I’ve started watching a few videos on new features coming to iOS and iPadOS 27. A few have caught my eye, particularly for the iPad. 9 to 5 Mac is pushing out some really good stuff.
I have had an iPad since day one. I remember queuing up at the Apple Store in Burlingame in SF in the wee hours on a spring morning in April 2010 to get my first one. Thankfully, there was a Peets across the road (a coffee chain for those not familiar with the SF coffee scene).
Since then, I have really wanted iPad to be my daily machine. It is 80 to 90 percent there for most things. I like the fact I can use it as a TV, reader, juke box, browser, messaging, and dictation device. For more, I just clip the keyboard on and away I go. But for speed, efficiency and ease of use for some tasks, I prefer the MacOS.
One of the preferences for the Mac has been driven by multi-tasking. iPadOS has crept toward multitasking over the years starting with split screens and then along came Stage Manager. I know what Stage Manager tried to do, and it’s cool, but it just didn’t work for me. Stage Manager groups apps together, like a group for entertainment, a group for productivity, a group for communications, and so on. Then you just choose the group of apps you want to work ‘in’.
I didn’t learn this until recently but Apple introduced a third option in iPadOS 26 (released September 2026) and that is “Windowed Apps“. In short, this makes your iPad just like a Mac when it comes to have multiple windows open on your desktop. In short, you can have as many windows as you want open and make them whatever size you want. You switch it on but going into Settings and “Multitasking & Gestures“. And in Control Centre, when you swipe form the top right, the toggle button for what used to be Stage Manager now toggles between single window display and the new Windowed Apps functionality
iPadOS coming in the last quarter of 2027 takes this even further, as per the video below from 9 to 5 Mac.
iPadOS settings
9 to 5 Mac video
25 August 2026