iPadOS 26 is an Absolute Mess

[Populus]

I just come from trying an M5 iPad Pro with iPadOS 26. Has 26.1 been officially released? If not, I’ve been trying iPadOS 26.0.1…

It is a mess, indeed, even on the latest M5 iPad Pro. Just 10-15 minutes have been enough to realize that even in the latest hardware, the system is a mess, with windows disappearing and one final system respring (black screen with a white spinning wheel) as a final confirmation that even with 12GB of RAM, the system is struggling.

I am definitely staying on iPadOS 18.7 on my M2 iPad Pro for a long while.

 

[FeliApple]

I just come from trying an M5 iPad Pro with iPadOS 26. Has 26.1 been officially released? If not, I’ve been trying iPadOS 26.0.1…

It is a mess, indeed, even on the latest M5 iPad Pro. Just 10-15 minutes have been enough to realize that even in the latest hardware, the system is a mess, with windows disappearing and one final system respring (black screen with a white spinning wheel) as a final confirmation that even with 12GB of RAM, the system is struggling.

I am definitely staying on iPadOS 18.7 on my M2 iPad Pro for a long while.

Interestingly, I miss system resprings on what was my top-of-the-line iPad…

There was a bug on the 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 9. It wasn’t due to lack of power, but iOS would occasionally respring. This happened several times during the three years that Apple allowed me to use iOS 9. Due to the A9 activation bug on iOS 9, Apple deactivated and forced my iPad out of iOS 9 and into iOS 12 three years later. The issue was fixed, as it was resolved with iOS 10.

In spite of the resprings, iOS 9 otherwise performed flawlessly. It isn’t flawless on iOS 12 these days.

 

[Mrbiggestman]

I just come from trying an M5 iPad Pro with iPadOS 26. Has 26.1 been officially released? If not, I’ve been trying iPadOS 26.0.1…

It is a mess, indeed, even on the latest M5 iPad Pro. Just 10-15 minutes have been enough to realize that even in the latest hardware, the system is a mess, with windows disappearing and one final system respring (black screen with a white spinning wheel) as a final confirmation that even with 12GB of RAM, the system is struggling.

I am definitely staying on iPadOS 18.7 on my M2 iPad Pro for a long while.

Is that even after its indexing or is it respringing during indexing?

 

[pdoherty]

What do you guys mean by 'respringing'?

 

[Populus]

What do you guys mean by 'respringing'?

I’ll quote myself:

system respring (black screen with a white spinning wheel)

 

[zhenya]

I just come from trying an M5 iPad Pro with iPadOS 26. Has 26.1 been officially released? If not, I’ve been trying iPadOS 26.0.1…

It is a mess, indeed, even on the latest M5 iPad Pro. Just 10-15 minutes have been enough to realize that even in the latest hardware, the system is a mess, with windows disappearing and one final system respring (black screen with a white spinning wheel) as a final confirmation that even with 12GB of RAM, the system is struggling.

I am definitely staying on iPadOS 18.7 on my M2 iPad Pro for a long while.

Zero issues like that on my M4. I have a few UI issues still with overlapping elements, but otherwise smooth and reliable. 26.1 works pretty well even on my 1st gen iPP.

 

[Populus]

Zero issues like that on my M4. I have a few UI issues still with overlapping elements, but otherwise smooth and reliable. 26.1 works pretty well even on my 1st gen iPP.

Hopefully 26.1 addresses most of the issues I experienced. Especially with some windows disappearing after switching to other apps in full screen and going back to that windowed space.

 

[droplink]

Omg is the new Preview app annoying.
I used to use it to read PDFs but Apple has now, in all its wisdom, decided that I can no longer make a single page of a PDF fill the screen and have it a single-page-display as I can on the desktop.

Also, why on earth do I have to see the Preview launch panel (you know the one that shows a giant loupe and the last opened files and the dialog of “new file” and “scan file”) each time I open a file?

This is the worst downgrade ever. Its like swapping from Mac to windows its that bad.

You broke my iPad, Apple.

 

[achappy]

Hopefully 26.1 addresses most of the issues I experienced. Especially with some windows disappearing after switching to other apps in full screen and going back to that windowed space.

Not clear what you are describing but in "Windowed Mode" full screen apps are in their own space. Apps that are less than full screen are all in the same "space". So if switch to a full screen app, the apps that were less than full screen will seem to disappear. Using Expose will show you all of the spaces. So what you are describing could be possibly expected.

Regarding performance, I've had no performance issues and I've been on iPadOS26 since DB4. I originally was on a M1 and now on an M4.

 

[says_stuff]

This is the worst downgrade ever. Its like swapping from Mac to windows its that bad.

You broke my iPad, Apple.

A terrible season for ipad owners so far. Being afraid of what a new update might bring - or remove, is a serious breach of trust.

 

[pdoherty]

I’ll quote myself:system respring (black screen with a white spinning wheel)

Is that like when you drag down on the screen to force a refresh? Under what other circumstances is that occurring under 26? I haven't upgraded my iPads yet and am looking for such issues to decide whether/when I will.

 

[Populus]

Is that like when you drag down on the screen to force a refresh? Under what other circumstances is that occurring under 26? I haven't upgraded my iPads yet and am looking for such issues to decide whether/when I will.

it’s like a soft reboot. Like when RAM is full or there’s a memory leak and the system needs to empty the memory, without completely restarting the device. As I said, black screen with a white spinning wheel.

When did it happen? I saw the new M5 iPP on the store, and I started to play with it, to open apps and make them windowed to try the new interface. Then I realized that if you swipe using the home bar (the bottom white bar) you can still access the full screen apps. Nice -I said- now I can still use full screen apps while having a group of windowed apps in one space.

So I kept playing, switching between a few open apps in full screen, but when I was going back to the windowed apps space (doing the same gesture of swiping on the bottom white home bar) one of the three windowed apps had already disappeared. That was strange so I opened another one to have it in a small window. Swept again to change the space to a full screen app and then, when I tried to go back to the windowed space, the system collapsed, and the respring or soft reboot happened.

And don’t think I taxed the system a lot, all of this happened in 10 minutes.

I really hope iPadOS 26.1 or 26.2 addresses a lot of this issues and improves the stability of the system.

 

[Populus]

A terrible season for ipad owners so far. Being afraid of what a new update might bring - or remove, is a serious breach of trust.

Bring, remove, or break.

With Apple, I am done updating until the system is fully tested and polished by the n.7 update.

I’m sorry, but Apple needs to put more attention and care to their software.

 

[TigerMSTR]

If I could revert every change in iPadOS 26, I would. Except for the new mouse pointer. Every other change in this operating system has made the iPad worse.

 

[Mrbiggestman]

Omg is the new Preview app annoying.
I used to use it to read PDFs but Apple has now, in all its wisdom, decided that I can no longer make a single page of a PDF fill the screen and have it a single-page-display as I can on the desktop.

Also, why on earth do I have to see the Preview launch panel (you know the one that shows a giant loupe and the last opened files and the dialog of “new file” and “scan file”) each time I open a file?

This is the worst downgrade ever. Its like swapping from Mac to windows its that bad.

You broke my iPad, Apple.

Yup i edit some of my college work on preview. It sucks so much battery and the hand written text can get super glitchy. It was one of my most anticipated app to be good at launch. Unfortunately not.

Thread 'preview is a laggy mess'
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/preview-is-a-laggy-mess.2469581/

 

[Slartibart]

Microsoft Office icons with glass effect🤣🤡

I don’t know which app is which tbh
View attachment 2573843

let me help you guessing… »W«… surely the»W«-icon is Word. 😂🤣😇

 

[Slartibart]

The first part is nonsense

yeah… chemical battery aging… urban myth 🤣😂

 

[FeliApple]

yeah… chemical battery aging… urban myth 🤣😂

Outdated software is nonsensical, if anything, it has the opposite effect: it preserves battery life.

Battery degrades, but it is irrelevant if the device isn’t updated.

The battery health craze needs to stop, it is far more irrelevant than most think, especially on iPads. People use decade-old iPads with no issue. Or more. Many report iPads 2 and 3 still have good battery life, due to their larger batteries.

Also, you can see the effect of updated software in this very thread.

 

[ProteinePlus]

Well, after a few weeks with iPadOS 26 on an M4 iPad Pro I have to say I dislike it. It may be great for those that use the iPad with an external monitor and a mouse, for the rest of us is several steps back.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Bring, remove, or break.

With Apple, I am done updating until the system is fully tested and polished by the n.7 update.

I’m sorry, but Apple needs to put more attention and care to their software.

This! (in bold above)

It's inexcusable for a company with their resources and pedigree to be releasing this level of half baked nonsense software.

If they need to get off the annual cycles, than do so!
Software is every bit as important (perhaps more-so) as the sexy beautiful amazing hardware and they pay so little care and attention to the software anymore.

Great software experiences need to be thought out, well developed, polished and considered. The way they've gone about this rushed Liquid Glass situation is exactly the opposite of what one would want.

It feels like the entire thing was about "marketing" and little else.

 

[MBAir2010]

If I could revert every change in iPadOS 26, I would. Except for the new mouse pointer. Every other change in this operating system has made the iPad worse.

I hear you…my iPad gen 10 usb-c- which I only use for drawing about 7 hours a day-now jumps to another part of the canvas when I want to draw a line, wont type with a Logitech keyboard as well as other small problems I never experienced in pre-sept 2025.

My other  products are worse now since I did not purchase them this calendar year.

Tim will get another raise for these shenanigans….

 

[Mrbiggestman]

I just come from trying an M5 iPad Pro with iPadOS 26. Has 26.1 been officially released? If not, I’ve been trying iPadOS 26.0.1…

It is a mess, indeed, even on the latest M5 iPad Pro. Just 10-15 minutes have been enough to realize that even in the latest hardware, the system is a mess, with windows disappearing and one final system respring (black screen with a white spinning wheel) as a final confirmation that even with 12GB of RAM, the system is struggling.

I am definitely staying on iPadOS 18.7 on my M2 iPad Pro for a long while.

Not yet. IPadOS 26.1 RC has released now for around a week. The full 26.1 release should come in around a week.