Compared to before moving stuff between the iPad and the monitor is much more seamless, it works just like on my PC, instead of the clunky way it was working earlier. Now for instance it's much better than DEX, while this was not the case before. The only issue is resizing, which was improved but is not totally there yet. There is also still wasted space on the screen, especially on the iPad. From this point of view, for instance, Samsung OneUI is a clearly superior interface than Stage Manager
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iPad as a laptop replacement
- Thread starter Omar Comin' Yo
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Apple needs some of their research team back to integrate a better productivity workflow in the iPad. E.g, allowing formatting of external media in the iPad; better file management (instead of the clunky "sharing" feature); improved reading / writing to external media, which was painfully slow on the iPad the last time I checked.
I use YouTube in Safari on my M1 iPad Pro 11. Where do I find the AirPlay button? As far as I can tell, there is no AirPlay button for Safari. Thanks!
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Wasted space? If you remove the recent area and dock.. then I don’t see the issue.
I’ve set up my iPad Pro with the external display, the keyboard and the mouse, in order to watch Apple’s Spooky Fast event here, on the TV app… But apparently, the stream isn’t still available on the TV app… And the event is starting in 34 minutes…
I don’t understand it.
I don’t understand it.
The white placeholder says “Apple Events”, and inside there are all the past events, but not the livestream for tonight’s event.
EDIT: NOW IT IS LIVE!!!
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You know what? Last night I connected my M2 iPad Pro to my old 2008 1080p Dell monitor, my old 2007 Apple Wireless Keyboard (the one with removable batteries, from the Steve Jobs era) and my Magic Mouse 2, in order to watch the Apple Event on my iPad Pro on the external display, I’m giving this new iPad Pro as a main computer device experience another go. And I‘i quite liking it.
Maybe that’s because when I first tried it, I was on an early iPadOS 16 version, and the experience was more clunky and buggy, and now on iPadOS 16.6.1 everything is very smooth and polished.
Sure, like @sracer told me a month ago on this exact thread, it is useless to try to convert the iPad Pro on a mainstream macOS/Windows computer, because Apple keeps limiting it in their own way, and there are some specific tasks that cannot be done on an iPad Pro + External Display + Keyboard + Mouse combo, such as video compression tasks with Handbrake, installing and using Torrent clients locally, and easily work with files (in my opinion Finder is still way way more complete than Files, and that’s a key point I’d improve in future iPadOS iterations). Also, I didn’t like Stage Manager at first so I never used it. Like @sracer, I honestly think the iPad Pro has a big potential as a device, not necessarily as a macOS machine, but if Apple really focused and differentiated even more iPadOS from iOS, they could sell a ton of this devices, specially now that iPad sales are declining.
HOW-EVER: I am writing this message to say that, now that I am giving it another try, as I said, I’m liking the experience. And I’m still on iOS 16, mind you. I’ve read Stage Manager is better on iPadOS 17.
One of the things I discovered was how useful is to activate the secondary click on the Magic Mouse 2. I really thought this wasn’t possible, so I was struggling to find how to:
- Opening a new Safari Window, or any new window for any app, done with a long press on the Dock icon
- Selecting text, AND looking the meaning on the dictionary, or other actions
And honestly, enabling the secondary click has removed a lot of frustration. It seemed like I was trying to type with boxing gloves, and sometimes I felt like pressing the external monitor surface LOL
Other significant improvements are accepting the new nature of Stage Manager. I doubt I willtolerate it use it on macOS, as it already has a magnificent multitasking interface I’ve been using for the last 12 years, but on the iPad, specially plugging external monitors, can be quite useful. What I do now is:
1) Keeping Stage Manager disabled on the main iPad Pro screen, leaving it enabled just for the external monitor.
2) Removing the Dock and the Recent Apps from the bottom and left side of the screen, reducing the clutter.
3) Learning the Dock invocation shortcut (CMD+opt+D, I wish I could reconfigure it to CMD+D tho)
4) Enabling Full Screen on the apps that allow me to (I wish there was a keyboard shortcut for that)
I hope this tips could be useful to someone else, just like I found them useful to adapt to this new Apple experience. By the way, if anyone knows if it is possible to customize keyboard shortcuts, or even create new ones, please let me know!
I really wish any big improvement on this docked iPad Pro experience Apple makes in the near-middle future, isn’t restricted to M3 or M3 Pro iPad Pro, as this M2 iPad Pro is a really, really awesome machine (storage aside, I suspect 128GB are gonna be scarce in the long run).
Any feedback on how to improve my usage will be welcomed.
PS: Anyone using their iPad Pro with an Apple Studio Display? I’d really like to hear about the experience, and I don’t want to read the previous 200 pages of the thread.
Maybe that’s because when I first tried it, I was on an early iPadOS 16 version, and the experience was more clunky and buggy, and now on iPadOS 16.6.1 everything is very smooth and polished.
Sure, like @sracer told me a month ago on this exact thread, it is useless to try to convert the iPad Pro on a mainstream macOS/Windows computer, because Apple keeps limiting it in their own way, and there are some specific tasks that cannot be done on an iPad Pro + External Display + Keyboard + Mouse combo, such as video compression tasks with Handbrake, installing and using Torrent clients locally, and easily work with files (in my opinion Finder is still way way more complete than Files, and that’s a key point I’d improve in future iPadOS iterations). Also, I didn’t like Stage Manager at first so I never used it. Like @sracer, I honestly think the iPad Pro has a big potential as a device, not necessarily as a macOS machine, but if Apple really focused and differentiated even more iPadOS from iOS, they could sell a ton of this devices, specially now that iPad sales are declining.
HOW-EVER: I am writing this message to say that, now that I am giving it another try, as I said, I’m liking the experience. And I’m still on iOS 16, mind you. I’ve read Stage Manager is better on iPadOS 17.
One of the things I discovered was how useful is to activate the secondary click on the Magic Mouse 2. I really thought this wasn’t possible, so I was struggling to find how to:
- Opening a new Safari Window, or any new window for any app, done with a long press on the Dock icon
- Selecting text, AND looking the meaning on the dictionary, or other actions
And honestly, enabling the secondary click has removed a lot of frustration. It seemed like I was trying to type with boxing gloves, and sometimes I felt like pressing the external monitor surface LOL
Other significant improvements are accepting the new nature of Stage Manager. I doubt I will
1) Keeping Stage Manager disabled on the main iPad Pro screen, leaving it enabled just for the external monitor.
2) Removing the Dock and the Recent Apps from the bottom and left side of the screen, reducing the clutter.
3) Learning the Dock invocation shortcut (CMD+opt+D, I wish I could reconfigure it to CMD+D tho)
4) Enabling Full Screen on the apps that allow me to (I wish there was a keyboard shortcut for that)
I hope this tips could be useful to someone else, just like I found them useful to adapt to this new Apple experience. By the way, if anyone knows if it is possible to customize keyboard shortcuts, or even create new ones, please let me know!
I really wish any big improvement on this docked iPad Pro experience Apple makes in the near-middle future, isn’t restricted to M3 or M3 Pro iPad Pro, as this M2 iPad Pro is a really, really awesome machine (storage aside, I suspect 128GB are gonna be scarce in the long run).
Any feedback on how to improve my usage will be welcomed.
PS: Anyone using their iPad Pro with an Apple Studio Display? I’d really like to hear about the experience, and I don’t want to read the previous 200 pages of the thread.
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I'm using my iPad Air (5th gen) with Stage Manager as a laptop replacement and I have to admit it's almost good, but feels like they intentionally made it clunkier than it could be to make you want to get a MacBook instead lol.
- Maximum 4 apps per Stage
- Apps flying off a Stage when you full-screen any app
- Apps not returning to the Stage they flew off after you un-full-screen
- Can't use swipe-from-left-side-of-screen gesture to return to previous screen because it's overridden by the Stage Manager's Recent Apps menu
- Using apps with almost-fullscreen size makes them overlap each-other unintuitively
- Resizing apps is much improved but still tied to annoying snapping
- Using the top or the bottom of the screen is tedious because of conflicting (for example: hitting the 3 dots at the top or the app chooser at the bottom when you meant to tap something in the top of an app, or when trying to scroll through a video at the bottom)
- There's 3 ways to add an app to a Stage and each of them feels awkward because of shared gestures (for example: Dragging an app from the App Drawer can result in either opening and adding it to a Stage, or adding its icon to the Homescreen, so it has a conflicting effect on muscle memory)
I use mine with an ASD, it’s pretty much just a big pretty monitor. Did you have specific questions?
I go iPP -> Caldigit TS3+ -> ASD. Mostly the TS3+ is there to be an expensive Ethernet dongle but eh.
Then I have logitech receivers for keyboard, mouse and headset plugged into the ASD. This lets me move the TB cable from the TS3 to other devices and everything just works TM.
I’ve been quite negative about the iPad on this thread because I bought it and never really used it and I had to force myself to use it as I find the laptop on phone more convenient. Fast forward a few months and I’ve bought a studio display for work laptop. While I had the iPad I figured I’d give it one last chance for my personal machine Which was formally a 2014 iMac.
I’ve been playing with it for the past hour and its really good and I think it’ll work for me.
My only negatives are
1. you can’t import your own music to it so I’ve become a modern man and signed up for Apple Music which is great. I’m forcing myself to abandon my CD collection but I’ll get over it.
2. Photos you can’t store the library on an external drive. So I’ve downloaded all photos and videos to 1TB iPad drive and I’m exporting any new photos I take to my external photo back up. This is now a manual process as opposed to Time Machine but again its another compromise which is ok.
3. Resizing windows feels a bit awkward but that’s more of a more issue than the ipad itself.
4. I work in home entertainment with Blu Ray‘s so I’ll have to use a mac for burning the test discs when I QC but other than that I think I can get by with it.
In summary I‘ve changed my mind about it so far and i’m pleasantly surprised by it all. Would I recommend it over a laptop? In hindsight I’d say no because I’ve spent a lot of money on all the accessories which take it way over the price of a mid range laptop and with the Studio Display we are at MacBook Pro 16 inch money.
One question I Have - is it possible to turn off the iPad display when it’s connected to the monitor? I can‘t help but think its extra wear and tear on the screen while its not really being used.
The iPad is not the most wonderful device ever, but point 1. can be addressed with several third party apps. Just sayin'.
Recommendations on good apps that support easy import, playlists with random shuffle, etc.? i.e., a full replacement of the Music app for those like me with an extensive library of ripped music.
I had my main Safari window, with 30 tabs, on the external display, and I opened a new Safari window on the iPad. This is a bit difficult because the system doesn’t allow you to open a new Safari window from the Dock menu, at least with the mouse. I had to make split screen with another tab and then send it to the other screen, not easy.
Then, I closed Safari, I don’t remember if pressing the three dots menu, and “close”, or the app switcher (CMD+Tab) and then closing Safari (CMD+Q) along with the other apps. Which doesn’t close or terminate the apps, by the way, because on Stage Manager they still appear.
When I opened Safari Again, there was no trace of the 30 tabs, they were all gone, and on the multi tab screen, long pressing the + symbol, showed that all my 30 tabs had been closed. And I don’t know How did that happen.
My guess is that, the private tab that I opened was on the same window than the 30 other tabs…. And I had another Safari window open. And I guess, I closed the private tab first (along with the 30 regular tabs in the background) while the last tab to close was the one with just one tab?
I don’t know, but I lost all my tabs.
I really feel like someone trying to learn to use a new operating system 😄
Then, I closed Safari, I don’t remember if pressing the three dots menu, and “close”, or the app switcher (CMD+Tab) and then closing Safari (CMD+Q) along with the other apps. Which doesn’t close or terminate the apps, by the way, because on Stage Manager they still appear.
When I opened Safari Again, there was no trace of the 30 tabs, they were all gone, and on the multi tab screen, long pressing the + symbol, showed that all my 30 tabs had been closed. And I don’t know How did that happen.
My guess is that, the private tab that I opened was on the same window than the 30 other tabs…. And I had another Safari window open. And I guess, I closed the private tab first (along with the 30 regular tabs in the background) while the last tab to close was the one with just one tab?
I don’t know, but I lost all my tabs.
I really feel like someone trying to learn to use a new operating system 😄
Consideirng the small screen size, I’m not sure having more apps would be useful.
They aren’t flying off a stage, they move to a new stage, but I think having an exit full screen option which return them to their previous location would be a good idea. But it might be confusing with how exiting full screen by dragging the app corner wouldn’t return them to the previous location.
I haven’t had this issue because I hide the recent apps display, and use the four finger swipe to go back screens. Full screen Safari, can use the back swipe gesture.
You are in control of how they overlap.
I think this has to do with iPad apps responsive in nature. Each snap rearranges elements in the app Which si why the shape of the window snaps. It’s just different from MacOS apps.
I sometimes do this as well.
It’s best to pick one or two methods, but new features require learning new muscle memory. For example, I add apps to Stages the same way I added them with Splitscreen.
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Yes. You have many options. VLC Media Player, PlayerXtreme Media Player, KMPlayer, Infuse...
I'm familiar with VLC in the Windows world, so I suggest you give it a try.
I’ll throw NPlayer in the mix… I‘ve been using it for years (even use it on the Android side).
And it gives users the option to shuffle... last time I checked. I never really use Infuse for music purposes… mostly for video. But I do like the design UI of Infuse.
I’ve never been a fan of other players as they all feel very generic. Just wish they update it on the iPad.
I have around 15 tabs in a tab group. If I open safari and select the tab group from the left sidebar, all my tabs are there. Any tabs you had open which aren’t part of the tab group should be in what says 1 Tab on mine. The same kind of thing works on the Mac.
Check the sidebar.
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I have absolutely lost all of my open tabs on Safari on iPadOS, twice so far, and not understood why. It didn’t happen before 17.0 so there is probably just something I am doing with muscle memory.