Pffft! iPhone 5 or go home! 
That’s where the design peaked for me. I specifically remember getting my white one only a couple of days before some travel and then getting to know it while off on an adventure. I loved that phone.
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I still think that the iPhone 4/s was superior to the 5. I much preferred the quality, only the iPhone X has been better IMHO for industrial design (I.e. taking tech out of the equation)
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I haven’t tried IPadOS26 but am not bothered by loss of slideover. Perhaps simply a case of not being proficient enough with it. Hence I found it irksome, and also struggled with it, particularly on an 11” IPad. Loved Split View though - so am glad there is a mechanism to achieve that with the new windowing approach.
Slide over was/is really valuable if you use a password manager or another similar kind of app that you need to access quickly and often for very short periods.
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I didn’t use Slideover much either, but the implementation of Split View in the full windowing system is distracting for me. YMMV 
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I can see the utility of slideover for those “Quick Look” activities. Shame it wasn’t retained for those users who like it. Guess the windowing app precludes that for some tech reason. Or it was deemed redundant.
I feel I need to revisit this point. Both slide over and split view were troublesome to me because getting in and out of the modes (and swapping apps in and out of the available slots) required learned behaviours. None of it was intuitive and this was a frequent criticism.
With the new windowing system, I don’t see anything has changed in that respect but, worse, it is way easier to accidentally resize an application now. Also, every so often I do something and notice an app sitting off the side of the screen and I don’t know why.
Ordinary people are going to have problems. I have trouble explaining how to quit apps on an iPhone or recall notifications. I’m not looking forward to the day my Mum asks me why her iPad is broken.
If you swipe up in full windowing mode, the apps you have open swing out to the side so they’re just visible but at a very strange angle until you open a new app, then they slide away.
This is one of many parts of the new windowing mode I hate.
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I continue to ask people like 9to5mac for specifics. So far nothing 
I also asked Perplexity. Not terribly satisfying, but here it is: "what’s the best way to make ipados 26 windowing more like ipados 18”
I find it unfortunate that Apple seems to think we all have an ipad pro and want a laptop-like experience. I bought my ipad to have an ipad experience.
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I’m not sure I entirely agree that’s how Apple are thinking, but you’ve crystallised, for me, what using an iPad means. It means using an iPad. Not a Mac replacement, not a large phone, just… an iPad.
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this is an interesting thread in that it shows how much an iPad can do but also its limitations.
I barely use my iPad 12.9” except for media consumption, so I’m learning quite a bit from this thread!
I’ve got off the fence and ordered an M4 MBA to replace my iPad.
ipadOS 26 is frustrating me so much that when I use the ipad in future I’ll only use it in Full Screen mode and only for consumption. I have no current plans to buy another iPad.
I’ve done an audit of my apps on the iPad, and aside from a few games (which I can still play on this iPad for now) I think I can transition to the Mac while still being able to do everything I need (If ever there was a sentence which you would expect to be macOS moving to iPad not the other way, that was it.)
Yep, he misspoke apparently.
Yesterday I upgraded to 26 on my 11” ipad air, and surprisingly, I really like it so far. I’m surprised how many improvements there are. I do wish I could eliminate the gap when using that new split view. I think I can manage windows efficiently with some practice. It’s certainly not as simple as previously it was, and I can understand the blow back.
Yes, apart from the visible gaps in app windows when tiling, it’s not as terrible as I expected. At the very least it’s more discoverable than before, as you have the semaphore lights available.
I specially not like that full screen iPhone apps in the iPad are now showing the desktop wallpaper below instead of a black border background, which I preferred.
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And I’m learning to “flick” windows to “snap” in place like the old positioning method. And wow: they did a lot on this release.
I’m surprised too that the windowing is so useful, actually.
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There is also a keyboard shortcut one can use: Globe key+Control + left/right arrow (or up/down). I use the Magic Keyboard a lot on my 13” iPad Pro. This keyboard shortcut is easy and fast! 
It’s also discoverable when one simply tries to open notifications and ends up resizing and moving the window.
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Since upgrading to iPadOS 26 on my 11” air, I’ve gone back and forth in my mind as to whether I’m happy with the new OS or not. However, this guy’s brief discussion of gestures and swipes helps a lot:
iPadOS 26 Hidden Features You NEED to Try
Particularly:
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