With iPadOS 26, Apple has finally turned the iPad into a computer

With the announcement of iPadOS 26, Apple has finally done something it had seemed to be resisting for well over a decade: turning the iPad into a computer.

Apple has long sent mixed messages about the device, sometimes arguing that it is a computer, and other times arguing that iPads and Macs are two very different devices with two very different roles …

The iPad was not a computer

On the one hand, as far back as 2017 Apple ran the What’s a computer? ad campaign, essentially arguing that the iPad was a computer – or at least, that it could do anything a computer could. The company retained that tagline for ad campaigns across several years.

On the other, Apple has also long argued that an iPad and Mac are two very different things. In response to Microsoft’s Surface, Tim Cook suggested that the combined PC and tablet was like “converging a toaster and a refrigerator.”

Technically, of course, the iPad has always been a computer. But then so are the company’s other devices – its pocket computer, wrist computer, and face computer. What we really mean by this term is a device capable of being used as a full PC or Mac substitute – and previously neither of my iPad-advocate colleagues had managed to persuade me it was any such thing.

Indeed, I effectively replaced the iPad Pro that was gathering dust in a drawer with a MacBook Air.

But now I’d say it is

To be clear, “not a computer” was never a criticism on my part. When friends asked my advice on which Mac to buy, I quite often listened to what they want to do with it and then recommend an iPad with keyboard. For some use cases, an iPad is actually better than a Mac. Even so, I’ve recommended a MacBook Air way more often than an iPad.

But for me, iPadOS 26 changes everything. With the capabilities the device now has, I don’t see how anyone could convincingly argue that it’s not a computer.

It’s not the right computer for everyone, of course; I’ll be sticking to my MacBooks. But Apple has removed many of the reasons I’d hesitate to recommend the device to someone used to Macs or PCs.

Proper windowing

The biggest change by far is proper windowing. The iPad started as a single-tasking device: one full-screen app at a time. Later, Slide Over and Split View made it possible to work with more than one app at a time, but it was pretty clunky and unintuitive. Stage Manager further improved usability, but for me it was still a poor substitute for the window flexibility you get on a Mac.

But now the iPad works pretty much exactly like a Mac in this respect. You can open multiple apps, then position, size, and overlay each window as you like. There appears to be an upper limit of 12 apps on-screen at any one time, but it’s rare I have more Mac windows actually open, so that seems reasonable enough to me.

Better drag-and-drop and files support

Another huge win is Mac-style drag-and-drop support. Moving content between apps and windows was frankly horrible on an iPad; no more.

Similarly, file-handling was pretty poor on an iPad, but there have been some worthwhile improvements here. You can now drag folders to the dock; label folders with symbols, for quicker identification; set customizable list views; and can assign which app you want to open different file types.

Finally, the iPad gets a menubar! From a usability perspective, I don’t think anyone has ever come up with a better UI for accessing features not immediately visible on the surface. Menus don’t just make buried features quicker to use, they also make them more discoverable. That’s been one of my biggest criticisms of power apps on iPad: not only is it hard to figure out how to do certain things, but it’s also hard to determine whether you can do them. A menubar pretty much solves that.

Like I say, there will still be reasons to choose a Mac rather than an iPad. But with these dramatic Mac-like UI improvements, I think an iPad is going to be a good choice for way more people.

That’s especially the case given that all these new features are – to my amazement – supported by the cheapest iPad in Apple’s line-up! As my colleague Fernando demonstrates in a new video, less than $450 gets you an A16 iPad, Logitech keyboard and trackpad, and even a third-party Pencil. That’s now a really sweet budget setup for half the price of a MacBook.

Is an iPad now a real computer? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Highlighted accessories

Image: Apple