iPadOS 26 is so bad that I replaced it with Android

It is a story as old as time. iPads are better productivity machines than Android tablets. At least that’s what people want you to think. As an iPad (iPad Pro 11 2020) owner and Galaxy Tab S10 Plus user, I think it’s quite the opposite. Aside from one or two specific uses, I can do more things on my Tab S10 than on the iPad for one reason: iPadOS 26 sucks. It’s bad enough that after five years of enjoyment, I now hate using my iPad.

As I said in the introduction, I’m using a six-year-old iPad and a Samsung tablet that’s about a year and a half old. However, the differences in performance and power do not influence what I write today. All of my issues with iPadOS 26 are based on the software design, not the performance of the device.

Before iPadOS 26 came out, the iPad’s multitasking features were limited but easy to use. You could only have two apps split side by side at a time until you launched Stage Manager, which provided more freedom and a more desktop-like experience. There were frustrations with that; For example, there was no way to snap windows to common layouts, but it was sufficient for most users.

iPadOS 26 fixes those limitations. That sounds like a good thing, and it would be if the way he addressed those annoyances didn’t ruin everything good he used to have. You can no longer drag and drop split-screen apps from the app launcher. Now you need to drag an app, swipe it to the side of the screen, and repeat the process with the other app, or long-press the MacOS-inspired traffic light and choose the window layout you want.

So what’s the problem with this new UX? For starters, the user interface is small. It’s hard to try to tap the traffic light buttons or anything in the menu bar quickly without tapping the wrong thing. Having to slow down and make a conscious effort to select the right thing is annoying and only gets worse if you’re using an iPad Mini.

Sliding apps were also greatly weakened in iPadOS 26, and in fact disappeared completely until iPadOS 26.1 came out. In previous versions of iPadOS, you could have as many swipe apps open as you wanted and could easily switch between them. In iPadOS 26, you can only have one swipe app at a time. Adding another sends any apps you already had there to the app switcher. The only update the sliding apps got was the ability to resize them, but that doesn’t make up for being limited to one app at a time.

The biggest mistake Apple made in iPadOS 26 was making all of these changes in the iPad’s default mode. I’m the go-to tech support for a large group of older relatives and family friends, and the iPad has always been something I recommend. Since iPadOS 26 came out, almost all of those people have needed help learning the new window management UX, and several of them are feeling anxious that their iPad is somehow broken. All of these changes should have been made as part of Stage Manager, leaving the default behavior as it was. Instead, the product that is supposed to “just work” and be easy to use seems like nothing of the sort.

Take a look at One UI 8 on Samsung tablets, and the situation could not be more different. Samsung’s split screen and multitasking features have always been easy to use, and a redesigned DeX mode It is based on that foundation.

In previous versions of One UI, DeX mode was treated as a different operating system than what did everything else with your tablet. Enabling DeX mode would make you wait through a home screen and you wouldn’t be able to bring apps that were already running in the mainstream Android space to DeX. One UI 8 overhauled DeX mode, bringing it into the core Android experience and making it seamless. Instead of having to launch DeX and wait for it to launch, all you need to do is swipe over to the overview screen and tap the Add Desktop button on the right.

DeX also allows you to have multiple desktops, which you can slide between with the touch screen or with keyboard shortcuts. The changes Samsung has made to One UI 8 are more intuitive, but most importantly they have not interfered with the normal operation of my Tab S10 Plus. If I never open a desktop, then the tablet continues as usual: no broken or weakened functions, nothing new to learn for those who are not so tech-savvy.

That doesn’t mean things are perfect. Samsung’s DeX mode only allows you to place two windows side by side, although you can have three columns of apps in the standard Android environment. That’s embarrassing on a 12.4-inch screen, especially when iPadOS 26 can fit four windows at once on tablets significantly smaller than my Tab S10 Plus.

I don’t do any hard work on my tablets. You won’t find me plugging in a mouse and keyboard and using them to type. However, I use them for research work, and that always involves extensive use of whatever multitasking features the device has. I’m one of those crazy people who uses split-screen and pop-up apps on a 6.2-inch Galaxy S25, so you can only imagine how far I go on a tablet.

Neither Samsung nor Apple have perfected multitasking on tablets. The iPad in its latest version of the operating system is difficult to use without a mouse and has weakened fan-favorite features, and the Tab S10 Plus in the latest version of One UI has some quirks that limit windowing. When I choose between the two, I choose which set of compromises bothers me the least, and that’s certainly Samsung’s implementation. On a tablet, One UI 8 is easier to use and, more importantly, hasn’t led to me receiving dozens of phone calls from confused people who think their tablets are broken or have a virus, unlike iPadOS 26.

Do you agree? Do you find the latest version of iPadOS 26 a frustrating mess compared to iPadOS 18, or do you prefer it to what Samsung did with One UI 8? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.