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.
So iPadOS 26 is basically Android's "DeX Mode" with less features...
- Thread starter tekboi
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Dex def started a trend and apple is late to the game, but I don’t think many people w android use dex. Massive lack of tablet apps android for start.
From what i've seen [images] this is a mini version of MacOS. Looks like a HUGE overhaul for iPad and is insanely welcomed.
Also, DEX is seperate from the main OS. 9 times out of 10, apps dont function well.This is out the box functionality.
Also, DEX is seperate from the main OS. 9 times out of 10, apps dont function well.This is out the box functionality.
Apple spends most of the time figuring out how they can make you buy all their products. In their world of maxmizing profits, iPad and Mac should not overlap. They should instead complement each other so you are forced to buy both, and so on.
But iPad stagnated so much they had to do something. While their changes are welcome, we can bet iPadOS 26 is still carefully crafted to lure you to MacOS for "serious" work. They could allow to boot MacOS when the iPad is connected to an external screen, and give 120Hz, as well, but they won't.
Dex is horrible, so no. Android in general on a large screen is ugly and Dex is a hack, although a functional one at least.
It's not horrible per say. On the Tab Ultra's it a must. As of now, Dex does give Samsung owners a dedicated monitor clamshell mode up to 1440p [waiting to see if OS 26 adds it]. It did feel like a windows product, but failed due to the 3rd party apps.
~90% of Android's failures comes from the 3rd party devs. With Apple, most devs are on board.
Does it run Final Cut Pro? 😎
Or Logic Pro … or DaVinci resolve? 👊 Who is buying an Android tablet?
From a product segmentation standpoint, it would have been smarter if they hadn’t added external monitor support or non-touch (mouse) support. There isn’t any good argument anymore why these should be two different product categories, other than macOS not supporting touch (both functionally and from a UI design perspective).
Are you a programmer? Can you explain how they would do that exactly, boot a completely different operating system, with all of your files intact? While keeping everything on the drive encrypted, without duplicates of the files? Sounds like it would be pretty difficult
From what I’ve seen this implementation looks better than Dex to me. They added a lot of the most requested desktop features, while making them still usable with touch and completely optional so those that want the simplified experience can still have it. They even implemented Exposé, which is my favorite mac feature 🥹 Plus the Preview app! I love Preview!
I’m just curious if you’ll be able to open multiple windows of the same app, I’d love to be able to have two Preview windows open side-by-side
Last edited:
Who cares? We are discussing the Apple ecosystem. If you want to discuss Android go to Android Rumors or whatever.
That's a bit harsh, and (other things).
As long as you don't say 'Android' more than around 3 times, you are ok. There's a limit.
But this is not really the case. If you look at iPad and Mac revenue evolution over the last 4 years, the trend is very similar. The mainstream internet story doesn’t reflect reality.
Dex mode is only for Samsung phones, not Android. Most android don't even have usb-c -> hdmi
DeX is far from horrible and I've used it since 2018 when I had a Note8.
At work, I have my laptop connected to two other monitors. Sometimes I'll unplug one monitor and hook it up to my Fold6, using a USBc hub with HDMI. Suddenly, I have something akin to ChromeOS and can attach a keyboard and mouse and have access to all my apps, files, and data. I can work from my Google Drive and Google Docs, including my phone's Office 365 suite of productivity apps. I have not encountered any issues with apps running in DeX mode.
Granted, I don't use DeX that often nowadays, but when I do it's a pretty impressive feature and most definitely not a hack. On occasion, when traveling, I'll use DeX to stream content from my phone and display it fullscreen on the hotel or Airbnb TV (some TVs are old so you can't mirror or cast from your phone so DeX comes in handy).
DeX has existed for many years — it hasn’t made any difference in the real world, “no one” is really using it. If this Apple multitasking implementation doesn’t flop (and I’m still skeptical that you can implement desktop-like multitasking on a tablet), it must have something different, innovative.
People talk as if multitasking was a solved problem in the tablet world, but it isn’t. To start with, you need something where you can easily switch between touch and mouse input, which is extremely hard given that the target elements, available gestures, etc. are very different. Moving windows with a finger is so far not a great experience in any platform. Restricting multitasking to “desktop mode” is not a solution — it creates more problems than it solves.
People talk as if multitasking was a solved problem in the tablet world, but it isn’t. To start with, you need something where you can easily switch between touch and mouse input, which is extremely hard given that the target elements, available gestures, etc. are very different. Moving windows with a finger is so far not a great experience in any platform. Restricting multitasking to “desktop mode” is not a solution — it creates more problems than it solves.
🤣 touché.
My wife attended a dental surgery course and the attendees all received Samsung Tab 10 (I think that was the model). Pretty low spec tablets with 16GB storage, IIRC. Meh, Android tablets serve a purpose too. When she was done with the course we re-purposed the tablet into a WiFi digital picture frame.
I did not think that the Tab S10’s had such small storage. That doesn’t sound right. Doesn’t Android plus Samsung One UI use more than 16GB of storage?
No way this looks awesome. So glad they did a proper pointer too.
Last year I bought a Samsung S9 Ultra 14.6 tablet. The actual tablet hardware is beautiful and way nicer than the iPad but Android and Dex are horrible. I tried so hard to get used to it but eventually gave up.
Last year I bought a Samsung S9 Ultra 14.6 tablet. The actual tablet hardware is beautiful and way nicer than the iPad but Android and Dex are horrible. I tried so hard to get used to it but eventually gave up.