I genuinely by no means anticipated to say this: it seems Apple lastly discovered multitasking on the iPad. With iPadOS 26, the corporate hasn’t utterly taken off the guardrails for a way you should utilize and place apps in your pill, but it surely got here awfully shut. With a few intelligent iPad-specific tips, and higher assist for a mouse or trackpad, the entire system simply is smart in a means it by no means has earlier than. I’ve been working the very first developer beta for lower than a day on an 11-inch iPad Air, and I can already sense a change in how I exploit my pill.
The brand new multitasking system is generally fairly straightforward to grasp. You unlock the iPad and also you’re dropped onto the homescreen filled with app icons, similar as at all times. Whenever you open an app, it opens full-screen by default; at WWDC, Apple executives had been cautious to notice that if you happen to don’t wish to encounter the brand new multitasking system, you by no means should, and I believe that’s true. (You’ll be able to even flip the entire windowing system off in settings, if you wish to.) However as quickly as you faucet and drag the little icon within the backside proper nook of the window, the app begins to shrink. You can also make the app any measurement you need — any measurement the developer helps, at the very least, which does fluctuate fairly extensively — and put it wherever on the display. In case you seize the highest bar of an app and type of toss it off to at least one aspect, it’ll mechanically fill half the display. Faucet the brand new stoplight menu, and you’ll both shut the app or make it full display once more.
When you’ve resized an app, that’s now the scale and placement of that app. In case you shut and re-open it, it’ll open in the identical measurement and place till you progress it or resize it once more. I’ve come to think about this area on my iPad as sort of an “app display,” subsequent to my homescreen, organized and laid out nonetheless I like. And in contrast to Stage Supervisor, the whole lot is at all times how I left it. You’ll be able to put as many apps on this display as you need – I’ve had a dozen on there at a time, which is far more than makes any logical sense and positively greater than you possibly can see directly.
At the least on this early beta, there are a few quirks to the system. For one factor, I completely can’t work out what the yellow “reduce” button does. You faucet it, and the app closes, identical to an app usually closes, and re-opens in place identical to an app you’ve closed. I think it is a new app state builders should benefit from, notably because the iPad’s new background processing involves fruition, however up to now it doesn’t appear to do something new.
You’ll be able to solely have one app lively at a time, however you possibly can scroll up and down in an app within the background — if you happen to’re utilizing a mouse or trackpad. In case you’re touching the display, you must faucet the app to deliver it to the foreground earlier than you are able to do something with it in any respect. I’ve been utilizing the CMD-Tab app switcher way more to rapidly leap between issues on the app display, but it surely doesn’t at all times present each app I’ve open. The one option to get to the whole lot is thru the Exposé function, which works nicely however is only a barely slower option to transfer round.
By and enormous, although, all of it simply works. You’ll be able to mix multitasking with Stage Supervisor, to show your one organized app display right into a handful of them. You’ll be able to run a bunch of home windows in your iPad and a bunch extra on an exterior monitor, or at the very least you possibly can in principle — there’s a bug within the first beta that makes the entire system crash each time I open a second app on an exterior show. (I’m not tremendous involved concerning the performance in the long term, however as at all times, set up beta software program at your individual peril.)
There are a number of different Mac-style issues about iPadOS 26 that assist make multitasking work. First is that stoplight menu, which reveals up on the prime left nook of each app and makes it simpler to shut or maximize home windows. There’s additionally the brand new pointer, which seems once you join a Magic Keyboard or different mouse or trackpad. I believe I underestimated how a lot better it could really feel to have a small, extra actual arrow pointer somewhat than the previous circle. And there’s the brand new menu bar, which seems on the prime of the display and affords all of the settings and choices for no matter app you’re presently utilizing.
In just some hours with iPadOS 26, I’ve seen a few massive adjustments to how I exploit my pill. I’m spending a lot much less time on the homescreen, which just about doesn’t have to exist anymore — I’m launching apps with Highlight, resizing them on my app display, and getting again to them with CMD-Tab or Exposé. I’ve been utilizing the dock extra, too, as a fast option to get to the apps I exploit most after they’re not already entrance and heart. It’s all so much like the way in which I exploit my Mac, and it’s wonderful how rapidly that muscle reminiscence kicked in.
Every time I’ve tried to make use of a number of apps on the iPad, I’ve at all times felt like I used to be preventing the system. It will let you have a look at a number of issues at a time, but it surely needed you to see the whole lot full display. Now, and particularly as soon as builders replace for much more fluid window sizes, multitasking seems like a first-class pill citizen. It seems like a Mac within the sense that it seems like the whole lot is going on in the identical place, on the identical display, somewhat than consistently bouncing you between completely different full-screen experiences. Is it busier and sometimes extra chaotic than the historically centered iPad vibe? You betcha! However I find it irresistible up to now.
Finally, the reply to “can your iPad change your laptop computer” nonetheless relies upon largely in your use case, and much more on the state of iPad apps. Till the iPad can run really desktop-class browsers, I’m reluctant to say it may be your major machine. However now, possibly for the primary time ever, the working system itself doesn’t really feel prefer it’s the issue. That is essentially the most versatile model of Apple’s most versatile machine. It may be a quiet, easy, single-tasking pill or it may be a multitude of home windows put collectively nearly any means you’d like. I’ve been ready years for Apple to actually unleash the iPad, and I believe it might have simply carried out so.