Perhaps the most infamous ad in Apple history is its"What’s a computer?“commercial for theiPad, aired many years ago. Aside from the fact that a high school girl would definitely know the answer to that – now and then – it was way too premature to suggest an iPad could fully replace a Mac or Windows machine. Even today, relatively few people attempt it, since there’s hardly a one-for-one match withMacBook Airfeatures, let alone trying to equal a Mac Studio or a Windowsgaming laptop.
iPad owners have complained about the gap for years. With iPadOS 26 coming fall 2025, Apple at last seems poised to take these complaints seriously. There’s a variety of new features that bring iPadOS closer to macOS, and the ones below are just some highlights. You won’t be playing the latest Call of Duty on an iPad anytime soon – but you might be able to edit video projects, do schoolwork, or plan design layouts without feeling like you’re making a load of compromises in the name of portability.
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1Background Tasks
Essential for true professionals
iPads have long supported light background tasks like music playback and fetching email, but to date, anything requiring serious horsepower has forced you to leave an app in the foreground – no matter if you’ve got other things to do. It’s ridiculous, since no one would put up with a Mac or PC that prevents you from checking email or chat conversations without interrupting that work project you’ve been compiling for the last hour.
iPadOS 26 not only enables processor-intensive background tasks, but treats them asLive Activitieswith a status indicator and controls. Apple gives the example of exporting a Final Cut video, which displays a completion percentage as well as a button to stop the export at will.
The full extent of the possibilities is unclear at this point, but Apple is providing an updated Background Tasks API to developers, so we’ll probably see a few examples by the time iPadOS 26 reaches the public.
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2A Mac-style windowing system
No more crippling windows for tablets
Stage Manager was an important step forward for iPad multitasking. With iPadOS 26, though, Apple seems to have gone all the way. Users can not only open more windows, and position them anywhere – even partly offscreen – but use the Mac’s “stoplight” buttons to quickly close, resize, or rearrange things. If you’ve got four apps open, say, you can use those buttons to arrange them in equal quarters around your homescreen.
There’s even an iPad version of Exposé for switching between all your open items. Don’t worry though – Stage Manager is still an option, and the new interface design is built to keep things friendly to touch gestures. One addition in that regard is the ability to “flick” windows into tiled positions, saving you a couple of steps if you don’t need custom sizes and already know where you want them to go.
There are rumors that Apple is working on an iPad over 13 inches, in which case these changes might be geared with that in mind. We’ll see what hardware Apple announces towards the end of the year.
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3The Menu Bar
Complex functions for complex people
Since the beginning, one of the signature features of the Mac has been the Menu Bar. You might not have thought about it in a while, but it serves a variety of purposes, above all being able to access commands at any time in an app instead of being limited to whatever buttons are onscreen. In some cases, it can teach you what an app is capable of, including convenient keyboard shortcuts. Porting the feature should allow iPad apps to become more complex.
The Menu Bar usually stays hidden in iPadOS 26, but you can reveal it by swiping down from the top of the screen, or bringing a mouse cursor near the top. It may also stay permanently onscreen with connected monitors, taking advantage of the extra real estate.
Naturally, developers can customize their menus as needed. If they embrace the Menu Bar en masse, expect Apple to sell a lot more Magic Keyboards.
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4Files app upgrades and the Preview tool
Still some work to do behind the scenes
Getting real work done often involves a lot of file management, and that’s something the iPad hasn’t been great at. Thankfully, the Files app has a new List view with small icons, collapsible folders, and resizable info columns, so it’s easier to both scan file details and filter by criteria, say if you want to find your most recently modified files or sort by filetype. You can also customize folders with different colors and icons, and drop folders straight into the Dock if you need to pull items from them on a regular basis.
For some people, the most important change may be the ability to set default apps for opening files. Apple’s presets and the iPadOS Share Sheet just don’t work in many cases – the latter forces you to choose an app every time, and you’ll have to jump through hoops if the app you want to use isn’t already visible.
Bear in mind that the iPadOS 26 filesystem still seems pretty locked down.
Also, here is an iPad version of the macOS Preview tool. It’s not as fully-featured, but it does let you view, sign, and edit images or PDFs. When you’re filling out forms, you can use either a stylus or AutoFill, things that could make an iPad invaluable for businesses that handle a lot of authorizations.
Bear in mind that the iPadOS 26 filesystem still seems pretty locked down. You can’t mod OS files, for instance, which is something Mac owners are used to for deeper personalization and solving macOS’s shortcomings. Who knows – maybe Apple will make that leap in iPadOS 27.
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