So has Apple finally answered the question: what if the iPad was more like the Mac? Yes – with caveats. — Pixabay
I love the iPad.
So much so that there have even been times when I’ve set aside my Mac and used my iPad Pro as my primary device for significant periods of time. In many ways, the iPad is the perfect device for writing, reading, editing podcasts, and watching videos.
Partly that’s because the hardware is just that good. There’s no question that the M4 iPad Pro is basically Apple just showing off. It has the single best display Apple has ever sold in a device. It has the same system on a chip as the MacBook Air, a laptop that is more powerful and efficient than most people need – and it’s the entry model. Up and down the line, the iPad has – for years – been better than it needed to be.
As a result, the iPad has spent much of its existence in this weird position. Originally, Apple pitched it as a third device between your iPhone and your Mac. It was bigger than an iPhone, and therefore better at things like reading or watching videos. At the same time, it was smaller than a Mac, making it a far better device for sitting on the couch to read a book.
The thing is, as much as it was powerful enough to tempt you into believing it could replace your computer, it has always been limited in ways that made you go back to the Mac if you wanted to get real work done.
With iPadOS 26, Apple has finally tested the other side of that equation. This is the release that most directly answers the long-standing question: what if the iPad worked more like the Mac? The answer isn’t complete convergence, but it’s closer than ever before.
Of all of Apple’s software platforms, it’s the iPad this year that gets the most significant change. Sure, there’s a lot more Liquid Glass on the iPhone, but you still basically use your iPhone the same. The icons and interface may look different, but there’s nothing different about the interaction other than you just can’t see what you’re doing sometimes.
Now, with iPadOS 26, apps act like real windows. Not just an awkward mode where Apple lets you sort of use windows, but the for-real kind that people have been wanting for years. It’s not just cosmetic, it’s foundational.
For example, you can resize windows freely and move them around. They even have the Mac-style “traffic light” controls to close, minimize, or expand. There’s a menu bar too, hidden until you swipe down from the top.
This is obviously the change that feels most Mac-like. For years, multitasking on iPad was a puzzle of Split View, Slide Over, and more recently, Stage Manager. None of those approaches really worked the way people’s brains wanted them to work.
Stage Manager, especially, was a strange system that never really felt natural. All of them were compromises designed to preserve the iPad’s identity as a single-app-at-a-time device while making a small concession toward doing more than one thing at a time. Ironically, Stage Manager still exists, but it’s no longer the only way to juggle multiple apps.
In practice, this feels transformative. On an M4 iPad Pro, you can run a dozen apps at once before memory becomes a problem. Even on smaller hardware, like the A17-based iPad mini, you can keep a handful of windows open. It’s not quite a Mac desktop – but for the first time, it feels like a desktop at all.
Apple also brought in more of the Mac’s built-in utilities. The most obvious is Preview, a Mac staple for handling PDFs and images. On iPad, it works almost exactly the same: you can view, annotate, fill out forms, and sign documents, all with Apple Pencil support. It’s the kind of tool that makes the iPad feel like a standalone work device, not just a companion.
The Files app received a major overhaul as well. You can now pin folders directly to the Dock, something you’ve been able to do in macOS for years. Organisation is easier, and background tasks like downloads and file copies continue without keeping the app front and center. Combined with better audio and video capture options, the iPad is finally leaning into professional workflows rather than pretending they don’t exist.
It’s definitely not perfect. It’s still iPadOS, which means apps still run in a sandbox. And, many professional apps available on the Mac still aren’t an option on the iPad. Or, if there is a version available, it’s limited by all the things you can’t do on an iPad. Even Apple’s first-party pro apps feel like they’re a junior varsity version.
That tension isn’t going away. Apple has made the iPad more like a Mac, but not the same as a Mac. You can open windows and run multiple tasks, but you can’t install macOS apps. You can manage files more easily, but you can’t dive into the same filesystem hierarchy. In short, you can work more like you do on a Mac, but you’re still doing it the iPad way.
There are clear gains. The iPad now supports workflows that once required a laptop. Creative professionals can sketch in one window, reference research in another, and monitor email in a third. Students can annotate PDFs while watching lectures.
But the limitations are equally clear.
So has Apple finally answered the question: what if the iPad was more like the Mac? Yes – with caveats. iPadOS 26 doesn’t collapse the distinction between the platforms, but it gives most people who use the iPad for more than just casual entertainment the thing that they’ve long wanted. The iPad is no longer defined only by what it can’t do.
It’s not the end of the Mac, and it’s not the end of the iPad. It’s the clearest sign yet that Apple is comfortable letting them overlap, even if they never fully merge.
Look, for years, Apple resisted turning the iPad into a Mac. Steve Jobs himself framed it as a device for consuming, not creating. But computing has changed, and so have the expectations of users don’t need all of the complexity of the Mac, but want to take advantage of its flexibility in a more versatile form factor. With iPadOS 26, Apple has taken its most decisive step toward blurring the line.
The iPad is still an iPad. But it’s finally a credible answer to the question users have been asking since day one: what if it worked more like a Mac? Now we know. – Inc./Tribune News Service
