If there’s one moment during WWDC 2025 where there was the biggest crowd reaction, it was the introduction of iPadOS 26. Sitting in the audience at Apple's Cupertino headquarters, I couldn’t help but notice the audible cheers that accompanied many of the features announced — especially those that blur the line between iPads and Macs.
You see, as powerful as the best iPads are in terms of their Apple Silicon, a lot of users have avoided switching from a Mac to an iPad as their primary computer. But with iPadOS 26, a lot of those doubts have been erased.
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You now get a new windowing system that makes multitasking easier, Mac-like controls for closing and titling windows and even an honest to goodness menu bar. And that’s just scratching the surface of what iPadOS can do now.
I sat down with Apple’s Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak (Joz) during WWDC to talk about what the new iPadOS 26 means for customers and how they should decide whether to get an iPad or a new MacBook.
Spoiler alert: Joz says “I recommend buying both.”
iPadOS 26: Multitasking (finally) done right?
Apple has made a bunch of attempts at multitasking on the iPad, from slide over and split view to Stage Manager, but they’ve received more criticism than praise. With iPadOS 26, you get a bonafide windowing system that makes working with multiple apps at once a lot easier.
The iPad is the ultimate touch device you can hold in your hand. But at the same time, these two products can flex toward each other to a degree.
— Craig Federighi, Apple
Apps still open in full-screen by default, but there’s a little grab bar in the bottom right corner. Swipe it diagonally and you’ll be in windowed mode. You can also easily tile windows wherever you want, but Apple still respects that this is a touch-based interface. So you can flick a window to the left or right to have it take up that part of the screen.
“I've gotten some questions where people are saying, ‘Gosh, did you, you know, the fourth time's the charm,' or something like, sort of, 'Where were you? Were you guys just sort of shooting in the dark?' And actually, this has been what I think of as a thoughtful evolution,” said Federighi.
“You have people hooking iPads up to external displays. You have people, many of us, using cases that are have track pads and keyboards. You have apps where people are doing many more productivity workflows. So iPad has changed. The hardware has changed. The interaction has changed.”
And, yes, there are familiar controls for closing apps, maximizing windows and minimizing them — yup, with the three dots. So Apple was happy to borrow UI elements from the Mac to make iPadOS better.
“The iPad is the ultimate touch device you can hold in your hand. But at the same time, these two products can flex toward each other to a degree,” said Federighi.
So what should people buy now, Mac or iPad?
Now that iPadOS has many of the same features as the Mac, including a desktop-like Files app and a File menu, you might be wondering if you should go for an iPad or a new MacBook. And Apple maintains that these two devices remain quite distinct despite the growing similarities.
Joz has a simple solution.
“I recommend buying both,” said Joswiak. “Yeah, not even being facetious. I mean, the reality is, it has always been a little bit of a false trade-off to say it's one or the other. The reality is, it's a small number of people, the overlap [between iPad and Mac] is actually pretty huge.
“I recommend buying both. Yeah, not even being facetious. I mean, the reality is, it has always been a little bit of a false trade-off to say it's one or the other.
— Greg Joswiak, Apple
“We'd love you to buy both, but that's just the reality. People love to have both. You can use your Apple Pencil and do Procreate and do some incredible things on your iPad and then turn around and export it to the Mac and do some other stuff. They're both incredible tools, and they are very different from each other.”
Okay, so what if you don’t have a more than, say, $1,500 on a new computing device and you’re deciding between a new iPad and a new MacBook?
For Federighi, a car vs truck metaphor is an apt way to break down the differences between these two types of devices. The iPad is the sleeker Cooper Mini focused on portability, while the MacBook is the powerhouse F-150 of the two, ready to do heavy-duty tasks.
“I feel like we in the industry talk a lot about this, and customers don't seem to talk about it,” said Federighi. “They actually seem to know which one they want. And you know it has not been a struggle for most of them.”
But I’d argue that the versatility of iPadOS 26 will actually make the iPad vs Mac call a tougher one for shoppers. Not in a bad way, but there's only so many people who can afford both.
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