Even the most die-hard iPad fans have started to lose faith in recent years. Apple has constantly hobbled its tablet’s potential, twinning laptop-grade chips with an operating system that screamed, “You still need a Mac to do your work.” But now iPadOS 26 promises Mac-like multitasking, a revamped Files app, and proper background tasks. All of which sounds like something that should be fully investigated. Because we do things properly here at WIRED, this could not be a mere cursory glance at new features. To see if Apple’s tablet now passes muster, it was decided that someone should work solely on an iPad. For an entire week. And if you’re thinking only an idiot would do that, I am that idiot. So in the name of science, here’s the account of how I shut down my iMac, set up my iPad Pro with a mix of accessories and misplaced optimism, and resolved to use Apple’s tablet exclusively for work and play alike. Apple Day 1: Slate Expectations With much trepidation, my gaze shifts from my M1 24-inch iMac to my 6th-gen iPad Pro M2 with 16 GB of RAM. In terms of raw power, I decide it’s a fair fight. To avoid being confined to the iPad’s relatively small display, I hook up a 13- inch 1080p external screen using a USB-C HDMI hub. Next, I add an Apple keyboard and trackpad, along with my Ruark MR1 Bluetooth speakers. One quick pairing later and audio pumps out of the Ruarks. A good start. But I quickly find app gaps. There’s no BBEdit. No Transmit for FTP and network storage access—although FileBrowser steps in there. I’m suddenly reminded Scrivener on iPad lacks the Mac version’s two-up page view I use for long-form writing. So I wheel out Apple’s Pages for the first time in forever. (Sorry, Scriv—fix your iPad version and I’ll be back!) The new iPadOS 26 windowing system is a revelation. No more fiddly Stage Manager and its infuriating limitations. Windows now go precisely where I want them to; and there are plentiful shortcuts—touch and keyboard—for tiling and snapping windows, along with moving them between displays. It’s all stolen from the Mac, of course, as is the new menu bar, which annoyingly auto-hides. Even more annoyingly, the menu bar replaces (rather than augments) the fantastic keyboard shortcuts “cheat sheet” that appeared when you held the Command key in iPadOS 18. Come on, Apple—don’t make people hunt through menus.