I genuinely by no means anticipated to say this: it seems Apple lastly found out multitasking on the iPad. With iPadOS 26, the corporate hasn’t utterly taken off the guardrails for the way you should use and place apps in your pill, nevertheless it got here awfully shut. With a few intelligent iPad-specific tips, and higher help for a mouse or trackpad, the entire system simply is smart in a method 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 take advantage of my pill.
The brand new multitasking system is usually fairly straightforward to know. You unlock the iPad and also you’re dropped onto the homescreen filled with app icons, similar as all the time. Once you open an app, it opens full-screen by default; at WWDC, Apple executives have been cautious to notice that should you don’t need to encounter the brand new multitasking system, you by no means need to, and I feel 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 dimension you need — any dimension the developer helps, at the least, which does range fairly extensively — and put it anyplace on the display screen. In the event you seize the highest bar of an app and type of toss it off to 1 facet, it’ll mechanically fill half the display screen. Faucet the brand new stoplight menu, and you may both shut the app or make it full display screen once more.
When you’ve resized an app, that’s now the dimensions and placement of that app. In the event you shut and re-open it, it’ll open in the identical dimension and place till you progress it or resize it once more. I’ve come to consider this area on my iPad as type of an “app display screen,” subsequent to my homescreen, organized and laid out nonetheless I like. And in contrast to Stage Supervisor, every thing is all the time how I left it. You’ll be able to put as many apps on this display screen 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 very 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, similar to an app usually closes, and re-opens in place similar to an app you’ve closed. I think this can be a new app state builders must make the most of, notably because the iPad’s new background processing involves fruition, however thus far 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 — should you’re utilizing a mouse or trackpad. In the event you’re touching the display screen, you need to faucet the app to carry 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 bounce between issues on the app display screen, nevertheless it doesn’t all the time present each app I’ve open. The one method to get to every thing is thru the Exposé characteristic, which works nicely however is only a barely slower method to transfer round.
By and huge, although, all of it simply works. You’ll be able to mix multitasking with Stage Supervisor, to show your one organized app display screen 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 least you possibly can in concept — 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 in regards to the performance in the long term, however as all the time, set up beta software program at your personal peril.)
There are a number of different Mac-style issues about iPadOS 26 that assist make multitasking work. First is that stoplight menu, which exhibits up on the high 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 feel I underestimated how significantly better it could really feel to have a small, extra precise arrow pointer quite than the outdated circle. And there’s the brand new menu bar, which seems on the high of the display screen 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 observed a few huge modifications to how I take advantage of 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 screen, and getting again to them with CMD-Tab or Exposé. I’ve been utilizing the dock extra, too, as a fast method to get to the apps I take advantage of most once they’re not already entrance and heart. It’s all loads like the way in which I take advantage of 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 all the time felt like I used to be preventing the system. It will allow you to take a look at a number of issues at a time, nevertheless it needed you to see every thing full display screen. Now, and particularly as soon as builders replace for much more fluid window sizes, multitasking appears like a first-class pill citizen. It appears like a Mac within the sense that it appears like every thing is occurring in the identical place, on the identical display screen, quite than continually bouncing you between completely different full-screen experiences. Is it busier and sometimes extra chaotic than the historically targeted iPad vibe? You betcha! However I find it irresistible thus far.
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 actually desktop-class browsers, I’m reluctant to say it may be your major machine. However now, perhaps 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 method you’d like. I’ve been ready years for Apple to actually unleash the iPad, and I feel it might have simply performed so.
