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

Stage Manager in iPadOS 16.1.

Stage Manager in iPadOS 16.1.

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 windows at the same time on the iPad’s screen. You can even resize them and make them overlap. If you’ve been following the evolution of the iPad for a while, you know that’s very unusual.

But the reason this story was meant to be different isn’t to be found in Apple’s design philosophy for iPadOS 16. Typically, MacStories readers would expect a full-blown ‘The MacStories Review’ to go alongside a new version of iPadOS. That’s what I’ve been doing for over seven years at this point, and I don’t like breaking my writing patterns. When something works, I want to keep writing. That’s precisely why I had to stop writing about iPadOS earlier in the summer and until last week.

Stage Manager, the marquee addition to iPadOS that lets you multitask with floating windows, started crashing on my M1 iPad Pro in mid-July and it was only fixed in early October. When I say “crashing”, I mean I couldn’t go for longer than 10 minutes without iPadOS kicking me back to my Lock Screen and resetting my workspaces. And that was only the tip of the iceberg. For nearly two months, I couldn’t type with Apple’s Magic Keyboard or use keyboard shortcuts when Stage Manager was active. Before it was pulled by Apple and delayed to a future release, external display support in Stage Manager was impossible to rely on for production work. The list goes on and on and on.

Normally, I would use the introduction of my iOS and iPadOS reviews to tell you how I’ve been living and working with the new operating system every day for the past three months. I’ve always tried to publish annual OS reviews that are informed by practical, consistent usage of a new operating system which, I hope, has led to highly opinionated, well-researched stories that can stand the test of time. That kind of story hasn’t been possible for me to produce with iPadOS 16 yet.

Effectively, I’ve only been able to sort-of use iPadOS 16 with Stage Manager on my M1 iPad Pro again for the past two weeks. Before that, it’s not that I didn’t want to use iPadOS 16 and Stage Manager because I hate progress; I literally couldn’t unless I was okay with my iPad crashing every 10 minutes. So, at some point over the summer, I made the call to revert to Split View and Slide Over – which are still the iPad’s default multitasking mode in iPadOS 16 – and I’d check back in on Stage Manager on each beta of iPadOS 16. It was only around two weeks ago that, despite some lingering bugs I’ll cover later, I was able to finally leave Stage Manager enabled and go back to where I was when I published my iPadOS 16 first impressions article in July.

Think about my position this way: there’s a hole from early August to early October in my typical “reviewer summer” during which I couldn’t use the biggest addition to iPadOS 16 at all. The fact that Apple delayed, slimmed down, and kept iterating on Stage Manager until the very last minute seems to suggest I wasn’t the only one desperately trying to make it work.

I started using iPadOS 16 and Stage Manager again two weeks ago; what kind of “review” should this be?

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AppStories, Episode 301 – The New iPad and iPad Pro Review: Mixed Signals→

This morning we got into the details of Federico’s review of the latest iPad Pro and the new 10th generation iPad.

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  • Concepts – Infinite, Flexible Sketching.
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The New iPad and iPad Pro Review: Mixed Signals

The new iPad Pro and iPad.

The new iPad Pro and iPad.

Last week on Thursday, I received review units of the new 10th generation iPad and 6th generation iPad Pro. I’ve spent the past few days testing and getting work done with both of them – including finishing a big story about Stage Manager I’m going to publish in a few hours on MacStories.

These are relatively easy iPads to review with a fairly straightforward narrative around them. The new iPad Pro is an iterative update that shows us Apple has seemingly hit a plateau in terms of innovation with this particular design – save for one feature that truly surprised me. The new base model iPad is a massive update compared to its predecessor, adding an all-new, iPad Pro-inspired design and a brand new accessory – the Magic Keyboard Folio – that has turned out to be one of my favorite accessories Apple has launched in recent years. I’ve had a ton of fun playing around and working with the new iPad over the weekend; if you’re in the market for an 11” tablet, you shouldn’t sleep on this one.

When considered individually, these new iPads are solid options in their respective categories – each delivering on the different goals Apple set out to accomplish for these product lines in 2022.

It’s when you zoom out and take a broader look at the new state of the iPad lineup that things become…a bit more confusing.

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Kolide: Endpoint Security Shouldn’t Mean Compromising Employee Privacy [Sponsor]

“If you build a dystopian and cynical security program born out of fear, mistrust, and suspicion, then you will inevitably make your fellow employees your enemies.”

That’s a quote from Honest Security, Kolide’s mission statement, and North Star. It was written by Kolide’s CEO, Jason Meller, who spent his career in cybersecurity before founding Kolide. 

He was troubled by the widely-accepted idea among cybersecurity professionals that end users should be treated, first and foremost, as threats. This way of thinking informs the traditional approach to device management, which relies on MDMs that take control of devices and come with surveillance capabilities that most companies don’t need or even really want.

Kolide works by notifying your employees of security issues via Slack, educating them on why they’re important, and giving them step-by-step instructions to resolve them themselves.

Kolide’s open-source agent collects data across 43 categories on Mac, Windows, and Linux devices. It can answer questions like:

  • Do any of my developers have unsecured SSH keys floating around?
  • Does everyone have disk encryption, screen lock, and password managers set up?
  • Are there any Macs in my fleet in need of a new battery?

And while Kolide can provide insights that MDMs can’t, our commitment to transparency really sets us apart. Employees can visit the User Privacy Center for an explanation of precisely what data is being collected, by whom, and for what purpose.

Want to see how it works for yourself? Click here for a free trial, no credit card required, and let us show you what Kolide’s all about.

Our thanks to Kolide for sponsoring MacStories this week.

MacStories Unwind: Exploring the New Apple TV 4K

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This week on MacStories Unwind, John is joined by Alex Guyot to talk about the third-generation Apple TV 4K, how they use their Apple TVs and what the new hardware might mean for streaming content in the future.

Music Remote: A Beautiful Retro Utility for Controlling Playback of Apple’s Music App

Music Remote by Mario Guzman is a fun, retro remote control for Apple’s Music app. You may have come across Mario’s work on MacStories before. We interviewed him for MacStories Weekly last spring and covered his Music MiniPlayer on MacStories.

Music Remote is Mario’s third remote app for the Mac version of Apple’s Music app. The first was Music Widget, which is styled after the Tiger-era iTunes Dashboard widget. Next came Music MiniPlayer, which adopted the style of iTunes 10’s mini player. Music Remote reaches further back in time to the Mac OS X Public Beta, recreating the look of Music Player, an app that didn’t last long.

Music Remote up close.

Music Remote up close.

The compact remote requires Apple’s Music app to be running, but once it is, you can minimize Music and use Music Remote instead. The app includes buttons to play/pause and skip forward and back, as well as a couple of unique buttons above and below the play/pause button. Above play/pause is a button that opens a separate window that lets you pick from your playlists. Below is a stop button. It works the same as pause, except that when you resume playback, it will start with the next song in an album or playlist instead of picking up mid-song.

Music Remote's playlist picker.

Music Remote’s playlist picker.

The display above the controls cycles among the song title, artist, and album name. If a text string is too long to fit into Music Remote’s tiny screen, it scrolls horizontally. You can also cycle through the information displayed in Music Remote more quickly by clicking on its screen. The screen shows elapsed song time by default but can be switched to the remaining time in the app’s preferences. At the bottom of the screen is a progress bar. There’s a volume slider at the bottom of the app’s UI, and the app can playback Apple Music radio stations using a slightly different UI, too.

What makes Music Remote such a fun utility, though, is its design. The bubble-like play/pause button and blue LED-inspired screen are from a very different era of Mac design but still look great today. I also appreciate that the app is small. It looks fantastic on my desktop, which is why I immediately turned on the option to float it above my other windows. Because the app is small, though, there’s always a spot for it out of the way. It works perfectly in app sidebars that have a little blank space or the margin of a text editor, for example.

I have all three of Mario’s remote apps installed on my Mac Studio. that may seem like overkill, but I listen to music a lot as I work, so I appreciate having options depending on my mood. However, for the last week, as I put the finishing touches on my macOS Ventura review, Music Remote has been the remote that’s been sitting in the margin of the review as I write, which has been great.

I highly recommend checking out Music Remote, which can be downloaded for free from Mario Guzman’s GitHub page along with his other apps.

AppStories, Episode 300 – App Trends Revisited and Reconsidered→

This week on AppStories, we mark episode 300 of the show by revisiting the app trends they covered in episode 100 and discussing the new trends that will shape the apps we use in the next several years.

Sponsored by:

  • Things – The award-winning to-do app.
  • Pillow – Sleeping better, made simple.
  • Kolide – Kolide believes that maintaining endpoint security shouldn’t mean compromising employee privacy. Check out our manifesto: Honest Security.
  • Kosmik – For All Mindkind
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On AppStories+, we reveal the app trends we want to see end.

We deliver AppStories+ to subscribers with bonus content, ad-free, and at a high bitrate early every week.

To learn more about the benefits included with an AppStories+ subscription, visit our Plans page, or read the AppStories+ FAQ.

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Apple Announces Strange New iPad and iPad Pro Lineup

This morning Apple announced their all-new iPad and iPad Pro lineups via press release and a short announcement video. The new iPad (non-Pro) features new colors and an updated square-edge design that brings it in line with the rest of Apple’s modern iPads and iPhones. The iPad Pro has been upgraded to Apple’s M2 chip, and supports a new “hover” mode on the Apple Pencil. Apple also unveiled a new Magic Keyboard Folio accessory, which includes a detachable keyboard with a trackpad and function keys.

There’s a lot to like about each of these new products, but the details reveal some very strange decisions on Apple’s part.

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Apple TV 4K Updated with an A15 Bionic Chip, HDR10+, and a Lower Starting Price

Today, Apple published a press release announcing an update to the Apple TV 4K, which now comes in two configurations that offer different storage capacities and network connectivity. The Apple TV HD is no longer available on Apple’s online store.

The Apple TV 4K has been updated with an A15 Bionic chip and support for HDR10+, which is part of tvOS 16. The base configuration, which is $129, has 64GB of storage and is WiFi-only. The other model adds Gigabit Ethernet and has 128GB of storage for $149. The top-tier Apple TV 4K supports Thread networking too.

Apple says:

CPU performance is now up to 50 percent faster than the previous generation, delivering greater responsiveness, faster navigation, and snappier UI animations. GPU performance is now up to 30 percent faster than the previous generation for even smoother gameplay.

The Siri Remote now charges via USB-C.

The Siri Remote now charges via USB-C.

The Siri Remote has remained mostly the same, except it has added USB-C charging in place of the previous model’s Lightning port. The Siri Remote is included with the Apple TV but can be purchased separately for $59.

Overall, the changes to the Apple TV 4K are fairly minor, notwithstanding the snappier UI the A15 Bionic enables. I don’t see a good reason for most people to upgrade from a previous generation Apple TV 4K unless you play a lot of games on the Apple TV and have run into storage limits. If you have an Apple TV HD before and are planning on buying a 4K TV, the new model will save you some money and offer a few new perks. Although it’s a shame that Ethernet is only available in the more expensive configuration, that’s probably part of how the cost of the base model has been brought down, and I’m sure most people connect their Apple TVs via WiFi anyway.

The new Apple TV 4K is available for pre-order now, with deliveries beginning on Friday, November 4th in 30 countries, including the US.