iPadOS 26 - Every Feature Not on All iPads

0:00 Hi everyone, Aaron here for zolotete and with the introduction of iPad OS 26, Apple introduced an allnew design language with liquid glass. We also get new features on iPad with multitasking, windowing, a new menu bar, and much more. But some features are not available on all devices. So I thought we'd talk about the iPad OS 26 features not available on older devices. Now, as far as device support this year, well, Apple only dropped support from one device. So, if you have iPad OS 18, as long as you don't have an iPad 7th gen, you'll be able to upgrade your iPad. So, that means iPad eighth gen and later, iPad Mini fifth gen and later, iPad Air 3rd gen and later, iPad Pro 12.9 third gen and later, iPad Pro 11in first gen and later, and of course, the latest M4

0:45 iPads. All of them are supported, but again, not all of them have all of the same features. Now, the first thing has to do with external display support. Only iPads with the M series chipset support the full external display features. Older iPads are limited to screen mirroring only. So if you have maybe an A17 Pro, an iPad eighth gen and later, those will just be screen mirrored. You won't have the new windowing system. So that's something that's limited and I think that's fairly fair as it requires more RAM and more processing power on an external monitor to bring all of those same features along. But that goes along with windowing. Older iPads without the M1 chipset or later can bring up about four different apps in windowing. So, they still get the same features, but they can't bring up as many windows. So, if

1:31 maybe we go into the App Store here, we'll just bring that out. And you'll see I currently have five different windows open. However, if you have a device running anything other than an A17 Pro or M1, you'll be limited to four windows. So, you'll see I can move these around, bring them out like that, look at other things, go back in. You'll see I even have Final Cut up, the App Store, Safari. We have the weather and files open as well, and you can see all of those running at the same time. But due to the chipset and RAM limitation, you have four window options on some of the older devices. Now, another thing that's different has to do with photos and the lock screen. Now, if we go into photos, you'll see if we tap on the photo, we have a new option in the upper right here. Now, this is a photo I took out of my hotel room when I was in New York City last time in Manhattan. You'll see

2:18 we have this option here. Tap on it and it says spatial scene. Give it a moment and it generates what looks to be a 3D image based on movement. So it looks like you're looking deep into the photo and it gives it depth. So it's pretty impressive if you haven't seen it in person. But this is limited to specific devices. So basically the devices that are not supported are the iPad Pro third and fourth gen, iPad Pro 11, first and second gen, iPad Air 3rd and fourth gen, as well as the iPad 8th, 9th and 10th gen, and iPad Mini fifth gen. All other iPads support this. The same is true with the same effect on the lock screen. So you'll see here's the same photo on the lock screen if we want to set it as a wallpaper and we have this option in the bottom right. It's also for a spatial scene. Give it a moment and it

3:04 generates a spatial scene where you can sort of look around while you're looking into the photo. If I add this and then go to the home screen here. So, we'll go ahead and customize, hit done, scroll home, you'll see that it's not active when we're on the home screen, but if we go back to the lock screen, we again get that spatial scene back with depth. So, it's a pretty incredible effect. Unfortunately, limited to the same device as I mentioned with the photos app. Now, another thing that's limited based on your device has to do with live translation. This is a new feature that will translate in real time, whether you're in the messages app, FaceTime, or maybe you're on a phone call. Now that we have the phone app, let me go ahead and place a call, and I'll show you how it works. Now, I've placed a call, and if we go under more, you'll see we now have an option for live translation. If

3:49 we enable this, if someone's speaking in maybe French, German, Portuguese, or Spanish, it can translate it in real time to English. So they'll speak in Spanish, for example. You'll hear them say whatever they've said and then it will translate it in real time. The same is true when you're talking back to them. So if I speak in English, they speak in Spanish, they'll hear me, and then it will translate for them. You'll have to download the models here and then you'll have options or the availability of using that language. This works across not only phone, but also messages and FaceTime as well. Now, because that live translation is part of Apple intelligence, it's limited to just devices that support that feature and countries or regions that support it as well. So, that means the iPad Pro M1 and later, iPad Air M1 and later, and iPad

4:34 Mini A17 Pro, all other devices unfortunately won't have that option. The same is true with Shortcuts. If we go into the Shortcuts app, let me find where I've placed it here. Within shortcuts, we have some new features. If we go under gallery within gallery on Apple intelligence supported devices we now have Apple intelligence supported shortcuts and you can see those here with things such as morning summary leftover recipes as art reminders roulette and then you can even get started with a language model if you'd like to do that. So all of these features again are limited to Apple intelligence. Within messages we now have some new background options. So if we go into messages you'll see I have a background here. This is in a conversation with my brother. If I tap on his name here at the top, we have the option for backgrounds. You'll see we

5:20 have one that's suggesting an Apple Intelligence background and it's changing. You can use image playground to generate new backgrounds here or you can use one of the suggested ones. However, the Apple Intelligence ones are only available on Apple intelligence supported devices. The same thing is true with polls. So, if we get out of this and maybe we go to a poll here, we can create a poll. But poll suggestions which Apple intelligence will suggest based on the conversation are again limited to Apple intelligence devices. So you'll get all of the other features just not the suggestion there. The same is true with reminders with their auto suggestions as well as the new autocategorization option. If we go into our options here in a list you'll see we have autocategorize. Now, right now it doesn't seem to be working properly, but

6:07 it can autocategorize that and arrange it based on different topics and things along those lines. So, you can turn this off. You'll see it's not making much of a difference here. But from time to time in your different lists, it will categorize those based on what they are. This also carries across to things such as image playground. Within Image Playground, there's updates, again, all related to Apple Intelligence. So you'll need Apple intelligence support in order to use these with the iPad Pro M1 and later, iPad Air M1 and later, and iPad Mini A17 Pro. So again, those are limited to Apple intelligence devices and regions. That also goes along with your Genoji updates where you can combine a couple Genoji. Again, limited to Apple intelligence. The other new thing is the screenshot interface. You'll still get this on all iPads, but

6:53 if you have Apple intelligence enabled, you'll have visual intelligence options. If you don't, you'll see it just like this, where you'll have all of the new features, the new interface, but you won't have visual intelligence to tell you what's on the display, or maybe find something you find online, such as maybe a pair of sneakers, a t-shirt, maybe furniture, car, or something along those lines. However, you will have this new screenshot interface. And so basically, if you have an iPad with an M1 chip or newer or A17 Pro for the latest iPad Mini, you'll get the full iPad OS 26 experience. That includes all the Apple Intelligence features. But if your iPad is a little bit older, you'll still get all of the features other than what I've mentioned here. And that basically means you'll benefit from the redesign, performance improvements, as well as the

7:39 overall multitasking updates and more. So, most features are available on all iPads this year, which is great. just limited by some of the RAM or some of the processing available. Other than that though, you should get the full experience. Let me know what you think of iPad OS 26 so far. What do you think of the name, the overall liquid glass design? I'd love to hear from you in the comments below. And also, what iPad are you using or iPhone? Of course, I'll link this wallpaper in the description like I normally do. And if you haven't subscribed already, please subscribe. And if you enjoyed the video, please give it a like. As always, thanks for watching. This is Aaron. I'll see you next time.