When Stage Supervisor first launched final yr as a part of iPadOS 16, I turned the setting off as quick as I might and by no means regarded again. It was a half-hearted try to construct a greater multitasking system, with too many quirks and problems that each one added as much as extra muddle and confusion on my iPad.
However this yr is completely different. Ish. I’ve been utilizing the iPadOS 17 beta for some time forward of the general public beta that’s out there right now, and I’ve excellent news: Stage Supervisor feels a lot nearer to the multitasking system Apple all the time mentioned it was attempting to construct. It’s nonetheless nowhere close to good, and Stage Supervisor nonetheless interacts with apps and even different iPad options in odd and complicated methods. However for the primary time, I can at the least say the iPad is a half-decent multitasking machine.
The improve that issues is a straightforward one: as a substitute of getting your home windows at solely a few set sizes and orientations, now you can make most apps as tall or quick and thin or huge as you’d like, and you’ll place them nearly wherever on the display screen. Generally it seems unhealthy! That’s okay! Selection is an effective factor.
As you progress a window across the display screen, it nonetheless typically subtly bounces again to the middle or the sting, and there are some locations — equivalent to method into the nook — you could’t put an app in any respect. But it surely’s shut sufficient. I can have a bunch of small, iPhone-sized home windows haphazardly strewn about my display screen. I can have an enormous window enjoying a video and a teeny-tiny one up within the nook displaying the recipe I’m engaged on. I can drag home windows to nearly wherever and nearly any measurement. Stage Supervisor nonetheless isn’t fairly absolutely free-form multitasking such as you’d get on a Mac, however it’s a large leap nearer.
As with so many new options, Stage Supervisor solely works to the extent that apps let it. Right here, I’ve largely excellent news: most apps help the completely different sizes and resolutions Stage Supervisor requires. Each every so often, I do run into an app that both shrinks awkwardly at smaller sizes or simply refuses to be something apart from an enormous ol’ rectangle, although. Netflix is my mostly used offender: its solely structure choices are “vertical iPad” and “horizontal iPad,” and shrunk down in Stage Supervisor, it will get scrunched and small. A few of Apple’s personal apps do that, too. However I haven’t discovered something that’s simply straight-up damaged but.
In the event you’re a “my iPad is my pc” sort of consumer, the brand new Stage Supervisor is basically meant for you
In the event you’re a “my iPad is my pc” sort of consumer, the brand new Stage Supervisor is basically meant for you. For one factor, Stage Supervisor is considerably extra sensible to make use of on a combo of iPad and exterior monitor than on a pill iPad alone. You get 5 phases in your iPad (4 on the aspect plus the one you’re ) and 5 extra in your monitor, and it’s tremendous straightforward to maneuver stuff between them. You probably have a stage open on every display screen, that’s eight apps in view concurrently, which is a fairly highly effective command heart.
You probably have a monitor with a built-in or plugged-in digital camera, like an Apple Studio Show, you may also use your monitor’s webcam when your iPad is plugged in so long as your video app helps it. I don’t have $1,600 to spend on a monitor, so I couldn’t check this. But it surely’s a pleasant thought and makes an iPad an awesomely moveable video-chat gadget. (An apart: the iPad could be very a lot turning right into a “display screen you dock into equipment,” whether or not that’s a keyboard or a monitor or your TV. I feel this can be a very cool method to consider the iPad. However I digress.)
I can nonetheless solely have 4 apps in a stage, although. That’s in all probability sufficient for most individuals — any extra and even with small home windows, you’re severely crowding the display screen on the iPad — however it appears like an pointless limitation for an exterior show. In addition to, I keep that my muddle is my enterprise, and I don’t want Apple limiting what number of issues I can see at a time. It doesn’t deal with the limitation nicely, both: you drag in a fifth app, and Stage Supervisor robotically punts one of many apps presently in your house out to a unique one. It will get complicated quick.
Switching between phases continues to be a bit complicated, too. You’ll be able to solely see 4 at a time in that left-aligned tray, however that’s not all of your phases; swipe as much as the app switcher, and you’ll see all those you’ve created. Which I really like! However I want I might have an app in multiple stage at a time — I’d wish to have my notes app in a single stage with my calendar and to-do checklist, one other subsequent to my browser, and one other subsequent to the Kindle app, simply to call one instance.
Stage Supervisor nonetheless has nothing to do with the remainder of iPadOS
Actually, my largest remaining gripe with Stage Supervisor is identical one as final yr: it has nothing to do with the remainder of the iPad’s software program. You’ll be able to’t Command-Tab by areas, areas don’t present up in your dock, and you’ll’t save an area in any significant method. As ever, the app switcher is the one helpful strategy to navigate your areas. In the event you’re going to make use of Stage Supervisor, my advice is straightforward: make 5 areas and follow them. If you end up needing greater than you may see on the display screen without delay, Stage Supervisor isn’t for you.
I believe that’s why Stage Supervisor continues to be largely an all-or-nothing setting. It’s both on and also you’re manipulating every part in phases, or it’s off and also you’re again to the iPad’s side-by-side home windows and slide-over system. And but this, too, causes me complications. I like that with Stage Supervisor on, I can drag the nook of a window to make it full-screen, then drag it again to see every part else; I don’t actually perceive why I can’t use slide-over apps when that app is full-screen until I flip off Stage Supervisor. A full-screen app ought to simply all the time act like a full-screen app.
The primary model of Stage Supervisor struck me as a nasty resolution to a nonexistent downside, a greater and easier strategy to navigate your iPad that was truly neither higher nor easier. With iPadOS 17, I truly assume I see the chances right here. Significantly for energy customers, Stage Supervisor is certainly a sooner strategy to flip between your most-used apps, and when you’re on an exterior show, it’s leaps and bounds higher than any choice you’ve had earlier than. Simply by giving customers extra freedom to maneuver and resize home windows, Stage Supervisor feels vastly extra helpful.
However now Apple must make Stage Supervisor an precise iPad characteristic. It must combine it with the opposite iPadOS navigational instruments and windowing methods in a method that is sensible. Let me have widgets and apps collectively in an area! And please, please let me save a set of apps with a reputation after which deliver it up with a Highlight search, please. It must reap the benefits of the pill’s outrageous processing energy and really allow you to use greater than 4 apps at a time. It wants, in brief, to make Stage Supervisor really feel like a part of the iPad as a substitute of an entirely separate gadget that simply occurs to dwell inside the identical display screen.
Stage Supervisor may very well be nice. And Apple’s pushing it in the suitable path. (You may name that path “Mac-like.”) I simply want it will push quite a bit tougher and quite a bit sooner.
