iPadOS 26 introduces powerful new features that push the capabilities and versatility of iPad even further

Apple have previewed iPadOS 26, the biggest iPadOS release ever, taking a giant leap forward and pushing the unique capabilities and versatility of iPad even further. A beautiful design brings a new look to the iPad, making the experience even more expressive and delightful. While maintaining the simplicity of iPad, iPadOS 26 introduces an entirely new, powerful and intuitive windowing system with new features that help users control, organise, and switch between apps. Apple Intelligence becomes even more capable and integrated across iPadOS 26, with new features that allow users to communicate, express themselves, and get things done, including Live Translation, new ways to create with Genmoji and Image Playground,¹ and intelligent actions with Shortcuts. The supercharged Files app offers new ways to organise files and customise folders. With folders in the dock, users can conveniently access downloads, documents, and more from anywhere. The Preview app comes to iPad, providing users with a dedicated app to view and edit PDFs, featuring powerful features like Apple Pencil Markup and AutoFill built in. With Background Tasks, audio input selection, and Local Capture, iPadOS 16 unlocks new capabilities for creative pros working with audio and video.

“iPadOS 26 is our biggest iPadOS release ever, with powerful features that take the experience to the next level and transform what users can do on iPad,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “With a beautiful new design, an entirely new, powerful and intuitive windowing system, even more features powered by Apple Intelligence, huge improvements to working with files, and new capabilities for creatives to power their workflows, iPadOS 26 makes our most versatile device even more capable.”

A Beautiful New Design

The beautiful new design brings more expressive and delightful experiences to iPad users, while maintaining the familiarity of iPadOS. It’s crafted with Liquid Glass — a translucent new material that reflects and refracts its surroundings, while reacting to user input and dynamically transforming to bring greater focus to the content they care about most. It enables a new level of vitality across experiences, such as the Lock Screen and Control Centre. It gives users new ways to personalise their Home Screen with updated app icons that come to life in light or dark appearances, colourful new light and dark tints, as well as an elegant new clear look. Updated controls and navigation extend to apps, including Mail, Safari, Apple TV, Apple Music, and more.

An Entirely New, Powerful and Intuitive Windowing System

iPadOS 26 introduces powerful new features that help users work with, control, organise, and switch between app windows — all while maintaining the immediacy and simplicity that iPad users expect. The new windowing system enables users to resize app windows fluidly, position them precisely where they want, and open multiple windows simultaneously.

Familiar window controls allow users to seamlessly close, minimise, resize, or tile their windows. Window tiling is designed for the unique capabilities of iPad and enables users to arrange their windows with a simple flick. If a user previously resized an app, it opens back in the same size and position when they reopen it. With Exposé, users can quickly view all their open windows spread out, making it easy to switch to the one they need. The new windowing system works great with Stage Manager for those who want to group their windows into distinct stages, and with an external display for those who want even more space to work across their apps.²

With a new menu bar, users can access the commands available in an app with a simple swipe down from the top of the display, or by moving their cursor to the top. Users can quickly find a specific feature or related tips in an app by using the search in the menu bar. Additionally, developers can now customise the menu bar in their apps.

New Features Powered by Apple Intelligence

Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system that delivers helpful and relevant insights while taking an extraordinary step forward for privacy in AI, becomes even more capable and integrated across iPadOS 16. Live Translation in Phone, FaceTime, and Messages enables iPad users to communicate seamlessly across languages. In Messages, incoming texts — including group messages — are automatically translated into the user’s preferred language.³ On FaceTime, a user can follow along with translated live captions while still hearing the speaker’s voice. And when on a phone call, the translation is spoken aloud throughout the conversation.⁴

iPadOS 26 brings users new ways to create Genmoji, giving them the ability to start with existing emoji and descriptions, modify personal attributes like hair length or accessories, and select expressions. Users will also have more control over personal attributes and expressions in Image Playground, and can tap into brand-new styles with ChatGPT, such as an oil painting style for a friend’s contact poster. For moments when users have a specific idea in mind, they can tap Any Style and describe precisely what they want. Image Playground can now send a user’s description or photo to ChatGPT and create a unique image.

Shortcuts features new intelligent actions that allow users to create shortcuts that are more powerful than ever, including summarising text with Writing Tools and creating images with Image Playground. Users can also tap directly into Apple Intelligence models to provide responses that feed into the rest of their shortcuts. For example, a student can create a shortcut that utilises Apple Intelligence models to compare an audio transcription of a class lecture with the notes they took, and add any key points they may have missed.

Influential New Ways to Work with Files

iPadOS 26 introduces powerful new ways to manage, access, and edit files. An enhanced Files app with an updated List view enables users to view more document details in resizable columns and collapsible folders. To make folders more straightforward to identify at a glance, Files also offers folder customisation options that include custom colours, icons, and emojis that sync across devices. For quicker access, users can now drag any folder from the Files app right into the Dock. Additionally, users can set a default app for opening specific files or file types.

The Preview App Comes to iPad

Preview comes to iPad, providing users with a dedicated app for creating quick sketches, as well as viewing, editing, and marking up PDFs and images with Apple Pencil or by touch. Users can access all their PDFs and images directly in the Files app from Preview, create an empty page, use Apple Pencil to draw and write on it, and utilise AutoFill to fill out PDF forms quickly.

New Ways to Work with Apps

Taking advantage of the incredible power of Apple Silicon, iPadOS 26 unlocks the ability to perform computationally intensive Background Tasks. When users start a long-running process in an app, Background Tasks will show up with Live Activities, giving users complete control and a clear sense of what is running. Developers can also utilise an updated Background Tasks API, which enables users to perform long-running tasks from their apps.

iPadOS 26 also brings new audio features that offer more flexible input and streamlined recording. Users now have better control over their audio input, with the ability to choose different microphones for each app, as well as individual websites. Recorded audio will be made even better with the availability of Voice Isolation, which blocks ambient noise and allows precise and crisp recordings. With AirPods 4, AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), and AirPods Pro 2, users can record their content with studio-quality audio and enjoy clear calls.

With Local Capture, users can produce high-quality recordings directly from an iPad using any video conferencing app, and easily share audio and video files once the call is over. Echo cancellation of other participants’ audio keeps the user’s voice front and centre, allowing for a clear recording of their side of the call.

New Apps, Plus More Ways to Communicate

With iPadOS 26, Journal comes to iPad, making it easy for users to capture and write about the details of everyday moments or special events. Using Apple Pencil or touch, users can incorporate drawings and handwriting, along with photos, videos, audio recordings, places, their state of mind, and more. Users can keep multiple journals for various aspects of life, and now have access to a beautiful map view that organises entries by location.

The all-new Apple Games app provides users with a new home for gaming, and iPadOS 16 introduces Game Overlay, which enables users to quickly view new events and updates, adjust settings, call or invite a friend mid-game, and more.

The Messages app brings conversation Backgrounds, which let users personalise their chats with stunning designs and create unique backgrounds that fit their conversations with the Image Playground. Messages also brings Polls and a redesigned details view that helps users easily navigate what has been shared in a conversation, and supercharges group chats with typing indicators, as well as the ability to request and receive Apple Cash.⁵ Additionally, the Phone app comes to iPad, and includes updates like Hold Assist⁶ and Call Screening.⁷

Additional iPadOS 26 updates:

• Available in the tool palette, the new reed pen utilises stroke-angle presets to provide a traditional calligraphy experience with Apple Pencil or touch in apps such as Notes, Preview, Freeform, and Journal, as well as when using Markup, and in third-party apps that utilise the PencilKit API.

• Calculator introduces new 3D graphing capabilities in Math Notes, enabling users to write equations with three variables and create three-dimensional graphs.

• Notes adds the ability to import and export a note into a markdown file, along with support for capturing conversations in the Phone app as audio recordings with transcriptions.

• Accessibility features include Accessibility Reader, a new systemwide reading mode designed to make text easier to read for users who are blind, have low vision, or have other disabilities affecting reading; an all-new Braille Access experience that offers a user-friendly interface for users with a connected braille display; Share Accessibility Settings to temporarily use accessibility settings on another person’s device; and more.

Availability

All of these features are available for testing starting today through the Apple Developer Program at developer.apple.com. A public beta will be available through the Apple Beta Software Program next month at beta.apple.com. New software features will be available this fall as a free software update for iPad Pro (M4), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later), iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation and later), iPad Air (M2 and later), iPad Air (3rd generation and later), iPad (A16), iPad (8th generation and later), iPad mini (A17 Pro), and iPad mini (5th generation and later). The Apple Intelligence features detailed require supported devices, which include all iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPad mini (A17 Pro), and iPad and Mac models with M1 and later that have Apple Intelligence enabled and Siri and device language set to the same supported language: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Japanese, Korean, or Chinese (simplified). More languages will be added by the end of this year, including Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (traditional), and Vietnamese. For more information, visit apple.com/os/ipados and apple.com/apple-intelligence. Features are subject to change. Some features may not be available in all languages or regions, and availability may vary due to local laws and regulations. For more information about availability, visit apple.com.

About Apple: Apple revolutionised personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, AirPods, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. Apple’s six software platforms — iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices, empowering people with breakthrough services, including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud, and Apple TV+. Apple’s more than 150,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth and to leaving the world better than we found it.

1. Genmoji and Image Playground are available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, and Japanese.
2. Full external display support is available with iPad Air (5th generation), iPad Air (M2 and later), iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation and later), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation and later), and iPad Pro (M4).
3. Live Translation in Messages supports English (U.S., UK), French (France), German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (Spain), and Chinese (simplified).
4. Live Translation in Phone and FaceTime is available for one-on-one calls in English (U.S., UK), French (France), German, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish (Spain).
5. Apple Cash services are provided by Green Dot Bank, a member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Apple Payments Services LLC, a subsidiary of Apple Inc., is a service provider for Green Dot Bank in connection with Apple Cash accounts. Neither Apple Inc. nor Apple Payments Services LLC is a bank. Learn more about the terms and conditions. Only available in the U.S. on eligible devices.
6. Hold Assist supports English (U.S., Australia, Canada, India, Singapore, UK), French (France), Spanish (U.S., Mexico, Spain), German (Germany), Portuguese (Brazil), Japanese (Japan), and Mandarin Chinese (mainland China).
7. Call Screening supports Cantonese (China mainland, Hong Kong, Macao), English (U.S., Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Singapore, South Africa, UK), French (Canada, France), German (Germany), Japanese (Japan), Korean (Korea), Mandarin Chinese (China mainland, Taiwan, Macao), Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish (U.S., Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain).

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