iPadOS 26 In-Depth: A Mac-Like Revolution and a Visual Masterpiece

​Introduction: The Most Important Update in the iPad's History

​Announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9, 2025, iPadOS 26 represents not merely an incremental update, but a fundamental redefinition of the iPad's role in the modern computing landscape. For years, the iPad's powerful hardware, particularly in the Pro models, has outpaced its software capabilities, leading to a persistent user demand for an operating system that could fully unlock its potential. With iPadOS 26, Apple has delivered its long-awaited answer. Described by Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, as the "biggest iPadOS release ever," this update is a pivotal moment that transforms what users can do on the device, pushing its unique capabilities and versatility further than ever before. 

​The transformation brought by iPadOS 26 is built upon three foundational pillars that will be examined in this report. First is a complete visual reinvention through a new, system-wide design language called "Liquid Glass," which brings a new level of vitality and expressiveness to the entire user experience. Second, and perhaps most consequentially, is a multitasking revolution, delivered via a powerful and intuitive windowing system that finally brings a true, Mac-like desktop experience to the iPad. The third pillar is the deep and pervasive integration of Apple Intelligence, a suite of on-device AI features that enhance communication, creativity, and productivity across the operating system. 

​The strategic timing of this release is also significant. Arriving as millions of users face the end-of-life cycles for Microsoft's Windows 10 in October 2025 and Apple's own support for Intel-based Macs in 2026, iPadOS 26 positions the iPad as an exceptionally compelling alternative for a massive user base considering a hardware refresh. By fundamentally elevating the iPad's capabilities from a consumption-focused tablet to a versatile, modular computer, Apple is making its most direct challenge yet to the dominance of the traditional laptop. 

​A New Identity: The "Liquid Glass" Design Language

​iPadOS 26 introduces the most significant user interface overhaul since the debut of iOS 7, establishing a new design language that Apple has termed "Liquid Glass". This is not merely a cosmetic refresh for the iPad but a universal design system being implemented across all of Apple's 2025 operating systems, including iOS 26, macOS Tahoe, and watchOS 26, creating an unprecedented level of harmony and visual cohesiveness across the entire product ecosystem. 

​Technical and Philosophical Underpinnings

​The philosophy behind Liquid Glass is to bring a greater focus to user content by making the interface itself more dynamic and less obtrusive. Inspired by the depth and dimensionality of visionOS, Apple's spatial computing platform, Liquid Glass is a translucent material designed to behave like real-world glass. Through a close collaboration between Apple's design and engineering teams, the material leverages real-time rendering to reflect and refract its surroundings. It dynamically reacts to user input and movement with specular highlights, creating a lively and responsive experience. This effect extends from the smallest interface elements like buttons and sliders to larger components such as navigation bars and sidebars. 

​This new design language represents a profound strategic unification. In the past, Apple's operating systems maintained distinct, though related, visual identities. The simultaneous deployment of a single, universal design system across every major platform signals a future where the user experience is consistent regardless of the device's form factor. This approach lowers the cognitive load for users moving between an iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Vision Pro, and simplifies the design process for developers. The clear influence of visionOS on Apple's 2D platforms suggests that spatial computing is now setting the design direction for the entire ecosystem, creating a cohesive foundation where the software remains consistent while the hardware is the variable.

​The Redesigned User Experience in Detail

​The practical application of Liquid Glass transforms nearly every aspect of the iPadOS interface, making it more vibrant, personal, and functional.

​Lock Screen

​The Lock Screen becomes a more expressive and dynamic canvas. When using a photo wallpaper, the time and notifications intelligently adapt, keeping the subject of the photo in view. A new 3D effect, which Apple calls a "Spatial Scene," can be generated from any 2D image, using depth information to separate the subject from the background and adding subtle motion as the iPad is moved, bringing the photo to life. 

​App Icons and Home Screen

​Personalization of the Home Screen is significantly enhanced. The new app icons are designed to appear as if they are made of layered glass, giving them a subtle depth. Users have several new customization options, including updated light and dark appearances, new color-tinted icons, and a "stunning clear look" that renders the icons almost entirely translucent, making the iPad's display look like a single, continuous sheet of glass. 

​Controls and Navigation

​Controls, toolbars, and navigation elements across the system are crafted from Liquid Glass and act as a distinct functional layer sitting above the app content. These elements feature more rounded corners and, in many areas like the Settings app, increased spacing and padding to create a less cluttered, more readable appearance. 

​This design also enables dynamic behaviors that prioritize content. In apps like Safari, Apple Music, and Podcasts, tab bars and navigation bars can dynamically shrink or disappear entirely when a user scrolls down, maximizing the screen real estate available for content. When the user scrolls back up, the bars fluidly expand back into view. Navigation has also been streamlined in many apps. The Camera app, for instance, now presents only the main "Photo" and "Video" toggles, with other modes and settings tucked away in pop-out menus that appear with a tap, simplifying the interface and reducing clutter. 

​The Productivity Powerhouse: A Multitasking Revolution

​The most transformative aspect of iPadOS 26 is its completely overhauled multitasking system. For years, power users have been constrained by the limitations of Split View and Slide Over. With this update, Apple has replaced those systems with a powerful, flexible, and intuitive windowing model that brings a true, Mac-like desktop experience to the iPad for the first time. 

​The New Windowing System: A Paradigm Shift

​The new system fundamentally changes how users interact with apps, moving from a rigid, screen-partitioning model to a free-form, desktop-class environment.

​Free-Form Windows

​Users can now open multiple app windows at once—up to 12 on newer hardware—and, for the first time, freely resize them to any dimension using a handle in the corner. These windows can be placed anywhere on the screen and can overlap one another, just like on a Mac. Critically, windows retain their size and position, so when an app is closed and reopened, it appears exactly as it was left. 

​Mac-like Controls

​The infamous three-dot menu that previously controlled multitasking has been retired. In its place are the familiar "traffic light" controls from macOS—red, yellow, and green buttons in the top-left corner of each window for closing, minimizing, and maximizing an app. Further aligning the experience with the Mac, the iPad's cursor, when used with a trackpad or mouse, is now a traditional arrow rather than the previous circular puck. 

​Window Tiling

​Alongside free-form placement, iPadOS 26 introduces an intuitive new method for organizing windows called tiling. Users can simply "flick" a window with their finger toward the left or right edge of the screen to have it snap neatly into place, occupying that half of the display. More advanced layouts are also available; long-pressing the green traffic light button reveals a menu with options to tile windows into halves, thirds, or even quarters of the screen. 

​New UI Elements for Power Users

​To support this new desktop-class environment, Apple has integrated several new UI elements that have long been staples of macOS.

​Menu Bar

​A persistent, Mac-style menu bar containing commands like File, Edit, and View is now available in every app. It can be revealed at any time with a swipe down from the top of the screen or by moving the cursor to the top edge. The menu bar also includes a search function to quickly find commands, and developers can fully customize it for their own applications. 

​Exposé

​Managing multiple open windows is made simple with a new Exposé feature. A swipe-up-and-hold gesture sweeps all open windows to the sides, spreading them out across the screen for a clear overview and allowing the user to tap the exact window they need. 

​Dock Enhancements

​The Dock has received a significant upgrade, becoming a more powerful tool for app and file management. It can now be configured to remain visible at all times, just like on a Mac. The limit on the number of apps it can hold has been massively increased, with a 13-inch iPad Pro now able to accommodate up to 29 apps. Most importantly for productivity, users can now drag and drop folders directly from the Files app into the Dock, providing instant access to important documents and projects. 

​The End of an Era and the Evolution of Stage Manager

​This new windowing system is so comprehensive that it entirely replaces the legacy Split View and Slide Over multitasking features. While this creates a more unified and powerful experience, the removal of Slide Over has been a point of criticism for some long-time users who had developed workflows around its quick, temporary app-peek functionality. 

​Stage Manager, Apple's more recent multitasking interface, has not been removed but has been evolved and expanded. It now fully supports all the new free-form windowing capabilities and serves as a tool for organizing sets of windows into distinct workspaces or "stages". 

​A crucial aspect of this update is the democratization of these advanced features. Previously, in iPadOS 18, Stage Manager was an exclusive feature reserved for high-end, M-series chip iPads. In a major strategic shift, iPadOS 26 makes its even more powerful new windowing system and the enhanced Stage Manager available on every single supported device, from the entry-level iPad (8th generation) to the iPad mini. This means that a base model iPad from 2020 now possesses a more capable and versatile multitasking system than a top-of-the-line M4 iPad Pro had just a year prior. This move deliberately elevates the baseline capability of the entire iPad lineup, repositioning even the most affordable models as serious competitors to Chromebooks and entry-level Windows laptops. Apple is no longer reserving its "pro" productivity interface for its "Pro" hardware, dramatically increasing the value proposition of the entire product family.