Transcription
iPadOS 26 has changed the way I approach the iPad. In fact, I've changed a lot of my workflow around the iPad. This video is sponsored by EchoFlow. Let's get into it.
One of the biggest surprises for me regarding iPadOS 26 is I now love Stage Manager. I did a video previewing iPadOS 26 already, and in there I talk about the new windowing mode. Well, Stage Manager is now just a layer on top of that new windowing mode. It's not really a whole separate multitasking system.
You can enable Stage Manager by long pressing on the multitasking window control in Control Center and selecting Stage Manager. Or you can go into Settings, Multitasking, and turn it on here. Stage Manager gets almost every feature of the new windowing mode. This includes freely movable windows, freely resizable windows, stoplight controls, menu bar, tiling gestures, this even includes the flicking mode, the increased window limit. For example, on my M4 iPad Pro, it's 12 windows, but this may vary from iPad model to iPad model.
Now, the only thing it doesn't get, and this one still kind of kills me and has me like kind of turning it off sometimes, is it doesn't get the ability to, when you tap on an app or click on an app, it just opens in that space that you're in now. With Stage Manager, if you tap or click on an app, it still opens up into a new stage. You either have to drag and drop the app or shift click on it to get it to open up. I really wish Apple would add a setting to invert this behavior. So when I tap on an app, it opens in my current stage. If I shift click on an app, it'll then open in a new stage.
In the new windowing mode, so just the basic windowing mode, stage manager turned off. If I tap on an app or click on an app, it just opens with all my other windowed apps, kind of like it would on the Mac. There's no modifier keys or dragging and dropping needed. You just tap on it and it opens in that space.
Other than that one complaint, Stage Manager has been amazing to use. I've been treating it kind of like spaces on the Mac, where I'll set up different workspaces. So I have these different stages for my different kinds of work. Todoist, Mail, Fantastical, and Safari are my admin stage. Then I have Obsidian, a separate Safari window, and ChatGPT for my writing and research stage. Then stuff like Messages, Discord, Fiery Feeds, Raindrop.io as my reading and messaging stage. Plus I'll set up other stages for when I'm doing different kinds of work. For example, I'll put like Photoshop, files and Lightroom together.
What's great about stage managers, once you have these stages set up, it's really easy to jump between them. I do have the setting enabled so that the stage manager sidebar is hidden. This just helps with my focus. You can move the cursor over to the left side or swipe in with your finger to reveal this and then you can just tap on whatever you want and jump to it. I do this because I find the sidebar distracting. When I'm writing, I don't want Discord pulling my attention if I'm editing video, I don't want some social app reminding me it exists. It also eats up a lot of UI, and I've been using a 13 inch iPad Pro as my beta testing machine over the summer. And even on a 13 inch iPad Pro, it's a lot of UI space that gets eaten up.
You can hide the sidebar by going into settings, multitasking, and turn off show recent apps. Now with this enabled, stage manager works even more like spaces on Mac iOS, because you have to go over to that mode and select that space. But you don't always have to go over to the sidebar to jump between spaces. You can swipe at the bottom with your finger to jump between spaces, or you can three finger swipe on a trackpad to jump between spaces.
If I was able to request one more feature for Stage Manager, it would be the macOS feature that allows apps to exist across all spaces. So in macOS, you can right click on an app in the dock and have it exist in a specific space or between all spaces. So I have Finder and ChatGBT existing across all my spaces so I just have them wherever I am. That would be really nice in Stage Manager.
This video is sponsored by Echo Flow. This is the Echo Flow Rapid Power Bank. The version I have here is the 25,000 milliamp hour battery pack that can output up to 170 watts of fast charging. There is also a 27,000 milliamp hour version and a Rapid Pro X model that can output up to 300 watts. I never leave home without an external battery, whether I'm going outside of the house to work, I'm traveling with my Nintendo Switch, or doing a photography trip. You never know when you're gonna need to charge up your devices, so I always have an external battery pack with me.
One thing that's annoyed me about external battery packs is they all require you to bring extra cables to use with them. This means you have more to carry and to keep track of. But the Echo Flow Rapid Power has not one, but two built-in USB-C cables. One is retractable, and the other one is built right into the lanyard. So if I'm working and need to top up my computer, I can just plug it right in, or if I'm playing the Switch handheld and I don't have any outlets around, I can just charge it up using this. And all I need is the power bank. I don't have to pack any extra cables to use with it.
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Echo Flow also has these really cool charging bricks. One is a 45-watt GaN charger and the other is a 60-watt GaN charger. They both have retractable USB-C cables and an extra USB-C port. And the 65-watt one also has a USB-A port. This is my new favorite external battery pack. The fact that it's an incredibly large battery with two built in USB-C ports means this is my go to in my travel bag. I'm not leaving home without it. I'm going to put some links in the description below so you can go check out the Echo Flow rapid power unit. My thanks to Echo Flow for sponsoring this video.
Another big feature that I've just absolutely fallen in love with in the new windowing mood is the new tiling feature. Now, this exists for both stage manager and the basic windowing mode. So you can get this in either place. And there's a few different ways to trigger this new tiling mode.
If I'm doing a basic 50/50 split of apps, I prefer using keyboard shortcuts. Globe control right or left arrow will tile a window to 50% on the left or the right side, depending on which arrow key you use. When I'm working with multiple apps, I find this extremely useful. I do this a lot with PDF documents, contracts, reviewers guide, mail and Safari. When doing this, you get the classic split view slider so you can resize both windows by dragging this.
There is also a globe control up and down arrow shortcut. This will tile a window on the top and the bottom of your display. I find this useful when I'm using my iPad in portrait mode next to my external display.
There's also a new flicks gesture. I find these useful when using my iPad in tablet mode. Just start dragging the window by the top bar and then flick it to the side that you want. Now, the big difference between this and the keyboard shortcuts is flicking the window up makes it full screen. And flicking it down just minimizes that window. I think I would have preferred the tiling mode for those two options. There are options to minimize and make apps full screen that are a lot easier than doing the flick mode.
There's also special tiling options under the spotlight controls and menu bar. There is a three column mode so that you can have three different windows get arranged into columns. There's also the split view controls here so you can resize these windows as well. Under the menu bar and stoplight controls, there is a quarters view as well. This will display four windows in each corner of the iPad. I don't use this a lot because it makes the windows quite small, but I've needed to move a bunch of files around from my iPad to my NAS and a few other locations, and this was useful for that.
The fact that tiling is built right in the iPadOS is huge. I've been able to quickly rearrange windows and get stuff to exactly the spot that I want it to be with these new options. But I don't always use the tiling mode. I still find using apps in full screen to be useful in certain use cases. I can quickly make an app full screen by hitting globe F on the keyboard, or you can use the green button in the stoplight controls. I find having a single app in full screen to be really useful, especially if I'm doing something like writing or editing photos or videos, or even just watching a video.
I've been using the external monitor support on the iPad even more than before. Now, just like on the iPad's display, everything is freely placeable and sizable. This means I can make stuff small, have stuff hanging off the display, and have overlapping windows. In fact, there's been quite a few times that I come back in my office and I sit down at my computer and I start working away and I forget that I'm on an iPad. I think it's a Mac for a second because it really feels like that with the new windowing mode with how everything is just freely placeable, freely resizable. It feels good to use. I know I'm harping a lot on the new windowing mode in this video and other videos I've made, but as somebody that works from the iPad, this feels really good to use. Like this is the multitasking system I've been wanting.
Now, jumping back to the external display support, I use the studio display for my external monitor. And while I like it, it's a hard recommend in 2025. It's the LCD panel. In fact, it's the same LCD panel that was from the original Retina iMac, like way back in, what was it, like 2013 or something like that, it's an old panel. The black levels aren't great, it's not true HDR, and it's 60 hertz. It's a rough, rough monitor, especially if you get the version that I got that's tilt and height adjustable. That's $2,000. But one of the really nice things about it, I'll say, is that the three USB-C ports on the back are full 10 gigabits per second, so if you need to plug in external drives something there, you can, and then it's not going to be slowed down. It's 2025. You can get OLED monitors now for cheaper than the studio display, and they are going to look really good. Yeah, they're not going to be true retina, but I'm really struggling balancing between having a really nice display and having true retina. That's something I've really been struggling with lately.
Now, one thing to note with iPadOS currently, and hopefully this changes in the future, its external display support is capped at 60 Hertz. So if you go out and spend a bunch of money on a 240Hz monitor and you're just using it with your iPad, you're not going to really see any benefit from that. It's just going to run at 60Hz.
Another limitation I really hope Apple gets around to fixing soon is the fact there is no clamshell mode when using an iPad with an external display. What that means is you can't take your iPad and close it up in a magic keyboard case or a smart cover or anything like that and just plug it into the external display and just use the external display. This is because stuff like notifications and control center is only accessible on the iPad's display. Personally, I would prefer just a clamshell mode because I don't like having multiple monitors. I would just like to have one monitor to focus on so I'm not splitting my focus. But because this isn't possible, I keep my iPad to the right of my display. I use the MagFloat Pro stand. I'm 6'2" so I have my monitor kind of high, but taking the MagFloat Pro stand and setting it on top of my monitor stand, I'm able to get my iPad to the same height as my monitor. So the top levels are at the same height. I mostly use the iPad's display for the widgets as kind of a dashboard. I will occasionally put a document on over there or my task manager or media app on this screen. What I like about the MagFloat Pro stand is it rotates. Most of the time I use it in portrait, but if I'm sitting and working at my desk and a Formula One race is on, I can take it and rotate it into landscape and watch that Formula One race while I'm working on the external display.
One thing I have seen a lot of complaints about regarding iPad OS 26 is The removal of slide over. This may shock some people especially after just a few months ago I said I was done with stage manager and I love split view and slide over like it just made way more sense. But the removal of slide over doesn't bother me and let me explain before you jump into the comments. I always use slide over as a way to interact with apps quickly. So whether it was a document I was referencing, a website, messages, music, something like that where I would want to jump in there, reference something, make a quick change, and then jump out. That's how I use slide over.
Now with iPadOS 26, apps remember both their size and placement, and not just when you minimize them. You can force quit them, you can reboot your iPad, you can do whatever you can think of to an app and it will always open back up into the last position and size that that app was. So if it was a small little window it'll open back up there or if it's a big window it'll open back up like that. So apps I used to use in SlideOver, stuff like music, messages, files, good notes, Safari, drafts, pcalc, etc. I just set these up for the very specific sizes that I want and put them in the specific place that I want. Some are a similar size to what slide over would be, others might be a bit bigger. Some are off to the sides, others might be in the center. But when I need to activate them, I just tap on the app icon in the dock and boom, they're right there. The dock now holds up to 30 items on a 13 inch iPad Pro. So I use this as my primary app switcher.
Now while this isn't exactly the same way that SlideOver works, I will completely agree with you on that. But the fact that it remembers the app size and position, I think, makes it even more flexible than SlideOver. The key to this new system is having a way to quickly launch the apps that you use in SlideOver. And honestly, that's the dock. That is the best way to do it. Fill your dock up with apps. You can turn off the recent apps in the dock and settings, and that'll give you even more spots in your dock. And if you're doing something where you have multiple windows of an app and you have like maybe a big Safari window and a small what would have been your slide over Safari window. If you tap that app icon twice in the dock, it'll show a window picker for that specific app so you can just tap your slide over one and boom, it's there.
Now I know this won't fix the removal of slide over for everyone, but I really encourage you to try this method and give this a shot because it does a really good job. I've been very happy with the way this works.
Another big change for me is the ability to have background tasks. Now, right now, in the beta version of iPadOS 26, you're only going to find this in two places, files and Safari. This feature has been super helpful for moving projects to my NAS or downloading large files from the web. What I'm really waiting for, though, is the update to Final Cut Pro, which will probably come out alongside iPadOS 26. And what this will enable is background exports for Final Cut Pro. So you can start an export and then move on to other things. You won't have to leave Final Cut Pro open. I'm so excited for that. The fact Final Cut Pro couldn't do this from the get go was a really frustrating aspect of using the app.
Now, third party apps will also be able to do background tasks as well. This is an API they will have to add to their app and update. So you won't see stuff in the beta, but as stuff starts to update, you will probably see some of your apps get this feature. This means you won't be stuck staring at that app on your iPad screen while it completes some task. It can handle it in the background now. This is my sleeper hit of iPadOS 26.
Another big workflow change for me regarding iPadOS 26 is the ability to set default apps in files. Doing this has made the files app so much more robust. PDF documents and images to open in the new preview app, video files opening in VLC. Before the system would try and guess like what it should open an MPEG-4 document in or a PDF document or a raw file in based on like the last installed app that supported that file. And it would just lead to a bunch of issues like markdown files trying to open up in the Delta emulator app. Like it was just an absolute mess. So this has really cleaned things up for me. And what's really nice is it works just like the Mac. So you can have it set up to open all.md files in a text editor, or you can have it open that specific file in Delta because it's a Mega Drive file type.
The iPad got four new apps in iPadOS 26, but I think the most interesting one is the Preview app. Finally, a dedicated built-in app for dealing with PDFs and images. With preview you can annotate or mark up documents and images, sign or even auto fill forms. Now a lot of this stuff was in QuickLook for the previous versions of iPadOS, but the fact that there's a dedicated app now means you can launch it from Spotlight, add it to the dock or open it from the app library. There's also a dedicated document picker for opening up recent files. Plus you have stuff like multi-window support, the menu bar, and keyboard shortcuts. That stuff was not there with QuickLook. Now QuickLook is still in iPadOS. You can hit the spacebar on a file you have selected and open it. You can also go into the Open With menu and select QuickLook. Plus, you can still make QuickLook the default if you want that. For me, I feel like I get a bit more with preview.
So that's it. That's how iPadOS 26 is changing my workflow. I want to hear from you all how iPadOS 26 is affecting your workflow. You know, what have you had to change? What's for the better? What's for the worse? I want to know. below.
My thanks to Echo Flow for sponsoring this video. If you liked the video, hit the thumbs up button, subscribe if you haven't already. Thank you all so much for watching and have a great day.