Ulysses adds iPad main menu

Ulysses is a writing app, but the real story here is interface design on the iPad. The app has been inching toward a more desktop-like setup for a while, and this latest change makes that direction obvious. If you write long drafts, manage a lot of folders, or bounce between projects, the iPad version now exposes more of the app’s structure instead of hiding it behind taps and sidebars. That sounds small, but for a tool people live in for hours, small navigation changes are the whole game. Ulysses already treats the library as the center of the app — with projects, notes, groups, filters, archives, and per-project settings — and Apple’s new iPad menu system gives it a cleaner place to surface those commands. (apps.apple.com) ### What changed on iPad? The key shift is that Ulysses now leans into the iPad’s newer app-menu model instead of acting like an iPhone app stretched across a larger screen. Apple added menu bars to iPad apps in iPadOS 26, with system menus plus app-specific commands that appear at the top of the screen. Ulysses had already been moving in this direction in its big version 39 (apps.apple.com) and iPad layout. A follow-up iOS 39.1 update on November 27, 2025 explicitly restored menu items and keyboard shortcuts for switching tabs — a clue that the team was still wiring more desktop-style controls into the iPad experience. (developer.apple.com) ### Why does a menu matter in a writing app? Because Ulysses is not just a blank page. It stores everything in a unified library and expects you to organize work into sheets and groups, with projects acting almost like self-contained mini-libraries. On iPad, that can get cumbersome if every management action lives behind an ellipsis button or buried settings panel. A visible menu is basi(developer.apple.com)n that heavy keyboard users can hit without hunting around the screen. (apps.apple.com) ### What are groups doing here? Groups are one of Ulysses’ core organizing tools. They are how writers break a large library into books, chapters, research buckets, client work, or scratch piles. That means “group editor” improvements are not cosmetic. They affect the way a writer structures a whole project. Ulysses has been steadily investing in library management — library (apps.apple.com)sidebar, and tune how global filters behave. This newer iPad work looks like the next step in the same push: make large libraries easier to control from a tablet. (ulysses.app) ### Is this really about iPadOS 26? Mostly, yes. Apple’s own pitch for iPadOS 26 is that apps can expose more commands through a top menu bar, and that the new windowing system makes the iPad feel more like a traditional productivity machine. Ulysses’ November 2025 release notes lined up almost perfectly with that story — Liquid Glass visuals, a resizable dashboard on iPad, and the ability to keep both the shee(ulysses.app)’t a random one-off tweak. It’s part of a larger redesign around the new iPad model. (support.apple.com) ### Why should anyone care? Because the best writing apps usually disappear while you work. The catch is that organization never disappears — especially for people writing books, research-heavy essays, or lots of client pieces. If the app makes you keep opening and closing panels just to move around your own material, the friction adds up. A more persistent menu and better project controls do not(support.apple.com) to the people paying for the app every month. Ulysses is subscription software across Mac, iPhone, and iPad, so these workflow upgrades are exactly how it justifies staying in the “serious tool” category. (apps.apple.com) ### Does this signal anything bigger? It does. For years, many iPad apps chased simplicity and hid power features. Now the pendulum is swinging back. Apple gave developers a real menu bar, more windowing, and stronger keyboard workflows. Ulysses is one of the clearer examples of a pro app taking the hint. Basically, the iPad is getting less “touch-first toy” and more “portable desk,” and writing software is a good place to watch that shift happen. (developer.apple.com) ### Bottom line This is not a flashy reinvention. It is a usability upgrade for people who write a lot and organize even more. But that is exactly why it matters — Ulysses is making the iPad version feel more like a place to run a writing life, not just draft inside one.