Whether iPhones are actually the best smartphones or whether Macs are better than Windows machines is highly debatable. But when it comes to tablets, even Apple’s biggest critics (or Windows/Android fans) have conceded that the iPad is indeed the best tablet.

It has as much to do with competition failing as Apple being good at what it does. Windows is so terrible as a tablet that it’s not even worth talking about, really – let’s focus on Android tablets instead. Why are Android tablets inferior to iPad? It’s definitely not hardware, as companies like Samsung, Xiaomi and Huawei have proven they can make high-end hardware just as good as Apple.

The biggest problem with Android tablets is that they run on Android

The problem lies rather with the software: Android itself is not well optimized for large screens in landscape orientation, but the problem is even worse with Android apps. Most of them are simply not designed to work on wide screens. Twitter is the best example – if you open Twitter on an iPad, you get a two-pane layout that takes advantage of the bigger, wider screen. Open the same app on an Android and it looks ridiculous – you’ll often see a tweet spanning the entire digital canvas.

Twitter on iPad (left) and Android tablet (right)

It’s a perfect example of the “chicken or egg” problem: app developers don’t care to design just for Android tablets, because Android tablets aren’t held in high esteem. But until Android tablets get better app optimization, tablets will always hold back.

The 2021 iPad Pro (left) and Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra (right)

Samsung fixes Android for its tablets

Samsung is the exception to the rule, and it got there by realizing the Android tablet app problem and simply working to fix it on its own. For the company’s latest two series of tablets (Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S8), Samsung is offering “DeX Mode,” a sandboxed user interface that turns Android into a space resembling a Windows home screen. And when you open apps, they open in smaller vertical rectangular windows that can be resized. This way, Android apps that look silly on a large screen, like Twitter, can be “forced” by DeX to display in a form that closely resembles a slab phone screen.

DeX mode has not only alleviated the Android app scaling issue, but it has also made Samsung tablets a superior multitasking machine. Instead of just opening apps in a locked split-screen grid like in iPads or other Android tablets, DeX mode allows a Samsung tablet to run three, four, or more windows at once. This, coupled with the impressive hardware of the Galaxy Tab S8 series, means that Samsung tablets were really good. In fact, I enjoyed using the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra so much that I concluded in my review that it was more versatile than the M1-powered iPad Pro 2021 because I could run more than two apps at once.

The Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra being able to run three apps simultaneously like this while the iPad couldn’t make it my choice for an on-the-go work machine.

Now if I had to pick a winner, I would still say the iPad Pro was a better tablet overall because the M1 chip is more capable and because DeX mode is ultimately just a band-aid, not a cure for the wound. Until app developers put the same effort into Android apps as they do iPad apps, the iPad will always run a little smoother, with more capable apps. But still, Samsung had at least filled the gap between its tablets and the iPad, which reigned supreme, untouched for more than a decade. And who knows, maybe with more DeX refinement, the next Galaxy Tab Ultra could finally match or surpass the iPad.

The aftermath of WWDC

But that doesn’t seem likely now. Because at WWDC this week, Apple announced major upgrades to iPadOS 16 (the software that will run on virtually all iPads starting this fall), and the biggest improvement is that Apple has basically builds its own DeX mode, only better.

Called “Stage Manager,” this feature allows an M1-powered iPad (currently, that would be the 2021 iPad Pro and 2022 iPad Air) to also open apps in resizable windows. It’s something no previous iOS device has been able to do, and it’s an immediate game-changer. Remember: part of the reason DeX Mode exists is to fix a software flaw. Stage Manager does not have this burden, it does not work with poorly optimized applications. This will surely make Stage Manager work more smoothly and efficiently than DeX mode. Heck, even right now in the first developer beta of iPadOS 16 not intended for consumer use, Stage Manager already works arguably better than DeX mode. Google Docs, for example, has always behaved oddly on DeX, opening documents in entirely new windows. This issue does not exist on Google Docs for iPadOS, whether in Stage Manager or not.

iPad Pro with iPadOS 16 beta software running three apps at the same time.

Stage Manager also has a smart window grouping setup which I find very useful. For example, I can have all my work windows (Slack, Twitter, Safari) in one group and leisure windows (Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp) in another, these batches of apps can be minimized in a stack of floating icons on the left side of the iPad screen, which means I can switch back and forth between two batches of apps with just a tap. The animation or speed at which these transitions occur is already smooth on the first beta of iPadOS 16.

Apple widens its lead again with iPadOS 16, and even more than before

Another huge improvement in iPadOS 16 is that it allows M1-powered iPads to extend their home screen to an external display, giving me more room to open more windows (you can open up to eight max, but realistically four or five is enough for me). Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, like literally every other tablet I know of, can only mirror its screen to another screen, not extend.

I work remotely, and at least before Covid, I traveled often for work. Thus, I’m always on the hunt for the most portable setup that still gives me enough power and screen to work efficiently. I really wanted the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra to be that machine – I bought one myself after sending the review unit back to Samsung – but now that the iPad Pro offers superior multitasking with support external display, I have no choice but to switch back to the iPad Pro.

And with recent news that Apple is working on a larger 14.1-inch iPad Pro, as well as promises to bring more “desktop apps” to iPadOS, the iPad Pro (or even the iPad Air) will only improve as a real computer replacement. Just as Samsung closed the gap with a tablet almost as powerful as the iPad, Apple is widening the gap again.