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. So how did we get here? When did this fundamental shift occur that killed off Steve Jobs’ vision of the iPad? When Jobs first revealed the iPad in 2010, it was pitched as a “third category” of device—something between a phone and a laptop. For that category to justify its existence, Jobs said it had to be better at certain key tasks. He duly listed browsing the web, dealing with email, watching videos, listening to music, playing games, reading ebooks, and enjoying photos. Coincidentally, those were the exact things the iPad was really good at. Playing up the distinct nature of a tablet experience, the original demo found Jobs using his iPad not at a desk but while relaxing in a chair. “Using this thing is remarkable,” he said of the iPad. “It’s so much more intimate than a laptop, and so much more capable than a smartphone with its gorgeous large display. Holding the internet in your hands is an incredible experience.” Assuming, of course, you didn’t want to do much more than read. This, then, was a device that was focused. Elegant. Simple. Better than a phone or a laptop for lean-back media consumption. But even during that demo, there were hints of the tension that was to come. A Brush With the Future Brushes creator Steve Sprang appeared on stage and suggested the iPad could move beyond the consumption-first narrative: “Artists have already done amazing things with the iPhone, and I think with this larger screen they’re going to have a true portable paint studio.” And Apple itself introduced touch-optimized—if noticeably simplified—versions of its iWork office suite. The problems came when you started using these apps. Sprang’s was fun. It looked gorgeous. The bigger canvas offered room to play. But artists were pining for input options beyond their own digits. That didn’t align with Jobs’ scornful comment about other tablet makers: “If you see a stylus, they blew it.” And iWork? You could quickly sketch out the bones of a document or presentation while sitting on the sofa, then send it to your Mac to finish. But trying to be meaningfully productive solely on the iPad was a chore. In attempting to simplify computing and pare things back, Apple had cut things to the bone. Interaction was opinionated to a fault. And the lack of a system-wide file manager—a Finder for iPad—meant files were siloed in apps, duplicated as you moved between them, and impossible to track. Perhaps Apple underestimated how quickly users would demand more from the iPad than basic tasks and media consumption, or how frustrating it would be to not have access to computing norms like traditional multitasking or a file system exposed to the user. Apple soon found out. The iPad sold incredibly well—at first. But its position between two existing extremes began to unravel. Not to the point it became a flop. But the initial meteoric sales trajectory plateaued and went into decline. As Apple scrambled, experimenting to boost flagging sales, the focused iPad vision started to fade. Apple’s Awkward Middle Child The problem was that the iPad sat between two existing critical device categories but couldn’t replace either of them. Smartphones were becoming indispensable. The iPad? A nice-to-have. And Apple’s laudable build quality meant iPads lasted for years. Most people rarely felt compelled to upgrade, because their first iPad still did everything they needed it to, which often wasn’t much. But a noisy cohort—people who wanted to work on an iPad and who might favor a tablet over a laptop—grew frustrated. The iPad gained a reputation. It was sometimes great for doing one thing at a time. Useful when you wanted to focus. But when you needed more, it all fell apart.