The iPad just got one of my favorite macOS features

Apart from Liquid Glass, there are hardly any groundbreaking innovations in Apple’s new operating systems for 2025–with one major exception. iPadOS 26 will dramatically change the way we interact with our tablets and bring the iPad closer to the Mac’s level of multitasking. This fall, among other useful upgrades, the iPad will get a window mode like on the Mac, and (finally!) a real pointer instead of a morphing blob when you connect a mouse.

As of the third developer beta of iPadOS 26, which was released earlier this week, another macOS function has crept on to the iPad. If you lose sight of your cursor on the Mac, you can shake the mouse or move your finger quickly back and forth so the pointer briefly grows to many times its original size, and you can spot it. Apple is now porting this function to the iPad.

Sure, it’s not an earth-shattering innovation, but it’s still nice to have. It’s a fun and genuinely useful feature.

Foundry

Although the new mouse pointer in iPadOS looks different from the one in macOS–grey, transparent, and just an arrowhead without a shaft–it works in the same way. And it’s all looking good for the iPad in 2025.