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.
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.
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.