iPadOS 26 preview: The rare software update that makes (most) old hardware feel new

The Mac and the iPad are different devices that do different things. This has been the line from Apple executives, from its initial introduction to the advent of touchscreen PCs to just last month when Apple’s Craig Federighi talked to us about iPadOS 26’s new multitasking features.

But it sometimes feels like this internal commitment to keeping the devices separate has held the iPad back as its hardware has become more capable. A mouse cursor? Sure, we’ll add it, after a few years of insisting on keyboard-and-finger interactions, but we’ll make it round and imprecise instead of pointy because the iPad is Different. Windowed multitasking? Sure, we’ll give you a version of it, but you can’t do whatever you want with the windows, and we’ll tie it to a weird new interface for grouping them, because the iPad is Different.

I respect the desire not to take the path of least resistance here, which would be to imitate the Mac by default without trying to do anything new. And it’s not like you could just move macOS elements over totally unchanged; having a touch-first user interface and touch-first apps means the iPad’s system needs to work well with both touch and a keyboard-and-mouse/trackpad setup. It needs to work well in landscape and portrait modes.

But different for different’s sake isn’t good either! I’m not saying that the classic windowed multitasking model, as popularized by macOS and Windows, is the pinnacle of UI design, but it has persisted both because it works well and because it’s what a lot of people are used to.

The iPadOS 26 update, which officially enters its public beta period today ahead of the official release this fall, introduces a new multitasking system, built on the foundation laid by Stage Manager but with much less reticence to borrow macOS ideas where they make sense.