iPadOS 26 sold me on an Apple accessory I thought was not worth it

It's expensive but tempting.

For the past couple of years, Apple has really been pushing this "iPad is your only computer" mentality. And for the most part, people have tried to believe it. What has tripped people (including myself) up is the fact that they are also not allowing macOS (or basically any computer-like feature) on iPad. And, until now, I didn't understand why. But I get it now.

What makes the iPad different from the rest?

When the iPad was first released, it was stepping into a mess of a scene, with most companies failing at making the tablet make any sense. Most companies tried to create a tablet that ran Windows, which was an admirable idea, but one that doesn't quite work in a tablet.

The first issue is that Windows is REALLY not meant for touch. This is something we still see in Windows gaming handhelds like the Lenovo Legion Go and ROG Ally. As Jonathan Horst from Mac Address has pointed out, "The finger is a blunt instrument, fat and round. The pointing device, a mouse or track pad,3:04is a precise instrument. You can see it on the screen, how the pointer tapers to a pixel-thin point, and pixels are very small now."

Windows is meant for precision and accuracy, something that the finger cannot emulate. Microsoft, and Apple, for that matter, have built up this idea in users' minds, that Windows is meant for a mouse and keyboard, for precision, and NOT for touch.

This is why Windows 8's touch interface was so bad. Most computer users had a mouse and keyboard for their PC, so optimizing Windows for this seldom-used device was an extremely unprofitable and unintuitive idea.

So, every tablet that ran Windows was an ill-fated attempt to bring this odd idea to life, that eventually was killed.

Steve Jobs saw this mess and knew that Apple could do something about it. In fact, Apple was working on a tablet-like device all the way back in 2004 internally. As Mrwhosetheboss found:

"It's only while Apple were making the iPad that they realized, 'hey, wait a sec, if we scale down this same tech, it could become an absolutely revolutionary phone," and as soon as they realized that, they immediately suspended iPad development and went all in on what would end up becoming the iPhone in 2007."

After they saw what a success that the iPhone was, they also realized that they could, instead of running a desktop operating system, have the iPad run iOS (at the time, iPhoneOS). This idea was unheard of back when the iPad was released in 2010.

So they did, and the iPad is by far the most popular tablet in the world. Partly because of how good of an idea running a mobile OS on it was, and partly because of the ecosystem that they were cultivating in their mobile OS.

What changed since then?

Fast forward to now, and all Apple wants to do is to move ever so slightly towards being a Mac, without cannibalizing all of their Mac sales. It made no sense to me why, in 2020, Apple released the Magic Keyboard for iPad, a much more laptop-like keyboard accessory with a trackpad, floating design, and a USB-C passthrough charging port. It was much similar to a laptop than their Smart Keyboard Folio cases they had been making.

I don't understand why Apple released a smash-hit with putting a mobile OS on their tablet under Steve Jobs, and now, under Tim Cook, they have been simply dismantling that vision. Now, I'm sure that Tim Cook is not the only reason that this has happened – the tech landscape, and the world for that matter, have changed immensely since Steve Jobs' passing, and Apple had to do something to keep up.

But it still confuses me. That is why, when I bought my iPad Pro M4 right when it came out, I bought no accessories. Partly because they were so expensive, but it didn't make sense for what I was doing.

I use my iPad as an iPad, not a computer. I use it for art, occasionally (which is why I bought an Apple Pencil Pro later on), entertainment, and even photo editing. All I ever need from a photo editor is basically Lightroom, and the touchscreen interface is fantastic. The Pencil is great for this, and the Tandem OLED is significantly higher quality than any other screen in my house by a country mile.

So, I have never found a need for a Magic Keyboard. It just doesn't make sense for me.

But then I saw iPadOS 26 get announced. The multitasking windowing is so nice, I might genuinely switch to the Magic Keyboard just for that. What I was hoping they would do is that they would have the multitasking mode only work if you were docked into a keyboard. It would complete the idea that handheld, the iPad stays an iPad. But docked, it becomes a laptop.

My issue is that, what would it gain me? The most intensive thing I do on my iPad is photo editing. And my workflow is fine the way it is. So does it really make sense to spend $300 on a keyboard accessory? My gut is telling me no, but I still might just do it.

We will have to wait and see what Apple does with the next iPad and the iPad Pro later on.