Apple’s walled backyard is the iPad’s largest roadblock to changing into a Mac

iPadOS 26 makes Apple‘s pill much more like macOS. Higher windowing? Verify. The menu bar? Yup. There’s even a extra fine-tuned Recordsdata app, together with doc modifying in Preview. It is as if Apple took a guidelines of longtime power-user requests and fulfilled all of them. It is sufficient that the App Retailer’s walled backyard could possibly be the final remaining motive to stay along with your Mac.

For me, the iPad’s productiveness adjustments have been essentially the most intriguing a part of Apple’s WWDC 2025 keynote. Years in the past, when Apple first made iPadOS extra work-friendly, I attempted to interchange my MacBook with the iPad Professional. After reviewing a number of Microsoft Surfaces, I needed an Apple equal, dammit. So, regardless of the iPad’s apparent limits, I gave it a shot.

For many issues I did, it was… high quality. However there have been all the time duties that slowed me down. Apple’s Split View, which locations two apps aspect by aspect, was strong. Stage Manager added much more windowing nuance. However it nonetheless wasn’t the identical as arranging home windows manually. All I needed to do was hop again on a Mac, and issues grew to become clear: The iPad was nowhere close to prepared for my workflow. I used to be making an attempt to suit a sq. peg right into a spherical gap.

The adjustments in iPadOS 26 will lastly carry the pill near one thing that would substitute a Mac. For a lot of, I think will probably be greater than sufficient. You’ll be able to place home windows anyplace and resize them fluidly. The menu bar will make it simpler to entry the finer controls of apps. You’ll be able to tile home windows and see all of them in a grid with Exposé. The Recordsdata app catches up with the Mac’s Finder. The brand new Preview app ought to make doc modifying a breeze. And you’ll simply return to full-screen iPad simplicity at any time.

That raises the query: The place does iPadOS nonetheless fall in need of macOS? It is the lock-in, silly.

The Mac grew up in an period when you may set up apps from anyplace. First, it was discs. Then, the web. Positive, Apple made adjustments within the final decade that make macOS a bit extra restricted. System Integrity Safety (SIP) involves thoughts. Gatekeeper, too. Nevertheless, on the entire, it stays a comparatively open setting. Getting your apps from anyplace usually means a broader choice, quicker updates and fewer restrictions.

The iPad, alternatively, developed from the iPhone. (These sufficiently old could recall the “It is only a huge iPod contact” commentary mocking the primary mannequin.) The App Retailer has all the time been the one official strategy to set up apps on the iPad (EU exceptions however). That continues to be so in iPadOS 26.

The pill software program additionally prevents apps from overriding safety and privateness restrictions. Whereas that will not sound like a good suggestion, it may be a killer characteristic for trusted Mac apps.

For instance, Keyboard Maestro on macOS can automate virtually something you are able to do with a keyboard and mouse. BetterTouchTool additionally affords a (practically) infinite checklist of customizations, together with window controls. (My favourite is altering the yellow “site visitors mild” button in order that it hides apps as a substitute of minimizing them.) Karabiner-Components permits you to remap any key. A clipboard supervisor can, with a single keystroke, show the whole lot you have copied.

Then there are Mac apps that allow you to use alternate options to Apple’s variations. Third-party launchers like Raycast and Alfred are like Highlight on steroids. (Their extension libraries are so huge, they’ve their very own storefronts.) Apps like Rectangle and Moom provide you with alternate options to Apple’s window administration. Many Mac apps provide extra versatile textual content substitute than Apple’s built-in resolution.

What iPadOS 26 does is draw a line between two sorts of energy customers. Like earlier than, Mac energy customers will use some mixture of the above examples. In the meantime, a brand new class of iPad energy customers will benefit from the pill’s desktop capabilities. However the latter will nonetheless be restricted to Apple’s model of, properly, the whole lot. The facility is far stronger now; openness, nonetheless, is not.

For that motive alone, I am going to possible stay a Mac-first man for the foreseeable future. However iPadOS 26 will certainly tempt me to experiment.