Apple announced iPadOS 27 at WWDC 2026 — in developer beta now and shipping this fall. After last year’s big windowing overhaul, this release is about speed and productivity polish rather than a new multitasking paradigm, plus the same Apple Intelligence push coming to every platform.

Productivity and multitasking

  • Always-on menu bar — the iPad menu bar can now stay on screen, and it’s faster to reach.
  • Active app name in the status bar — clearer which window is in focus, and a quick way into the menu bar.
  • Faster windowing — closing, switching and dragging windows is quicker, and cursor context menus open faster.
  • Resizable iPhone apps — iPhone-only apps on iPad can finally be resized instead of locked to a fixed window.
  • Performance — photos load up to ~70% faster after capture, external-drive transfers up to ~5x faster, plus faster launches and AirDrop.

Intelligence on iPad

The rebuilt Siri arrives with a standalone app and a “Search or Ask” field in Spotlight. Visual Intelligence expands to analyze on-screen content and screenshots — and you can use the Apple Pencil to highlight something and pull details from it. Notes gains an Image Wand that turns a sketch into a photorealistic image. As on iPhone, the new Siri AI is delayed in the EU at launch under the Digital Markets Act.

What’s new for developers

  • Resizable iPhone apps come automatically when you rebuild against the latest SDK — worth re-submitting your build to get proper iPad windowing for free.
  • Foundation Models bring free Private Cloud Compute (under 2M downloads), image input, and a unified Swift API for Apple, Claude and Gemini models.
  • SwiftUI adds reorderable containers, swipe actions in any scroll view, and layouts that resize up to ~2x faster.
  • Xcode 27’s new Device Hub makes it easy to test across iPad form factors.

There’s no new Stage Manager or public windowing API this cycle — the iPad story is speed and resizable iPhone apps, not a new framework.

What it means if you’re building for iPad

If you already have an iPhone app, rebuilding against the iPadOS 27 SDK is the cheapest win on this list — your app becomes a proper resizable iPad citizen with no redesign. And as the iPad’s productivity story gets stronger each year, it’s an increasingly credible target for pro and B2B apps.

Want your app to feel first-class on iPad? See what an iOS/iPadOS build costs, then tell us about your idea.

Based on Apple’s WWDC 2026 announcements and developer betas; final features and timing may change before the fall release.