, minus the window grouping. And Stage Manager no longer has a four app window limit, so you can group as many apps into a stage as you want. I can specifically test it out more later and see if what you’re describing works, but I don’t think it does without Stage Manager.

And I think those that like Stage Manager will continue to use it, but the new multitasking will cater to those who came from macOS and Windows environment.

It’s kind of wild though… Apple brought along this new multitasking system and removed the pre-existing multitasking that has existed on the iPad for almost a decade (SplitView/SlideOver).

Listening to music while browsing the web and having a site start playing a video and pausing music is where I run into it most.

Folks bring this up… but I don’t find myself experiencing this, perhaps because I have some Adblock installed.

 

[xxFoxtail]

Anyone else considering selling their Mac now? My MacBook Air is already very rarely used (mostly just booted it up to mirror my iPhone for journaling with a proper keyboard, I guess I don't really need to do that anymore). I don’t really see myself doing much more than I could do on iPadOS 18, but just having these new multitasking options makes the iPad a much better product in my opinion. I know its still no where as capable as a Mac, but it's been more than enough for me for the last ten years already.

 

[Systra72]

Did any of MacOS new Spotlight features follow to iPadOS Search?

 

[Kal Madda]

Did any of MacOS new Spotlight features follow to iPadOS Search?

Not yet in the beta, but I’m unclear as to whether they are coming to iPadOS or not. I’m hoping so, because some of those improvements would make a lot of sense for iPadOS, like the system clipboard manager. 👍🏻

 

[JamesMay82]

I think the new previews look great and that it will be shaping up to be a true laptop replacement.

For me we need better support from Microsoft on office 365 as that is very poor. Also the music app can't import music without a Mac... I wish it could be more of standalone device.. same with photos