Stage Supervisor is, surely, probably the most fascinating items of software program I’ve seen from Apple in years. Launched because the hallmark characteristic for iPadOS 16, Stage Supervisor reimagines the multitasking expertise for the iPad — permitting you to run a number of home windows concurrently, resize them to your coronary heart’s content material, and switch the iPad into extra of a desktop-like computing expertise than ever earlier than.
It’s a formidable pitch on paper, and one which I believe has a lot of potential going ahead. However after attempting to make use of Stage Supervisor on my iPad Professional over the previous couple of days, I’m actually struggling to keep it up. It tries numerous attention-grabbing issues and will have a really promising future, however — at the least in its present kind — it’s going to stay disabled on my iPad Professional going ahead.
The Stage Supervisor elevator pitch
Earlier than Stage Supervisor, you had two essential methods to multitask: you may run two apps facet by facet (Cut up View) or view a second app in a smaller, floating window over your essential one (Slide Over). They aren’t probably the most strong multitasking instruments on the planet, however they’re easy sufficient to work reliably.
Stage Supervisor is a reimagining of the way you multitask with iPadOS. Open an app and it now shows itself in a big window along with your taskbar nonetheless seen under it, quite than taking on your complete display screen. Along with your taskbar, you’ll additionally see shortcuts for just lately opened apps on the left-hand facet of your display screen. You possibly can faucet certainly one of these apps to modify to it, or drag it on prime of the app that’s already open.
From right here, Stage Supervisor works equally to a desktop working system like Home windows or macOS. You possibly can resize app home windows, reposition them in your workspace, and run a number of apps facet by facet. Home windows can even overlap one another, permitting you to essentially muddle up your display screen if you wish to.
Stage Supervisor is turned off by default on iPadOS 16, however you’ll be able to allow it at any time by opening the Management Middle and tapping the Stage Supervisor icon. When Stage Supervisor is off, multitasking on iPadOS 16 — with Cut up View and Slide Over — works similar to it did in iPadOS 15.
Bugs, bugs, and extra bugs
All of this sounds nice, proper? Whereas it does on paper, Stage Supervisor fails in its execution of all the things. The most important drawback — at the least for me — is attempting to stumble by way of Stage Supervisor’s complicated UX and quite a few bugs.
Typically, an app will open within the windowed view like Stage Supervisor advertises. However in case you shut the app and open it once more, it could resolve to open in a traditional full-screen view — making you query in case you remembered to activate Stage Supervisor. I’ve but to seek out any rhyme or purpose for this habits. It simply occurs, and it’s one thing you must get used to.
After getting an app open in a windowed view, tapping on apps within the shortcut menu on the left additionally behaves arbitrarily. Most apps will slide into view whereas nonetheless exhibiting these app shortcuts on the left. Different instances, an app could open in a windowed view however conceal these shortcuts, requiring you to swipe from the left facet of the display screen to see them once more. I’ve additionally had cases the place tapping an app from the multitasking/current apps menu erroneously reveals a clean display screen. If this sounds complicated to examine, it’s much more head-scratching to attempt to use.
On the level you lastly get your entire apps working in Stage Supervisor home windows, the issues don’t cease there. Listed here are just some of the problems I’ve run into over the previous few days:
- Some apps don’t scale correctly when resized to smaller home windows (corresponding to Settings and Duolingo).
- The UI within the Messages app overlapped with itself, stopping the ship button from working.
- In Outlook, the app would solely let me sort within the recipients and topic bins — my faucets/trackpad didn’t acknowledge the message physique in any respect.
- Whereas enjoying a YouTube video with picture-in-picture, movies typically play once you’re on the house display screen, however crash once you open one other app.
These would possibly sound like comparatively small issues on their very own, however once you’re working into a number of of those points throughout the span of just some minutes, it creates an unreliable expertise that’s extraordinarily irritating. Complaints of Stage Supervisor bugs aren’t something new at this level, and over two weeks after iPadOS 16’s public launch, these bugs stay as prevalent as ever.
A messy expertise, even when it really works
However even once you aren’t hit with bugs and Stage Supervisor works as supposed, it’s not an area I discover myself eager to spend any time in.
One of the irritating elements of Stage Supervisor is the way it handles opening apps. If you happen to open an app you haven’t used with Stage Supervisor but, it opens in its personal workspace with no different apps alongside it. From right here, it’s straightforward to tug different apps onto your workspace and run a number of home windows — easy sufficient, proper?
Now let’s say you return to your house display screen and open one other app you haven’t used just lately. As a substitute of that app being added to the workspace you had been simply in, it creates one other Stage Supervisor workspace. And in case you open an app that was created in a workspace you might have forgotten about, you’re redirected to that outdated workspace to make use of the app there.
And issues change into extra difficult nonetheless once you attempt to handle these workspaces. They seem in your current apps/multitasking menu. A workspace with a number of app icons will show all of these apps once you faucet it, whereas a single app icon solely has that one app within the workspace. However that’s the essential factor to recollect. Apps you see within the multitasking menu are now not simply open apps — all of them symbolize totally different workspaces in your iPad.
Have a look at the above screenshot for example. If I tapped Reminders from the multitasking menu, I’d see solely the Reminders app. But when I then tapped the Groups icon from my taskbar, I wouldn’t have the Groups app seem alongside the Reminders app — I’d be taken again to the workspace with Groups, Twitter, and Outlook. I believe the thought of saving sure workspaces is nice, however the way in which it occurs with Stage Supervisor in iPadOS 16 is poorly defined and executed.
The place does Apple go from right here?
The extra I’ve sat down and tried to make myself perceive Stage Supervisor, the extra I’ve realized that it’s making my iPad work in methods I don’t need it to. It’s attempting to create a desktop-like interface for a tool that wasn’t meant to be a desktop machine, and I believe that actually reveals.
Once I use my iPad, I wish to give attention to one factor at a time and never a lot else. I admire working two apps facet by facet if I want that, or citing my messages in a Slide Over app after which hiding it once I’m completed. These issues permit me to be extra productive whereas nonetheless specializing in a single job at hand. And if I do need to swap from shopping Safari to scrolling on Twitter, all it takes is a few faucets and I’m there.
Stage Supervisor seems like a bizarre half-step with its personal complicated set of quirks and limitations.
Even with software program adjustments and equipment just like the Magic Keyboard, the iPad continues to be very a lot a touch-oriented cellular machine. And that reveals within the fundamentals of the way it works. Once I faucet Apple Music, I count on to see Apple Music on my display screen — not Apple Music alongside three different apps in a Stage Supervisor workspace I created two days in the past and forgot about. It’s helpful to concurrently run three to 6 home windows on my Mac mini with a 34-inch ultrawide monitor, however much less so on a 12.9-inch pill show.
There’s so much working towards Stage Supervisor. As a substitute of bringing macOS to the iPad, Stage Supervisor seems like a bizarre half-step with its personal complicated set of quirks and limitations.
It’s type of like a desktop PC interface, however it doesn’t 100% really feel like one. It’s a bizarre mish-mash of cellular and desktop UI concepts crammed collectively, and one which doesn’t totally function just like the iPadOS or macOS interfaces we’re so deeply accustomed to. It crams bits of the 2 collectively, kinds them right into a Frankenstein characteristic, and the tip outcome feels simply as cumbersome as that clarification.
I applaud and admire Apple for attempting to reimagine what multitasking can seem like on the iPad. It’s a ache level many of us have complained about for years, and though it will not be good, Apple tried to do one thing about it with Stage Supervisor. However the place can we go from right here?
That’s the million-dollar query. Apple may maintain tweaking and fine-tuning Stage Supervisor, however until the core fundamentals of it change drastically, I don’t see myself turning into a fan anytime quickly. And at that time, chances are you’ll as effectively slap macOS onto the iPad — one thing Apple could or will not be enjoying round with. Stage Supervisor is probably neat, and I need to adore it. However proper now, I simply can’t.
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