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 @snazzyqView on Threads
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?