This is the first of two posts about my Apple tablets. Tomorrow's post will be about my experience with the iPad Mini.
I put off upgrading my tablets to iPadOS 26 for a month, but finally decided that the Mini shouldn't have any problems running it. My main concern was the Liquid Glass interface, which looked to me like it could seriously compromise readability. The first thing I did after upgrading was to turn down the transparency and motion effects. Given that, I haven't noticed any readability issues that weren't also present before upgrading.
I did turn on the windowing interface, mainly so I could access app menus. I was worried about readability because they are very small at the top of the window, but they expand to a reasonable size when triggered. One of my peeves about iPad OS in general is that the top-of-screen menus and icons are too small and there doesn't seem to be any way of making them bigger (unlike Windows). I did run into a problem in Play Books where the bottom controls (go to TOC, move the page slider) wouldn't' respond; I had pulled down the window a bit too far and switching back to the full-screen interface fixed it. (I haven't been able to reproduce that so it may have been a glitch).
I was excited to hear that Apple had introduced the Accessible Reading feature. Google's similar Reading Mode app is a lifesaver on my Pixel phone. Sadly, Apple's version is not up to the quality of the Google app. It's fussy to customize, it's not clear how to switch out of it to the standard interface, and sometimes it just hangs up. I'll have to experiment more with it and hope that Apple improves it in later OS updates.
Battery life, which was not great to start with, seems to be a bit worse under iPad OS 26, even with the Liquid Glass junk turned down or off.
I'm certainly not the only one who doesn't want to have anything to do with the Liquid Glass interface. N/g, founded by user interface experts Jakob Neilsen and Don Norman, have published an epic takedown of IOS 26 and Liquid Glass.
The interface is restless, needy, less predictable, less legible, and constantly pulling focus rather than supporting seamless access to content. Instead of smoothing the path for everyday tasks, iOS 26 makes users relearn basics while enduring a constant parade of visual stunts.
Apple may call it Liquid Glass. To many users, it feels more like a fogged‑up window: pretty from a distance, but frustrating when you try to see beyond it.
Apple seems to be feeling the heat. The latest IOS beta includes an option to turn off Liquid Glass, or at least reduce the transparency effects. (There are options that will do this under the Accessibility settings, but they are not prominent).