Apple just released iOS and iPadOS 26 with a fresh new look and loads of shiny new features. But if you use your iPad for music production, should you even contemplate updating right now?
I’ve extensively tested the developer and public beta versions of iPadOS 26 over the last few months, and besides the cool new system-level audio routing features, what really stood out to me is how stable it was.
I wanted to see if that stability carried over to the full release and if Apple has managed to achieve the impossible; a major iPadOS update that doesn’t break music production apps.
Quick note here. I didn’t update any apps prior to this testing (there aren’t any updates available yet at the time of writing anyway, even for Apple-made music production apps).
I started by checking out some iPad DAWs. In the developer and public betas of iPadOS 26, there was a big issue with GarageBand, where with Windowed Apps activated – that’s the multitasking mode that lets you have multiple apps open at the same time in their own resizable windows. Resizing the app’s window mid-project would cause it to freeze and become unresponsive.
This seems to have been fixed and must have been an operating system issue. Everything else in the app works as it should, though you still can’t resize GarageBand’s window much. I find this a bit strange considering in Logic Pro for iPad, you can resize its window to whatever dimensions you want.
Speaking of Logic Pro for iPad, it worked pretty much perfectly in the beta versions of iPadOS 26, and that hasn’t changed in the full release version of the OS. Disappointingly, the app’s menu hasn’t been refined from the messy implementation we saw in previous beta versions of iPad OS.
You can still only select from all the keyboard shortcuts, which isn’t particularly helpful. A far cry from GarageBand’s actually useful menus.
Other iPad DAWs are all surprisingly stable too. Cubasis 3 works exactly as it should, though just like GarageBand, you can’t resize the window much. It does have a fully formatted menu though.
Drambo allows you to resize its window to whatever dimensions you want, though it seems to be missing a menu altogether for some reason. It works with zero issues apart from that though.
Other DAWs like Loopy Pro, BAM and BandLab all worked as normal in my testing with varying degrees of window resize-ability.
Instrument Apps
What about instrument apps? Well, it’s all surprisingly smooth sailing here too. From AudioKit Apps like King of FM and Synth One J6, to Solderbox, Iconica Sketch, Ravenscroft275, BA1 and Moog Model D all work without any issues in stand-alone mode.
Loading these instruments up as AU instruments inside GarageBand and Logic Pro works completely as expected too. I was even able to load up ancient, basically unsupported apps like Sensual Sax into GarageBand via inter-app audio and it appeared in its own separate window and can be recorded into an audio track.
I had the same positive experience with every effect app I tried as well. I’m genuinely pleasantly surprised that all of this stuff just works.
If you’ve decided to update to iPadOS26, please leave a comment with YOUR positive or negative experiences with music production apps it would be great to get an idea if everyone has had a similarly pain-free upgrade experience or whether I’ve just been very, very lucky.