Craig Grannell writing for Wired: Apple Finally Destroyed Steve Jobs’ Vision of the iPad. Good

For years, Apple treated the idea of windows on the iPad as sacrilege. But with iPadOS 26 installed, today’s iPads are doing macOS cosplay, becoming touchscreen Macs in all but name. And here’s the thing: It’s actually pretty good.

I bet if you travelled back in time with iOS 26 and showed someone from 2015, an iPad fanboy would tell you that’s a terrible idea and it was clearly made by someone who doesn’t “get” the iPad. “Freeform windows? A menu bar? Mouse support? Desktop mode? A file system? These are relics of the past, man, if you want these things just get a Mac. And what about that Magic Keyboard that turns it into a laptop? Apple tested that with users and they hated it!”

I’ve documented my things that keep me on a Mac, but all of those gaps are functional, not fundamental things the iPad can’t do one day. I’ve also documented how you really need to pixel peep to find the UI differences between apps on the Mac and iPad these days.

Again, there are still gaps, but iPadOS 26 is filled to gills with features that older iPad fans would have told you were Mac things the iPad didn’t need. And you know what, the iPad is a better platform for more people because of it. I'm just saying that while we've been bickering about why all these things are "unique to the Mac" or vice versa, Apple's just been out here turning the iPad into a Mac anyway.