“This is what you've all been waiting for.” That's what Craig Federighi stated with a gleeful grin on his face as he introduced the latest changes to the iPad at Apple's WWDC25 keynote.
He wasn't talking about new iPad hardware, new software features, or AI implementation that didn't suck. He was talking about windows. You know, those things that computers have. With the release of iPadOS 26, Apple gives these tablets the ability to use conventional windowing—and iPads will never be the same.
Oh, This Is a Computer
iPad users can resize windows, move them around, tile them, and even use Exposé. Courtesy of Apple
Windows are exactly the kind of PC-like interface Apple has resisted for so many years on the iPad, despite what its most dedicated fans have requested. The iPad, after all, was famously first sold as something that is not a computer. Welp, so much for that.
In iPadOS 26, which is coming out later this fall, you can easily drag windows around your screen or grab a corner to resize them. You can even tile multiple apps and use extra windows on top of those. That's a huge multitasking upgrade. In the past, you've been stuck with either full-screen apps or side-by-side split-screen, dramatically diminishing what you could accomplish on an iPad.
Now obviously, these windows come with a lot of messiness, so iPadOS 26 also introduces “familiar” controls to arrange and organize all these windows. If you hover over the corner of a window, for example, the three-button Mac controls will appear, letting you close or minimize the app, or make it full-screen. Apple has also brought over many intuitive Mac trackpad gestures, including clearing apps to see the desktop or Exposé, which let's you choose an app from the ones you have open. For Mac people out there, you may remember Exposé as a classic Mac feature that was folded into Mission Control back in 2011.