Resize the Wrong Boxes

iPadOS 26 (now in developer beta) introduces features that many iPad enthusiasts have been asking Apple to add for years - including a windowing mode that has finally taken inspiration from the Mac.

It seemed so obvious to many - make apps full screen for those users that just want it to work like it does now, but give power-users the ability to resize them if they want to. If you want to have multiple windows on screen from lots of different apps, you now can, with no limits to their positions or size.

It sounds crazy that it's taken this long.

Apple claim this has been due to performance issues, but my iPad from 2020 can run it just fine, suggesting that they could have done this a while ago. That's not even mentioning that the original 1984 Mac could do overlapping windows with a fraction of the iPad's power - so I'm not sure I believe that a window on an iPad 10 years ago couldn't follow my finger.

Anyhoo...

What this has done has re-energise many of those who were big iPad fans, but had started to just give up on the platform.

But for me, it doesn't really solve any of my problems with the device. Now I can resize the boxes on the screen, but the problem is still that they're the wrong boxes.

There's still no proper web browser, with Safari on iPad still deliberately crippled so that it doesn't compete with the App Store and Chrome not allowed to use it's own rendering engine. There's still no Terminal, or Docker, or proper background tasks (apps can now have background tasks, but that's not the same). There's no Visual Studio Code, no eco-system of weird utilities... it's still the same device with the same artificial constraints that were on it before.

Except now you can resize the boxes.

I'm pleased that they're actually doing something to move the platform forward. But it's just reinforced my belief that I'd much prefer they made a touch-screen convertible Mac.

Compared to a Macbook Air, the iPad wants you to give up an awful lot in return for being able to touch the screen and take the keyboard off.