However Apple has been heading on this route for some time. In 2020, the Magic Keyboard introduced an additional port and a full trackpad to the iPad. Then in 2022, the corporate launched exterior show help, and eventually, within the 2024 update to iPad Pros, the webcam was moved in portrait mode. However this 12 months’s replace actually feels prefer it reached the tipping level. And Apple offered the premise in two actually sensible methods too.
Firstly, most iPad customers might by no means even understand the windowing function is there. Like many deeper iPad options, windowing is solely non-obligatory and hidden by default. Open an app in your iPad, and it nonetheless defaults to fullscreen. It appear probably that the common particular person would by no means discover the tiny resizing icon within the backside proper nook of apps. That is an necessary design choice, because it retains intact the first identification of the iPad as an easier interface.
Second, Apple coyly by no means referred to those new parts as Mac-like through the keynote, as a substitute merely calling them “acquainted.” It even spaced iPadOS and macOS other than every inside the presentation, cautious to not name to consideration simply how related these two merchandise have turn out to be. Apple would by no means need to pit two of its merchandise in opposition to one another, and has at all times implied that there is cause for somebody to personal each an iPad and a Mac. However with iPadOS 26, let’s be actual: that requires some critical cognitive dissonance to imagine now.
I am not suggesting iPads will ever substitute the MacBook Pro. The individuals who really want that additional efficiency will at all times flock to these extra highly effective Macs. However what about Apple’s way more widespread laptop computer, the MacBook Air?
The iPad Professional and MacBook Air have at all times been confusingly shut in worth and specs—certainly, there’s hazard of Apple cannibalizing its personal merchandise. I do not doubt Apple will preserve each round so long as attainable, however I really feel extra inclined than ever to check the 2 instantly. That is much more true for the reason that iPadOS replace will even be obtainable on the bottom iPad and iPad mini when it formally rolls out later this Fall.
So, does all this imply {that a} correct union between iPadOS and macOS within the works? Or how a couple of touchscreen MacBook? Previously, Apple has acknowledged definitively that it had no plans to merge its working programs. That was a declaration that earned cheers from the viewers again at WWDC in 2018. And but, regardless of how far fetched these ideas sounded seven years in the past, absolutely anything appears attainable at this level.
From the brand new Liquid Glass interface to the Mac-like options coming to the iPad, right here’s all of the information from Monday’s WWDC keynote.
