Apple Intelligence was firmly in the background at WWDC 2025 as iPad finally had its chance to shine

Apple put last year’s wonderkid, Apple Intelligence, firmly in the corner today and focused instead on iOS 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, macOS 26, and iPadOS 26 (all Apple’s new operating systems now have a new name, reflecting the year they will be most active in) at this year’s WWDC 2025.

In fact, the whole keynote built steadily to the real star of the show, the iPad. The new windowing system on the new iPadOS 26 looks like it finally makes it capable of switching between multiple running apps with ease, and also adds a menu bar, which is context sensitive to whichever app is in the foreground.

This essentially makes the humble iPad less of a large iPhone and more like an extremely lightweight and portable Mac. It won't run Mac software, of course, but it will finally work like ...