iPadOS 26 is here – and the beta is available to download right now

iPadOS 26 Release Date

While no specific release date has been confirmed, Apple typically launches its full software updates to everyone in the autumn. We’d expect to see iPadOS 26 arrive around the same time as the iPhone 17 Air, sometime in September.

iPadOS 26 Beta

If Apple follows its usual traditions, we should expect to see the iPadOS 26 beta arrive today (June 9) for registered developers. These will get updated every few weeks, and a Public Beta will arrive in July.

iPadOS 26 Design

Apple is using a new look in iPadOS 26 that it’s calling Liquid Glass.

This is a new translucent design philosophy with new icons, new effects and a look that’ll be familiar to anyone who has used the Vision Pro headset.

It looks like this Liquid Glass design reaches everywhere, from native apps – it’s immediately obvious in the Music app – to system elements and the Lock Screen.

The Home Screen does still look very much the same, with a grid of apps and widgets, but there are new icon options, including a transparent option that continues the glassy look.

iPadOS 26 Features and Multitasking

The biggest upgrade within iPadOS 26, at least for us, is the changes to the multitasking system. Some of these features were previously part of Stage Manager, but now they’re baked far deeper into the OS.

You can now resize and minimise apps, making them smaller and more manageable in a similar way to a traditional desktop UI. Multiple apps can be layered on top of each other, and there’s even Exposé to quickly glance at all your open apps.

There’s a menu bar now too – which also looks very Mac-like – for quick access to app features and the common green, yellow and red shortcut buttons for quickly resizing windows and closing apps.

Users have been asking for features like this to arrive on the iPad for years, and this could finally make the iPad more of a viable laptop alternative for power users.

The Files app has been refreshed in iPadOS 26, with resizable columns and collapsible folders. Those folders can be customised too, with various colours. You can even pin your most-used folders to the dock, so they’re always accessible

A new iPad app included with iPadOS 26 is Preview. This will be great for marking up PDFs, exporting images in various formats, knocking up a quick sketch or cropping an image.

A lot of the focus in iPadOS 26 feels like it’s focused on power users, and that’s great to see. Users will now be able to have long-running, computationally intensive tasks – like exporting a video from Final Cut Pro – running in the background. There’s a new API for developers to use to build this into their apps.

There’s deeper control over audio sources, and you can set different microphones for various apps, plus you can record high-quality recordings from video chat apps like Zoom and share them with others.

Elsewhere, the Journal app makes its iPad debut, with support for both touch and Apple Pencil input, while many of the iOS 26 Messages features are here too, including customisable backgrounds. The Phone app is here too, with Call Screening and Hold Assist.

While Apple spent a lot of time talking about the redesign, for us it’s the changes to multitasking that have really grabbed up. We’re big fans of the best iPads, but have always felt the software isn’t powerful enough to keep up with the stunning hardware – that really changes here, and we can’t wait to see it works later in the year.