iPad Pro What is the Use of Stage Manager ?

[marcusalwayswins]

I am asking this question both ways, out of curiosity and also sarcastically. What is the real life usage, purpose of this stage manager ? I am not talking about the external display feature that it has, but let's say if you are using stage manager only on the iPad, so how does it help ? What does it do so special or unique ? I mean I cannot drag and move app window the way I want, it only moves and resizes in certain sizes and ratio. The only thing I see it doing is, it makes two app window stay overlap on each other but what does it do ? Wasn't this even before and more efficiently being done without the stage manager where you could have 2 apps side by side and one in floating window. Sure you can have many app windows open in stage manager and it can give you an idea from the app column on the side, on which apps are open but I still don't see any big USP of this stage manager thing except the external display functionality.

Can someone help me make sense out of this thing called Stage manager on the iPad. To me it Sucks and sucks big time !!

If someone can give me a real life usage scenario ? Maybe that will help understand on how can stage manager come really handy and be used effectively.

 

[-Ryan-]

I think it's building towards a. a bigger iPad, and b. better external display support. To me it isn't really intended to be used on a smaller screen.

 

[antiprotest]

I turned it on a few times but had to turn it off again. It's not really more agile than the dock in switching apps, and it needs the windows to be smaller to make sense. Also I have set each window to minimize into the dock with it's own icon, but when SM is on, it no longer does that, but goes to the left instead. Seems to make things worse whether I am multi-tasking or not multi-tasking.

 

[marcusalwayswins]

I think it's building towards a. a bigger iPad, and b. better external display support. To me it isn't really intended to be used on a smaller screen.

I turned it on a few times but had to turn it off again. It's not really more agile than the dock in switching apps, and it needs the windows to be smaller to make sense. Also I have set each window to minimize into the dock with it's own icon, but when SM is on, it no longer does that, but goes to the left instead. Seems to make things worse whether I am multi-tasking or not multi-tasking.

Correct. It is just useless and of no real utility !!

 

[Isengardtom]

There’s a small use case for me when I want to use the iPad in portrait I can create a horizontal split now (posted this in another thread too)

Other than that, external display support is the biggest feature of it. As long as that’s not there it’s not really that useful

 

[rui no onna]

I think it's building towards a. a bigger iPad, and b. better external display support. To me it isn't really intended to be used on a smaller screen.

Agreed. Without fullscreen external display support, Stage Manager is likely DOA for those on 2018/2020 iPP complaining about the lack of this feature on older Pros.

Implementing the gimped version of SM for older iPads will probably end up a waste of time and development resources on Apple's part.

 

[Frankfurt]

Playing with it as I speak. On the 12.9” it makes certainly more sense than on a smaller 11” as the window of the active remains bigger to start with. So far so good.

 

[BigBag]

Am I the only person who loves Stage Manager? Using it on my 12.9" and its allowing me to multitask in a desktop-type manner. I really like it a lot for both work and fun. Last night I had the TNT app in a window for the basketball game, and my twitter app up to follow conversation, as well as Messages to talk smack with friends, all on one "desktop/space." It's not perfect, but it's allowing me to use my iPad in a whole new, less isolated way.

 

[outlawarth]

Am I the only person who loves Stage Manager? Using it on my 12.9" and its allowing me to multitask in a desktop-type manner. I really like it a lot for both work and fun. Last night I had the TNT app in a window for the basketball game, and my twitter app up to follow conversation, as well as Messages to talk smack with friends, all on one "desktop/space." It's not perfect, but it's allowing me to use my iPad in a whole new, less isolated way.

And the basketball game video feed didn’t cut out as you were navigating in and out of apps?

 

[BigBag]

And the basketball game video feed didn’t cut out as you were navigating in and out of apps?

Only if I opened up a window that had audio/video. Otherwise the game stayed persistent while I surfed and texted.

 

[Kierkegaarden]

Putting aside the fact that you cannot be curious and sarcastic at the same time about the same thing, the feature is meant for those who use the iPad as a productivity device. If you play games or generally consume media, this would be of no use. If you’re studying, creating documents, etc., this is a good feature.

I’ve just started to use it, but so far it is working well with no bugs, both orientations, and resizing. I much prefer this to the previous multitasking implementation. For reference, I have an M1 12.9”, and I am using the “more space” scaling option.

I do think window resizing could have been done differently — instead of dragging to resize, there could have been a list of options in the menu bar. Since the sizes options are pretty much preset, there really isn’t a reason to give the user drag controls.

 

[outlawarth]

Only if I opened up a window that had audio/video. Otherwise the game stayed persistent while I surfed and texted.

That’s an awesome use case scenario actually. Thanks.

 

[jonnyb098]

Only if I opened up a window that had audio/video. Otherwise the game stayed persistent while I surfed and texted.

12 years and we still cant browse the web without audio cutting out because iOS doesn’t allowe for multiple audio streams….but they expect the average iPad user to figure out stage manager …

 

[marcusalwayswins]

Am I the only person who loves Stage Manager? Using it on my 12.9" and its allowing me to multitask in a desktop-type manner. I really like it a lot for both work and fun. Last night I had the TNT app in a window for the basketball game, and my twitter app up to follow conversation, as well as Messages to talk smack with friends, all on one "desktop/space." It's not perfect, but it's allowing me to use my iPad in a whole new, less isolated way.

Yes but what you are saying is, the several APP window which you have running on screen can only be stretched to a pre-decided certain ratio and limit. Do you still like it ?

 

[bushman4]

Unfortunately not what I and most people expected
Needs work. hopefully Apple reads the comments

 

[Slartibart]

but they expect the average iPad user to figure out stage manager …

I would have thought that the majority of iPP buyers isn’t the »average« user…

 

[nStyle]

Completely useless for me personally on the 12.9 screen . Might be nice on a large 27” monitor but I’d rather just use a desktop at that point…

Split screen is still more useful for my use-cases.

 

[Mr. 123]

Completely useless for me personally on the 12.9 screen . Might be nice on a large 27” monitor but I’d rather just use a desktop at that point…

Split screen is still more useful for my use-cases.

Split screen still exists right?

 

[Zest28]

I think it is great. Apple gives us multi tasking and people hate to have multitasking?

I can see why Apple wanted to restrict this to M1 only as I can run multiple apps at the same time now, while apps are optimized to run “only one at a time” by the developers.

I haven’t tried it with an external display, because I don’t use the iPad as a desktop device.

 

[NastyMatt]

I have been using it on my 12.9” IPP (and MBA M1). It feels a hugely complicated way to make windows resizeable. Yes you can set groups of windows together (like different desktops) which could be useful.

It feels like this is the solution for extended screen support hence why it was initially restricted to only M1/2’s. Apple knew this would be of limited use on non M1/2’s but have bowed to pressure.

 

[marcusalwayswins]

I have been using it on my 12.9” IPP (and MBA M1). It feels a hugely complicated way to make windows resizeable. Yes you can set groups of windows together (like different desktops) which could be useful.

It feels like this is the solution for extended screen support hence why it was initially restricted to only M1/2’s. Apple knew this would be of limited use on non M1/2’s but have bowed to pressure.

You said it ! resizing those APP windows in stage manager to your liking is a pain in the A** right now in Stage Manager. It is not very user friendly.

 

[Abazigal]

Macstories has a pretty extensive write up about this, though I admit that even after reading it, I still don’t quite understand it.

Stage Manager in iPadOS 16: At the Intersection of Bugs, Missing Features, and Flawed Design

This article wasn’t supposed to go like this. iPadOS 16 is launching to the public today, and it carries a lot of expectations on its shoulders: for the first time since the introduction of the original iPad in 2010, Apple is embracing a Mac-like windowing system that lets you use up to four...

www.macstories.net

Playing around with it on my 2018 iPad Pro, it feels like a way to get multiple apps on the same screen at the same time and quickly toggle between them, but given the smaller screen of my iPad, I still feel more comfortable running apps in full screen every time.

 

[JD2015]

Am I the only person who loves Stage Manager? Using it on my 12.9" and its allowing me to multitask in a desktop-type manner. I really like it a lot for both work and fun. Last night I had the TNT app in a window for the basketball game, and my twitter app up to follow conversation, as well as Messages to talk smack with friends, all on one "desktop/space." It's not perfect, but it's allowing me to use my iPad in a whole new, less isolated way.

Same here. Using it on iPad Pro 12.9 3rd gen (2018) and liking having additional options to multi tasking. Is it perfect? No, the resizing of windows is not ideal and some stability issues.

 

[chrono1081]

I like Stage Manager on Ventura, I'm not keen on it on iPadOS, it's just not a great experience. Stage Manager on Ventura is nice for me for development work because it's just faster to go through Stage Manager vs Xpose for switching between workspaces.

On iPadOS, it just seems buggy and doesn't work well.

 

[Zest28]

For me it’s the other way around. I don’t see the point of Stage Manager on MacOS because we already got multitasking there.

But for the iPad, Stage Manager enhances what can be done with multitasking on the iPad.