The iPad May Be the Perfect Computer (Premium)

With the introduction of iPadOS 26, Apple has instantly erased over a decade of neglect of the product that was supposed to deliver our post-PC future. In one sense, this transformation of the iPad is the opposite of Apple Intelligence, in that it under-promises and over-delivers, a skill Apple briefly seemed to have lost. But this is much bigger than that, I think, though itwill have similarly long-lasting implications.

⏱️ How we got here

I’ve written a lot about the iPad, but especially in the past year or so as my frustration grew with Apple’s ongoing inability to deliver the experience Steve Jobs had promised 15 years earlier. I made my case for this evolution over a year ago, ahead of Apple’s ‘25 OS reveals at WWDC 2025. But so, too, did others who believed that the key to success for the iPad as a computer somehow required Apple to shoehorn macOS into the product, an incredibly short-sighted and wrong-headed idea.

Not that it mattered. Weeks later, Apple announced iPadOS 18, without a single improvement to the core productivity and multitasking experiences.

This proved to be an expensive time for me regarding the iPad. In need of a new iPad in early 2024, I had splurged on a 13-inch iPad Air M2 ahead of WWDC in the vain hope that Apple would at least take a baby-step in the right direction. But it was far too big and heavy for day-to-day tablet use, so I ended up getting the latest Apple Mini several months later. Only to discover in a weird Goldilocks moment that the Mini was, wait for it, too small. So I gave up on the two extremes and bought an 11-inch iPad Air M3 this past April.

Maybe I should have waited for WWDC 2026.

As everyone now knows, Apple surprised the world with Liquid Glass, sure, but also with iPadOS 26, a release that will literally address every issue I have with this platform when used as a computer. Given the past disappointments, I doubted what I was seeing. But when I tried the first iPadOS 26 developer beta, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing: Apple had done it. And so I grabbed a Magic Keyboard for my iPad Air to get the full experience. It was a little small because of the 11-inch iPad form factor. But also surprisingly good

Since then, I was curious whether I could just use the iPad with the Magic Keyboard day-to-day, as I had been using every iPad I’d ever owned, dating back to the 2010 original, mostly in portrait mode, and mostly to read. But the Magic Keyboard only works in landscape, and I wasn’t super-interested in attaching and detaching the expensive iPad from the peripheral throughout each day if I moved back and forth between reading and writing and other work. And so I used it in this configuration for a few days back in Pennsylvania, and then I brought the iPad to Mexico with the Magic Keyboard, and I’ve used it that way ever since, so for over a month.

This article is not about the fact that I’ve pretty much adjusted to using the iPad this way, though that it’s worth at least mentioning. Now that I’ve gotten used to the nuances of the Magic Keyboard interactions, the only time I really miss portrait mode is when I read with the Kindle app: It uses a two-column view that I don’t like, and there’s no way to disable it. So I’ve experimented with windowing that app so that it takes up only part of the screen and uses a single column view. Sometimes, I’ve put a music app next to it in a side-by-side view. And … you know what? Don’t worry about that. As I noted up top, the big story here is important, a big deal. This isn’t about one app. And in a way, it’s not even about the iPad specifically.

It’s about the future of personal computing.

? The iPad isn’t the first hybrid personal tech product, but it’s the most successful by far

This one might might need to sink in a bit, but consider the following.

In 2013, I wrote an editorial called The Right Tool for the Job that was based on my experience a decade-ish before that trying to use a Palm PDA with a little foldable keyboard on a plane and failing miserably. Except that it wasn’t really based on that one event; it was based on many years of me trying to figure out a simpler and more efficient way to do my job–writing, basically–on the go. After an uncountable number of failures, I finally came to the conclusion that certain device types–a phone, a tablet, and a laptop, in my case–were just so well optimized for specific use cases that it just made sense to use each for those.

But the dream endures. Personal tech companies have tried again and again to create one device that can do the jobs of two devices well enough that users can use one fewer device. And tech enthusiasts have spent decades contorting themselves to try and make it happen, too, using the less than optimal choices we’ve been given. Windows RT and Surface RT are examples in the Microsoft space, but they were, of course, inspired by the iPad. And in the early days of that device, I would go to work meetings, pull out a laptop, and watch a coworker engage in what looked like an SNL parody of an Apple ad in which he would try to make an iPad–with a Bluetooth keyboard and some ridiculous number of wires, dongles, and other peripherals–work a bit like a real laptop. But it just didn’t make sense.

Today, folding smartphones and computers are the standard-bearers of the hybrid dream. A folding smartphone could, for example, do the job of a smartphone and a tablet. And a folding PC might be able to do the job of a tablet and a real laptop. But these hybrid experiments have largely failed to date. Yes, there are small, niche userbases that successfully use these devices and love them. But they’ve not yet caught on with the mainstream. There are lots of reasons for that, of course. But one crucial piece has been missing so far: The end-to-end integrations that Apple always championed under Steve Jobs.

It is perhaps coincidental that the iPad was the last of Steve Jobs’ home runs, and Apple’s last hyper-successful new hardware product. But when Jobs passed away in late 2011, his successor, more bean counter than visionary, scaled back the iPad’s post-PC aspirations to protect Apple’s lucrative Mac sales. In short, the iPad continued forward as a normal, consumption-focused tablet, with just minor laptop-like features added slowly over time and never in a full-featured way. It was yet another Apple hardware product to buy.

But not anymore, as iPadOS 26 changes everything. We always knew that the iPad would make a terrific laptop if Apple would just set it free. But what may be less obvious is that Apple also accomplished something with iPadOS 26 that felt impossible before. And this is the lynchpin of the hybrid problem. Instead of transforming the iPad into “one device that does everything poorly,” Apple transformed it into one device that does everything well, and even optimally.

This is the step that Steven Sinofsky and his team refused to take with Windows 8, Windows RT, and Surface: The iPad now supports different usage modes, giving customers a choice. Each mode works ideally in the sense that they deliver exactly what different kinds of users need and expect.

For those who like the iPad as it’s always been, thank you very much, the iPad keeps working like it always did. You can use it as a touch-first tablet in which every app runs full-screen. Nothing changes, and you aren’t forced to compromise in any way. This is not two steps forward, one step back.

For those who want the iPad to replace a laptop, the iPad can do that too, and not just in the half-assed way it’s done to date. You can have multiple floating windows, each positioned arbitrarily on-screen or arranged side-by-side and in other layouts. Apps can run background processes, all the normal multitasking shortcuts work as expected, and so on. Here, everything has changed, and the shackles are off. This isn’t two steps forward, it’s more like 20 steps forward.

But it can also do both. With iPadOS 26, you can use the iPad like a tablet, then use it like a laptop, and then use it like a tablet again. The iPad is now a true hybrid device, and there are no major usability compromises no matter how you wish to use it. This is almost miraculous, and so it requires a bit of explanation.

3️⃣ There is another

The first time you boot into iPadOS 26, you’re prompted to choose between three usage modes, not two: Full Screen Apps, Windowed Apps, or Stage Manager. You can also change this choice at any time in the Settings app, in Multitasking & Gestures.

Naturally, I chose Windowed Apps  the first time I tried iPadOS 26. This is all-new, and it provides you with access to many of the new iPadOS multitasking features that Apple showed off at WWDC 2025. This includes floating app windows that already work better than Chrome OS app windows, side-by-side apps and other layouts similar to what we see on Macs and Windows PCs, and a more familiar mouse cursor. But there’s also a Mac-like system menu bar that remains hidden until you mouse up to the top of the screen, and Mac-like window buttons with long-click access to the window layout features.

The thing is, even when used with a Magic Keyboard or other keyboard/mouse/touchpad configuration, floating windows don’t typically make a lot of sense on such a small display. Despite being able to use multiple app windows at the same time, I rarely find myself wanting or needing to do so. The one exception, and it’s not all that common, is the occasional side-by-side use case.

But then, that’s true for me on the PC too. And this is important: When I’m using a laptop, I pretty much use maximized apps, and though there are some apps, like File Explorer, that I keep windowed, even then I typically use one app at a time. This was something I had experimented with when Windows 8 first came out, and it’s something I’ve moved in and out of over the years. But these days, on these smaller laptop displays, I prefer to focus. This was a key inspiration behind my article Full Screen (Premium).

The iPad display is smaller than that of any laptop I’d ever use. And so I experimented with some of the other options.

Full Screen Apps has been a thing since the original iPad and it still works well enough. With the Magic Keyboard, I can still use Cmd + Tab and other keyboard shortcuts, and three-finger touchpad gestures, to navigate between different running apps, access the Home Screen, and so on. But I lose the system menu, those window buttons, and any window layout options. I can’t even snap two app windows side-by-side. And, honestly, that’s usually fine.

But Apple added Stage Manager to iPadOS a few years ago, and now the implementation in iPadOS 26 is more full-featured. Among other things, it provides access to the system menu and those window buttons, so it’s a step-up from Full Screen Apps. This means you can put two apps side-by-side when needed but still keep apps in a full-screen view normally. So it’s a best-of-both worlds experience, especially with today’s iPads currently limited to 11- and 13-inch displays. Once I discovered that, I switched to this usage mode permanently. It’s the best choice for me and the iPad I have.

? But what about multiple displays?

Even with this shift to full-screen/maximized apps, I do often use multiple displays, depending on what I’m doing, and where I am. This can be via one device–I typically use three screens on the PCs I keep in Pennsylvania and in Mexico, for example. But if I retire to the bedroom to play a bit of Call of Duty, I always bring a second laptop to keep up on work, watch YouTube videos, or whatever else.

In Mexico this past month, I started using the iPad as that secondary computer, and it worked just as well for those use cases. The only time it was inadequate was when I wanted to work on my .NETpad-related programming projects. For that, or any serious software development, I still need a PC. (Or a Mac, if it’s SwiftUI or whatever.)

The iPad does support multiple displays as well, of course. And docks, so you can connect multiple peripherals, as you do with a PC. This means that it can be useful for power users as well as mainstream users. On paper. What’s needed, of course, are the apps we all use every day.

And as it turns out, that’s in great shape too.

? The iPad and productivity

It’s shocking how much work I can get done on any iPad. My favorite Markdown editor, iA Writer, is available on the iPad in a version I prefer to that on Windows. Word, Excel, and all key Microsoft Office apps, plus Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot. Affinity Photo and Photoshop are there. DaVinci Resolve and other video editors, not to mention iMovie. OneDrive, Google Drive, and Synology Drive all integrate with Files and each offers offline access to files with automatic sync. Slack and Teams. All the social media services I use. It’s kind of astonishing.

Less obvious, perhaps–especially if you’ve avoided the iPad, iCloud, and whatever else Apple’s done in this space–is that many apps let you largely ignore the file system. You just do work, it saves automatically to iCloud, and it’s available later on that device and on any other Apple devices you use. This isn’t new; indeed, it was designed to obviate the need for file system access like we have on computers. But it’s incredibly useful, still. For example, I wrote this in iA Writer on the iPad and never had to save. Indeed, I couldn’t save.

For old-timers like me, this can be strange and intimidating. But iPadOS 26 will almost certainly result in more people choosing an iPad when it’s time to replace an aging PC. And this capability will be eye-opening to that crowd. There’s nothing quite like it in other ecosystems.

↗️ Make the simple more functional, or make the more functional simpler

Over the past few decades, we’ve watched Big Tech platform makers like Apple, Google, and Microsoft try to enter new markets. But these companies have empires to protect, so this often takes the form of “when you’re a hammer, everything you see is a nail.” For example, when Microsoft entered the videogame console market with Xbox, its first console was a thinly-disguised Windows PC. And when it entered the media center market, it did so via a Windows-based system that required customers to put tower PCs in their living rooms. Why? Because that’s how Microsoft saw the world, through the lens of its most important product of that dominant era, Windows.

Apple started off heading in the same direction. It created Mac OS X by combining NeXTStep with classic Mac OS, similar to how modern Windows versions are the result of Microsoft combining NT with its DOS-based Windows. But then it pushed into devices, starting with the iPod. That device was small and focused, and so an embedded platform made sense. But when it pushed into more diverse and capable devices, like the iPhone and then the iPad, Apple took the technically excellent but complex OS X, stripped it down to make sense on these more resource-constrained devices, and added device-specific features like multitouch and sensor support.

That was new and different, and I shouldn’t have worked. But it did. And so this success was the start of an interesting debate that’s persisted to this day. Is it better to take a full-featured platform and try to simplify it? Or is it better to take a simple platform and add features over time while trying to maintain its simplicity?

Apple has done both, but it’s stuck with the latter approach for the past decade and a half. OS X was big, heavy, and complex, but it was able to make this system work on the iPhone and iOS by keeping what was most important and jettisoning everything else. Then, subsequent device platforms worked off the simpler foundation providing iOS, generally speaking.

? Apple’s strategy today works better than Microsoft’s

That this strategy has been enormously successful is obvious. But it wasn’t until we got to the iPad that I became positive that it’s easier–and better–to start simple and add functionality than the reverse. This requires a thoughtful development approach, of course, and constant vigilance. Otherwise, it would in time become difficult to avoid the tech cruft that more complex platforms have.

Microsoft has always approached new platform decisions from the opposite direction. But its repeated failures at making Windows simpler, whether it was Windows CE/Windows Mobile, Windows RT, Windows 10X, S mode, or whatever are instructive in their own ways. Where Apple seemed adept at this process in the build-up to the iPhone and iOS, Microsoft just never seemed to get it right. All those platforms were major compromises that were rejected by customers (or, with 10X, never even made it to market).

Today, we have a rich history of these defeats to look back on. And going forward, the only hope we have for a simpler Windows rests with Windows 11 on Arm. That effort got off to a bad (re)start in 2017. But it’s been incredibly successful since the introduction of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chipsets, and the resulting PCs offer better overall performance, efficiency, battery life, and reliability than classic x86-based PCs.

This is worthwhile work, and necessary. But Microsoft is never going to parlay this success into a family of even simpler Arm-based consumer electronics devices, and that’s true despite David Weston’s recent and slightly suspicious comments about the “appliance-level” simplicity he says that customers want. That’s what the iPad delivers. But that ship has sailed, with Windows. The PC is, and will always be, a PC.

? So, what about the PC?

20 years ago, right before personal computing changed forever thanks to the iPhone, Bill Gates would wax philosophical about “the magic of software” and how Windows PCs were so resilient that they had weathered every competitive initiative imaginable over decades in the market. The theory here was that Windows, as software, was infinitely adaptable. If new use cases emerged, no problem. Windows could handle it.

Gates’ theories there explain why Windows was the foundation for Microsoft’s pushes into videogame consoles and media centers, as noted above, but also into PDAs, phones, tablets, Internet set-top boxes, servers, portable media devices, and anything and everything else. This strategy worked until it didn’t, but Microsoft kept pushing Windows as the solution to every competitive threat well past the point of common sense. This is the blind spot that’s created by enormous success. And Microsoft isn’t unique in that it began failing, soon repeatedly, to duplicate its earlier successes.

This may not be obvious, but Apple failing to make the Mac into a mainstream replacement for Windows was in some ways the best thing that ever happened to the company. Apple struggled to achieve double-digit usage or market share with the Mac despite the technical advantages of Mac OS X. And so it pushed into new markets to grow, and it saw its biggest successes with solutions that weren’t dependent on the Mac. If the Mac had been more successful, Apple would never have brought iTunes, the iTunes Store, and the iPod to Windows. These subsequent products were so successful than Apple dropped the word “Computer” from its name.

By the time Apple released the iPad, Steve Jobs had started comparing personal computing to the vehicle market, where there are cars and trucks. In his view, the iPad was a car, a simple, less expensive device that would appeal to the mainstream. And the PC and Mac were trucks, more complex, purpose-built machines aimed at more strenuous workloads that few mainstream users need.

He was right. And though any pedant can poke holes in any comparison, this one is nearly perfect in that it’s quickly understood and obvious. Yes, passenger trucks are popular with individuals, at least in America, but cars are the better solution for most people world-wide. In the car market, some are rich enough to afford any vehicle, but most are not, and a Toyota Corolla can get you to work just as well as a Porsche or high-end Mercedes. You get the idea.

Jobs saw a world in which the iPad, his Toyota Corolla, would get better and better over time. And, in doing so, that it would appeal to an ever bigger slice of the mainstream than would a Mac or PC. Helping matters, the iPhone and iPad had reduced the use cases for the Mac, relegating it and the PC to productivity/work scenarios that were either impossible or non-optimal on a touch-first tablet. But that, too, would change.

Thanks to his passing and Tim Cook’s more analytical leadership style, this transformation took longer than it should have. But tied to the debate above about simple vs. complex, we’ve had iPads for years that were technically capable of replacing Macs and PCs but artificially constrained by their software. Today, that’s over, and iPadOS 26 delivers the software capabilities the iPad has long needed, and it does so without compromising that device’s central strengths.

Unfortunately for the PC (and the Mac), this means that an iPad is suddenly a much more viable alternative, further reducing our need for these more complex machines. Unfortunately for Microsoft, it has no viable device-like platform that can now or ever will compete with the iPad. It can’t even compete with Chrome OS, apparently, based on its recent decision to halt development of Windows 11 SE, a system I suspect most of you forgot even existed.

Circling back to the car/truck idea, one might view the relationship between the PC/Mac and the iPad as more of a workstation/computer dynamic. This should be vaguely comforting for the audience that will push back on the iPad’s new advantages over the PC and Mac, but that’s beside the point. We’ve known for a long time that Windows PCs were too daunting and too unreliable for many mainstream users. Decades ago, I helped my parents try to use Windows PCs, but I was helpless to overcome their limitations and the complexity of the PC. Today, the path is much clearer and for more types of people. And that path points to PCs (and Macs) less often than ever.

Looked at from a different direction, Windows PCs and Macs both evolved over the years, but they’re still much more complex, less reliable/predictable, and less personal than the smartphones we all use all day, every day. The iPad bridges both worlds, but it also retains the best attributes are each. It has the simplicity, reliability, predictability, and personality of a smartphone, but it also now delivers the productivity experiences that most people begrudgingly complete today using a PC or Mac. It’s not a compromise. It just does more, better.

? I know what you’re thinking

Can we speak honestly for a moment?

One of the curious issues with the Microsoft or Windows community–however you define this thing that most of us are part of–is that we’ve been retreating mentally for years as Microsoft’s defeats have racked up. This has been happening for a long time, but recently it’s clearly accelerated.

Many years ago, a cousin convinced my birth father to purchase a MacBook Air, and that experience was apparently successful enough that he later got his first iPhone and moved right into the Apple ecosystem. He’s been using an iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Air ever since, but this transition created some awkward moments between us early on. Knowing that I was in some way an expert in these matters, he would call me when he needed help with a PC or whatever. But he kept doing this with his Apple devices, and I couldn’t help him. I had to finally tell him that I wasn’t the best resource for those questions.

You’ve all experienced this type of thing at some point.

Our skills, built up over many years, are no longer as valuable. There are different ways to react to this new reality, but I find it particularly painful when I learn of others, mired in the PC past, who make bad decisions for their families despite the changing times. I’m not suggesting that anyone drop the PC, and I very much prefer it over the Mac, personally. But we’re well past the time when we should be following Microsoft down new rabbit holes. We need to collectively wake up, embrace what’s still great about the PC, and maybe be a little more open to change. You know, the central characteristic of this industry we all embraced so many years ago.

But I see the pushback everywhere, the overt resistance to change. It seems like I can’t write about any topic these days without triggering a “yeah, but” reaction from someone, head in the sand, who can’t accept reality. It even happens within the context of Windows, with those who refuse to use Windows 11 until they can stick the Taskbar on the top of the screen, and with those who reject Windows 11 on Arm because it can’t possibly be that good, and they have this one ancient printer or whatever that still isn’t compatible.

It’s worse once you move past Windows, of course. And that’s why this year’s sudden and dramatic improvements to the iPad are such a hard pill to swallow for some. This can’t possibly be happening. And so some will apply their calcified thinking to this product, too. Of course they will. They won’t use any computer that doesn’t support a very specific app. They’ll point out that the iPad’s new ability to run background tasks is limited to certain kinds of apps. And when they run out of specific complaints, they will tell anyone who’s still listening that they will never buy an Apple product. Ever.

My counter to all that is simple. Those things you think are negatives are, in fact, advantages. And while I certainly have my issues with Apple, let’s not ignore the fact that any thinking person should have issues with all Big Tech companies. Anyone who considers themselves a Microsoft or Windows fan, or however you self-identify, is surely having some second thoughts this year, especially. But in the interests of honesty, this has been happening for a long time.

Look, I have many of the same issues you all do. I’m set in my ways. I’ve based my entire career on Windows and Microsoft, in many ways. I have very specific workflows. I know all kinds of shortcuts, workarounds, and fixes that make me more efficient throughout the day. I’m right there with you.

But when I leave aside my unique Microsoft/Windows-centric needs and think about what it is I do each day on a Windows PC, it’s not difficult to compare that work with what’s possible now on the iPad. Any platform shift can be challenging, especially for those that are hyper-specific. But whether it’s a Mac, Chromebook, Linux PC, or now an iPad, you now have more and better choices than ever. And, as important, fewer reasons than ever to keep using something that doesn’t work all that well and is specifically designed to further its maker’s needs and not yours. This is why I wrote Little Tech (Premium), as a sort of level-set for what’s out there.

? Circling back

Obviously, the iPad has been weighing heavily on my mind since WWDC 2025 and the startling completeness of Apple’s advances with iPadOS 26. And while the Magic Keyboard and 11-inch iPad are too small for me, personally, as a laptop-type device–I prefer 16-inch laptops now, and the biggest iPad is only 13 inches–I can see it. I can see how complete this is, how thoughtful and useful. How my daily workflow can translate directly to the iPad. And that there would be real world benefits to making this shift.

I also see that I cannot make this shift, not now, for all kinds of reasons. But that doesn’t obviate this advance for many others, perhaps most others. I at least have that level of empathy for others. I want the people I care about to have stress-free experiences instead of the typical nonsense I see every day on Windows. This is about choosing simplicity and “it just works” over complexity and enshittification. Now and in the future.

For me, it’s still the future. My iPad, as noted, is 11 inches. This is small for a PC, but it’s average for a tablet, especially one you mostly read on or maybe catch up on email, social media, and the like. It’s incredibly portable. The reliability is off the charts, so much so that I never even think about it. The battery life is incredible, though I will note that the Magic Keyboard reduces that by perhaps 20 or 30 percent, in my experience.

Nothing is perfect. But I’ve been using the iPad with the Magic Keyboard, in landscape mode, every single day for over a month now. Not for work, mostly, though I have added more of that over this time as well, especially with Notion, iA Writer, and Synology Drive, three Little Tech solutions that work as well on the iPad as they do in Windows. Things are changing, and for the best.

I can see it, and it’s there for you to see as well. If you would just look.