iPadOS 26 is an Absolute Mess

[Mrbiggestman]

Yes to resizing diagonally. Yes to going to titlebar and hitting the green circle to exit fullscreen mode. No to resizing a fullscreen window without first exiting fullscreen mode.

Is the corner resizing in fullscreen mode or not?
For the title bar, you aren’t going to the traffic light navigation. You just press and hold and swipe down on the title bar to exit fullscreen mode. I still think multitasking on ipad is a way easier experience than that on a mac. Like just not having the windowing resizing when a video is in fullscreen view will be compromise for me getting a macbook in the future. Its like 10x better than PiP mode.

 

[RLRabb]

Is the corner resizing in fullscreen mode or not?
For the title bar, you aren’t going to the traffic light navigation. You just press and hold and swipe down on the title bar to exit fullscreen mode. I still think multitasking on ipad is a way easier experience than that on a mac.

You keep moving the goalposts. I'm no longer interested.

 

[JTK Awesome]

I don’t mean bugs. I expect bugs in a beta.

I mean the UX is a hot mess.

The entire multitasking system is now so convoluted and cumbersome that I am truly worried about how on Earth this was approved. I guarantee the people working on these systems did not want them to go live – this reeks of c-suite pushing things live to appease shareholders and stock analysts.

I really hope some on the leadership team are able to steer the ship back to reliability and ease-of-use focused UX.

This is not a “Jobs would never have done this” kind of post. This is a frustration post at how far Apple has strayed from the values which made them one of the top players in tech - those values, and the products they drive were not built my one man.

I think Apple jumped the shark. Time to repair this breaking organization and get back to fundamentals.

Customer experience, reliability, usability, and functionality.

Edit: I’ve asked the mods for the post to be deleted. I don’t know if they will, but I’m done.
Check my replies below if you like. This was a simple vent/rant that’s turned way too ugly for my liking.
Take care.

I honestly never understood the hate for the old Split-View and slide-over. It worked perfectly well for an iPad-sized screen and an iPad OS.

This current “more Mac like” UX can go in the same compost heap as Stage Manager. I think it was Daring Fireball that said “Let the iPad be an iPad; Let the Mac be a Mac.”

Mac OS’ Expose and Spaces were peak UX IMO. I’d welcome a better iPadOS implementation of that.

PS: I haven’t opened my newly arrived iPP yet. Strongly considering returning it for a basic MacBook, if this is really where the iPad’s OS is going.

 

[Ludatyk]

I honestly never understood the hate for the old Split-View and slide-over. It worked perfectly well for an iPad-sized screen and an iPad OS.

Never was any hate toward pre-existing multitasking (SplitView/SlideOver), but users wanted more control in how they used the iPad. Being limited to only two apps displayed on the iPad was an issue.

This current “more Mac like” UX can go in the same compost heap as Stage Manager. I think it was Daring Fireball that said “Let the iPad be an iPad; Let the Mac be a Mac.”

And this still exist currently under iPadOS 26... users are able to use the iPad in Full Screen mode, like a traditional tablet.

Mac OS’ Expose and Spaces were peak UX IMO. I’d welcome a better iPadOS implementation of that.

Actually there is something similar to macOS Expose under Windows Mode... if you have tons of apps open when you swipe up, you get all your windows arranged in one view.

And Spaces is part of Recent App area under Stage Manager... so there's bits and pieces of macOS added to iPadOS.

 

[Mrbiggestman]

This current “more Mac like” UX can go in the same compost heap as Stage Manager. I think it was Daring Fireball that said “Let the iPad be an iPad; Let the Mac be a Mac.”

Interesting, because its also in the same sense that Apple brought up the idea of the ipad being a computer in the ‘what is a computer?’ advert.

 

[thadoggfather]

26.1 PB4 feels way nicer than 26.0 on my mini 7

Still staying on non beta path for my iPhone 17 pro since it’s been fine

But it feels like it’s being tuned like it should thankfully

It’s a notable improvement after 10 min of using it

 

[transmaster]

Just one of the irritations with iPadOS 26’s page rendering.

 

[transmaster]

With just one page one this is what it looks like.

 

[bcortens]

Take a screenshot -> look at screenshot in the Photos app -> sadness

 

[Homme]

It feels like OS26 is Apple's Windows 8. I pray that I don't get pandered with update prompts and accidentally fat finger a button will upgrade my devices. OS26 has protential but it needs alot of work.

View attachment 2549743

even if OS 26 is like Windows 8 in ways the main difference is we get major updates every year compared to Windows and people are more used to this than ever before

But even then iPadOS 18 wasn’t a Windows 7 moment ( that title goes to iOS 9 for A5/A5X Devices because iOS 8 was like Vista for them lol)

“
Keeping one of my iPads on iOS 18 and also my older Apple box doesn’t get update anyway

Which Apple TV Box do you have… because even the TV HD with that Ancient A8 SoC gets tvOS 26 just without Liquid Glass

Reflecting back, iPados 18 was so good. You don’t appreciate things enough ‘till you lose them.

iPadOS 18 would have been better if the A10 X iPad Pros gotten it.

iPadOS 18 is absolutely beautiful on my 11th-gen iPad. Battery efficiency as good as 32-bit iPads, great standby battery life, Split View and slide over, great OS design

I absolutely love it.

Yeah Nah I wouldn’t go that far as to compare battery efficiency as great as 32 bit iPads ( especially A5X)

This is so sad. I have the 11th-gen iPad A16 on iPadOS 18 and it is completely perfect in every way, including screen-on (26 hours of SOT with light use) and standby (barely drops, a welcome change from my very poor Air 5 on iPadOS 15).

To see that iPadOS 26 killed it after barely six months is abhorrent.

How many hours of battery life are you getting? Can you share a screenshot? Also, in what way is performance poor?

Performance is poor on that users part over time is due to how Apple designed the A16 when it comes to how it handles battery life etc

most if not all of the technology in A17 Pro was supposed to be in the A16 back when it was developed but because hardware acceleration/ray tracing couldn’t work in its 5nm ( according to TSMC) 4nm (according to Apple) Apple had to do drastic changes to the Chip which I believe drastically affected its handling of battery. The A15 is perfect when it comes to battery life in all devices ( even SE 2022) but A16 kills the 14 Pros 500 cycle count quicker than just about every iPhone before the 15 lineup and while the 15’s have 1000 cycle count the 15 ( also possibly due to the materials it was made in) handled this pressure better than the 14 Pro because the battery swells very quickly once battery goes past 80%.

The iPad 11 may have more thermals and breathing room than its other A16 siblings ( and one less CPU Core to add) which helps it in the short and long term run but it also having information about battery health helps

As I said over in the other thread this is what you get when you confine major OS updates to being released at roughly the same time every year, rather than when they are actually ready. I wonder how much crunch was used to get something out now, and that’s why it’s a mess.

Even if your right, Apple has implemented this all year around since even before iPhone was iPhone with MacOS with the cat names.

And all major software updates released in September is a necessity. That’s part of why Android sucker big time back then thanks to Telecom Providers having to fine tune software for bloated stuff

Has typing got worse on iPadOS 26?

Anecdotally I seem to be making a lot more errors typing using the onscreen keyboard. Both spelling and weird stuff where wordsjumble all together (that was deliberate), spelling a word correctly but then autocorrect changing it to a completely different one, words missed out, the OS missing a space bar press, punctuation errors etc.

It’s very hard to specifically quantify but my accuracy really seems to have dropped after the 26 install. This could just be me so reaching out to see if anyone else has experienced the same?

Possible reasons why it might not be my fault: They’ve changed the spacing on the keyboard so I’m missing keys. They’ve completely screwed the pooch on the background processing for typing. They’ve changed the prediction model. Because of a bug(s) processing is a lot slower and it’s just not keeping up with my typing.

Here’s proof that those iPhone typos you keep making aren't your fault

iOS 26 seems to have broken one of the most fundamental parts of the iPhone.

www.macworld.com

Apple needs to stop with the yearly releases. They’re just changing **** for the sake of changing it. And with OS 26, these changes aren’t even useful, for the most part.

Oh Yeah Sure Stop changing yearly releases like that’s going to help. Look at Windows History of not having yearly releases and they are still in a tick/tick formation as of Windows 11 today

 

[Populus]

And this still exist currently under iPadOS 26... users are able to use the iPad in Full Screen mode, like a traditional tablet.

But in such iPadOS 26 “legacy” full screen mode, users are able to have Split View mode, with two maximized apps side by side?

 

[zhenya]

But in such iPadOS 26 “legacy” full screen mode, users are able to have Split View mode, with two maximized apps side by side?

No idea but split view works better than ever in the other modes. Even now works in portrait and will remember different arrangements for portrait and landscape.

 

[Ludatyk]

But in such iPadOS 26 “legacy” full screen mode, users are able to have Split View mode, with two maximized apps side by side?

No... full screen mode is literally full screen apps with no multitasking (because some iPad users were annoyed accidentally invoking SplitView gestures). Under iPadOS 18... there is Full Screen Mode, SplitView/SlideOver and Stage Manager.

 

[Populus]

No... full screen mode is literally full screen apps with no multitasking (because some iPad users were annoyed accidentally invoking SplitView gestures). Under iPadOS 18... there is Full Screen Mode, SplitView/SlideOver and Stage Manager.

Right, I think it’s that SplitView/SlideOver mode what some users miss from iPadOS 26. I mean for me it would be incredibly useful to have that legacy mode for my iPad Pro 11” screen, while simultaneously having the new windowing view for my external 4K monitor.

 

[Populus]

No idea but split view works better than ever in the other modes. Even now works in portrait and will remember different arrangements for portrait and landscape.

You mean dragging one widow and throwing it to one side and dragging the other widow and throwing it to the opposite edge will leave be with a similar Split View composition with no wasted space around each widow borders? And can be set up quicker than in previous versions of iPadOS?

 

[zhenya]

You mean dragging one widow and throwing it to one side and dragging the other widow and throwing it to the opposite edge will leave be with a similar Split View composition with no wasted space around each widow borders? And can be set up quicker than in previous versions of iPadOS?

That's one way to do it. There are others.

 

[Ludatyk]

Right, I think it’s that SplitView/SlideOver mode what some users miss from iPadOS 26. I mean for me it would be incredibly useful to have that legacy mode for my iPad Pro 11” screen, while simultaneously having the new windowing view for my external 4K monitor.

But you can still get two apps side by side (which in essence is SplitView) along with a SlideOver app in iPadOS 26. And with a monitor attached... you can have another SlideOver app on it.

 

[thadoggfather]

iPadOS 26.1 RC out. I just updated from PB4 just cuz but PB4 was much better than 26.0 GM for me on iPad mini 7.

Still keeping my 2021 M1 11" iPad Pro on 17.0

 

[whatnot]

Interesting, because its also in the same sense that Apple brought up the idea of the ipad being a computer in the ‘what is a computer?’ advert.

it's very simple: iPad is a 'computer' because it's bigger than a phone; MBP, which is a computer, needs an iPhone-ish UI because it's Apple, and most people just need a computer to operate their phone from.

look, emojis everywhere!

 

[steve62388]

But you can still get two apps side by side (which in essence is SplitView) along with a SlideOver app in iPadOS 26. And with a monitor attached... you can have another SlideOver app on it.

The current implementation of ‘slide over’ is inferior to the previous incarnation.

 

[Ludatyk]

The current implementation of ‘slide over’ is a lot more fiddly and inferior to the previous incarnation.

And that's your opinion. I like the current implementation that's been adapted with this new multitasking system... can move it around more freely and resize it to whatever form I like.

 

[says_stuff]

I’m sure OS development is not for the faint of heart, but I can’t wrap my head around the fact that apple maintaining full control, specs, blueprints of the hardware it produces, deciding which device gets what, is expected to have trouble producing a bug free os for said hardware. Given their wealth and status it should be easy for them, why not? Why release this as stable? Just because of a set date?

Apple Hits $4 Trillion Market Value, Joining Nvidia and Microsoft

Apple's market capitalization briefly surpassed $4 trillion just after opening today, making it the third public company to reach that...

www.macrumors.com

The correlation here being that the market seems to forgive, forget or even may reward you regardless of the status of your software releases. That’s.. something i guess.

And that's your opinion. I like the current implementation that's been adapted with this new multitasking system... can move it around more freely and resize it to whatever form I like.

..and that’s your opinion, or should i say reasoning.

I can’t pretend that the almost endless ability of all my apps existing in a window one swipe away is the same as one window of one app, and no it’s not the same or better to expect the users to split the 11 inch or 8.9 screen in 10 parts to avoid restoring that functionality that was randomly taken away. That’s just a different thing. That’s a fact. That’s not an opinion.

There is absolutely no reason not to have both and acting like we can’t have both. If the cpu and ram could handle all this before, it probably still can.

 

[transmaster]

It is annoying that the pages don't seem to remember how they were last opened. I notice this to a lesser extent with macOS 26.

 

[Ludatyk]

..and that’s your opinion, or should i say reasoning.

I’m aware thats my opinion.

I can’t pretend that the almost endless ability of all my apps existing in a window one swipe away is the same as one window of one app, and no it’s not the same or better to expect the users to split the 11 inch or 8.9 screen in 10 parts to avoid restoring that functionality that was randomly taken away. That’s just a different thing. That’s a fact. That’s not an opinion.

I know it’s different… but that doesn’t mean I can’t prefer it over the previous way.

There is absolutely no reason not to have both and acting like we can’t have both. If the cpu and ram could handle all this before, it probably still can.

There is a reason… you refuse to accept it.

 

[says_stuff]

There is a reason… you refuse to accept it.

I will probably entertain whatever reason when i listen to someone in charge disclosing it, acknowledging the issue. Until then i could claim magical unicorns told them to remove it but that would be just.. me.

Of course you might prefer the new experience if it suits you. I expect the same treatment towards me though.