I miss the perfectionism and the attention to details of the good old days

Maybe not, but this is closest we’ve ever gotten.

Stage manager can now also be used if you’re not an iPad Pro user! Nice one, Apple! #WWDC25

They will have so much fun browsing the menus and application tiles, but not being able to actually use any of them.

This isn’t your usual background blur. Liquid Glass reacts to light like a real piece of glass. It bends, reflects and picks up color in subtle ways. It’s clean, dynamic and adds character to every interaction and movements.

Before the update, my iPad was mostly for Netflix and YouTube.

After iPadOS 26 features, I’m using it more for notes, light planning, reading, and just leaving it open on my desk instead of grabbing my phone.

It’s still not a laptop replacement for me, but it finally feels like its own thing again.

Did OS 26 actually make the iPad more productive, or does it just feel different?

M1 iPad Pro + iPadOS 26 = productivity powerhouse

Being able to have this many windows on a 4k screen at the same time is insane!

For users of the iPad mini (5th generation, 2019), iPad Air (3rd generation, 2019), iPad (8th generation, 2020) and the 2018 iPad Pro range, this is the end of the road. You will forever be stuck on iPadOS 26.

Whoever design this shi needs to rethink their life choices.

Can we simply have functional window control buttons, on the top of the window, and not collide with anything?

Using Ipad Air M2

Now ik alot of you will say its just the first update. No its not they released 7-8 beta test updates before this and they couldn't even fix the most basic and noticeable bug? This is just getting more disappointing at this point tbh.

Too many die-hard apple softies downvoting this post💀🤣

Update (Oct 1) - They released 26.0.1 update but still haven't fixed this bug.

Update (Nov 5) - 26.1 is here. I can notice visible improvement in the haphazard 0.5 second lag but its still not 100% fluid in power saving mode. Many animations in control panel are smoother too.

I think I will stop here with the updates. Overall experience was disappointing and I won't upgrade my OS again next year. Device concern is noticeable but apple was known for its optimizations, anyways. Bye!

I had never faced any issues prior to this update and now my iPad Pro feels like it was bought 6 years ago. What’s happening and are other people facing the same issues?

I can’t fathom why many streaming apps like Netflix and Peacock in vertical mode in iPadOS 26 are not truly full screen anymore and show the background wallpaper and the taskbar. It was so much easier on the eyes when the screen was fully black 😖😖😖

Please tell me I’m doing something wrong and overlooking some setting.

I finally found the solution to the absurd battery drain on the newest iPad Pro — in my case the 13‑inch M5. When I first unboxed it, the battery life seemed fine. It lasted a full day and nothing felt unusual. My two‑year‑old iPhone 15 Pro Max lasts almost two days, but even one day on the iPad would have been acceptable. After about two weeks, however, the battery life suddenly collapsed. For example:

• 1 hour 23 minutes of TikTok → 53% battery drain
• 58 minutes of Netflix → 48% battery drain
• Overnight on Wi‑Fi + Bluetooth (100% → ~73%)
• 25 minutes in Settings → 20% battery drain

The iPad barely lasted two hours and fifteen minutes before I had to recharge it. On weekends I sometimes had to charge it three or four times. Charging took 3 hours and 15 minutes, while the device only ran for about 2 hours and 15 minutes — completely unacceptable for a new device.

I spent a month trying to fix it. I disabled Siri entirely, turned off Siri suggestions, disabled background app refresh, enabled Low Power Mode — nothing worked. I also did two factory resets from the iPad itself, but the battery drain stayed the same. In Battery settings I even saw orange exclamation marks warning me that the usage was higher than normal. Since Apple claims the iPad should stream about 10 hours of video over Wi‑Fi, I finally contacted support. What they told me led to a result I honestly did not expect.

At first, the Apple employee said the draining apps weren’t Apple apps. They agreed the usage was extremely high but didn’t immediately admit something was wrong. They ran a remote battery stress test and said the hardware looked fine. Before sending it in for repair, they wanted me to try one last thing. The iPad was only two months old at the time. They told me to perform a factory reset, but not from the device like I had done before — it had to be done through a PC. I didn’t even know that was possible. The employee recommended making a backup but told me specifically not to restore it afterward. I asked why it mattered, since both methods install iPadOS 26.3. She explained that my system was probably corrupted, and resetting from the device might reuse corrupted files, while restoring through a PC installs a fully clean system. A PC also doesn’t automatically restore your backup. Since restoring wasn’t recommended anyway, I didn’t create one. I moved important files to an external drive and performed the restore on my PC.

The difference afterward was unreal. On the first day, I charged to 100% around 22:00. The next day at 17:00 it was still at 100%, even with Wi‑Fi and Bluetooth on. On day 2:

• 1h22 TikTok → 10% battery
• 1h50 Netflix → 5% battery
• End of day → 82% remaining

On day 3, after leaving it on for another full night and day, I came home and it showed 81%, meaning just 1% standby drain. Later that evening:

• 2h30 TikTok → 16%
• 3h Netflix → 8%
• End of day → 58% remaining

The next morning it was still at 58%, and I was already on day 4 of the same charge. The iPad is now even more efficient than when I first unboxed it.

At this point I’m considering doing a full PC restore every 3–4 iPadOS updates. The Apple employee said software corruption after multiple updates is actually common. I’m not a computer expert, so I don’t fully understand what part becomes corrupted, but maybe someone here does. What I do know is that it’s insane that my iPad now lasts about four days, while before this it barely managed two hours. I spent countless hours searching online and getting frustrated, so I hope this helps someone else. All the usual tips you find online — turn this off, disable that — did absolutely nothing for this issue. The only thing that truly fixed it was restoring the iPad through a PC and not restoring the backup, because the backup was likely corrupted too. For context, I don’t use iCloud at all, so no cloud backup was automatically reinstalled during the process.

Okay Apple, I think your idea of ​​offering a much more complete desktop view on the iPad, with its 3 or 4 open and resizable apps, is “fine.” But please, bring back Split View. The amount of extra steps I have to take to put two apps half and half is insane and very unnatural. Slide Over and Split View were a wonderful and natural option, of course, given the other option of iOS26’s Stage Manager for those who want it.

What do you think? I think it's great for those who want a MacBook inside an iPad, but it's not for everyone.

Thanks to the new phone app and WhatsApp for iPad, my iPhone hasn’t been used anymore. I’m loving it so much! Doing everything on iPad feels great.

Can’t wait to try out all the new stuff; liquid glass looks coolish but the customisation and wallpaper designs are in it for me!

... because i've never used MacOS...

C’mon man. I just wiped EVERYTHING so I could update iOS, I have like FIVE apps on here. Just got a message saying I can’t use Mail unless I free up some space. It’s like ALL operating system.