I’m in Cupertino for WWDC this week, and after yesterday’s whirlwind of announcements and surprises, I had some time to sit down with my 12.9” iPad Pro, install iPadOS 17 beta 1 on it, and try the improved version of Stage Manager. As you know, I have a…complicated history with the iPad’s latest multitasking system.
There are still bugs with Stage Manager and, look, this is not surprising given this is the first beta of iPadOS 17.
If the windows snap on a grid similar to iPadOS (I don’t have a Mac anymore), I could see it being handy as a pseudo tiling window manager. But if they don’t snap, then yeah it’s just reinventing the wheel, with virtual desktops already being a thing.
They don’t snap in the current Sonoma beta for me, unless I’m really missing something (always a possibility). I don’t mind the existence of Stage Manager on macOS, and I can see its utility for some folks (people who don’t use Spaces/multiple desktops, for example), or folks for whom a window-centric way of working makes more sense to them than an app-centric one.
I’ve been a Mac user since the late Paleolithic and hiding and showing apps feels too ingrained in my head for it to change at this point. hehe. So long as things like Stage Manager add to the Mac user experience rather than replace longstanding conventions, I don’t mind.
But then, even those longstanding conventions change, sooner or later. (OS X is not classic Mac OS, of course.) I’ll adapt; it’ll just feel unusual for a while, in the meantime.
I use a mix of multiple desktops, fullscreen apps and Stage Manager for my current workflow. I still haven’t figured out all the kinks yet, but it’s definitely convenient.
I’ve been using Macs since System 7, and at this point it’s pretty clear that macOS window management needs to be rethought from the ground up. We have the dock that’s sort of Windows task-manager-esque (and already questionable from a design standpoint), plus virtual desktops that that handle full-screen applications in completely nonsensical ways, and now Stage Manager that’s (once again) sort of like a Windows task manager you can have in addition to the dock, except it’s much larger.
If the windows snap on a grid similar to iPadOS (I don’t have a Mac anymore), I could see it being handy as a pseudo tiling window manager. But if they don’t snap, then yeah it’s just reinventing the wheel, with virtual desktops already being a thing.
They don’t snap in the current Sonoma beta for me, unless I’m really missing something (always a possibility). I don’t mind the existence of Stage Manager on macOS, and I can see its utility for some folks (people who don’t use Spaces/multiple desktops, for example), or folks for whom a window-centric way of working makes more sense to them than an app-centric one.
I’ve been a Mac user since the late Paleolithic and hiding and showing apps feels too ingrained in my head for it to change at this point. hehe. So long as things like Stage Manager add to the Mac user experience rather than replace longstanding conventions, I don’t mind.
But then, even those longstanding conventions change, sooner or later. (OS X is not classic Mac OS, of course.) I’ll adapt; it’ll just feel unusual for a while, in the meantime.
I use a mix of multiple desktops, fullscreen apps and Stage Manager for my current workflow. I still haven’t figured out all the kinks yet, but it’s definitely convenient.
I’ve been using Macs since System 7, and at this point it’s pretty clear that macOS window management needs to be rethought from the ground up. We have the dock that’s sort of Windows task-manager-esque (and already questionable from a design standpoint), plus virtual desktops that that handle full-screen applications in completely nonsensical ways, and now Stage Manager that’s (once again) sort of like a Windows task manager you can have in addition to the dock, except it’s much larger.