If you’ve been using iPad for a while, you’ll notice a big change straight away: Slide Over and Split View are gone. iPadOS 26 ditches the old multitasking tricks in favour of a more powerful, Mac-like window system. It takes some adjustment, but once you’ve got the hang of it you’ll find it much more flexible.
From Settings > Multitasking & Gestures you can choose which style of multitasking suits you best.
Full Screen Apps means your iPad behaves more like an iPhone. One app takes over the entire display and that’s it – no multitasking, just simplicity.
Windowed Apps is where things get interesting. Grab the top bar of any app to move it around, or resize by dragging from a corner. The little “traffic light” menu in the top left offers quick controls: close, minimize (which hides the app), or expand to full screen. If you go full screen you’ll need to tap the traffic lights again to return it to a window. You can layer several apps on top of one another, just like on a Mac. By default, apps reopen in their last known position, and you can simply tap a window to bring it to the front. Any apps behind are still visible but paused in the background so they won’t drain your battery.
Stage Manager is the third option. It still lets you resize and move windows, but adds a way to save groups of apps together. These groups – called stages – are accessible from a menu on the left side of the screen. Swipe in from the edge to show it, then tap to swap between sets of apps. This is perfect if you like to keep a work setup handy and jump back to it after checking something else. If you prefer, you can also switch between app combinations from the regular app switcher.
It may feel like a lot at first, but this new approach makes the iPad’s big screen far more useful.