The One Where Quinn Nelson Tries to Create a Window with iPadOS’ Stage Manager

I’ve published my fair share of criticism regarding the iPadOS version of Stage Manager over the years. I wrote about it again last week, but most of its underlying issues date back to the original release in late 2022, which I documented here.

But let’s say you don’t want to read my articles and would prefer to have a more practical example of the issues I described. In that case, go check out this three-minute video by Quinn Nelson, in which he tries to have a Freeform window on the iPad and another Freeform window on an external display:

Post by @snazzyq

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This video has everything:

It shows the confusing lack of Mission Control/Exposé to see all active windows for an app in Stage Manager.

It highlights the lack of a window picker in Stage Manager. Quinn points out that he can see a window picker on the iPad’s display, but that’s because the iPad is running in traditional Split View mode, which does come with the shelf.

Quinn is (rightfully) perplexed by what ‘Add Another Window’ means.

The video shows the inconsistencies of Spotlight as an app launcher.

It also showcases the inconsistent implementation of keyboard shortcuts for multitasking.

The video shows how downright unintuitive the solution is. An alternative solution mentioned in Quinn’s replies is equally non-discoverable.

I’m sure someone at Apple may argue that this is the kind of feature people buy another computer for. But it’s always the same story: if Stage Manager for iPad exists, what’s the point of leaving it in this state for two years?