Apple in June unveiled Stage Manager, iPadOS 16’s headline feature that lets iPad owners efficiently work with multiple windows and use external displays. Stage Manager is also available on macOS Ventura, but the iPadOS variant has faced heavy criticism for being half-baked and unstable.
MacStories founder and known iPad evangelist and iPad power user, Federico Viticci (@viticci) said in a Thursday tweet that he has finally disabled the feature on his iPad Pro after grappling with frequent crashes, glitches, and “baffling” design implementations (via MacRumors).
I finally went ahead and *disabled* Stage Manager on my iPad Pro. For now.
As much as I love using 3-4 apps at once, the implementation just isn't there yet. Crashes every few minutes; hard to use multi-window for the same app; UI glitches everywhere.
I hope Apple delays this.
— Federico Viticci (@viticci) August 18, 2022
“I hope Apple delays this,” Viticci said. Reliable Apple insider Mark Gurman previously reported that Apple has delayed iPadOS 16 to October instead of launching it alongside iOS 16 in September.
Viticci, however, doesn’t think that’s enough time for Apple to really get Stage Manager sorted for iPad. “Might as well get it in Spring 2023,” he added in a follow-up tweet.
Please note: it's not *just* an issue of stability. Many design decisions of Stage Manager are fundamentally misguided.
Pictured: two feedbacks I submitted regarding external display support. Both marked as "behaves as intended". Both baffling implementations of how this works. pic.twitter.com/f8pdosqZXX
— Federico Viticci (@viticci) August 18, 2022
Viticci believes the implementation for Stage Manager on iPad just isn’t there yet. It’s about more than just crashes and bugs — he pointed out some Stage Manager behaviours to Apple that are counter-productive and, in his opinion, could be done a lot better.
For one, he told Apple in feedback on Stage Manager that the feature “destroys” multi-app workspaces created on an external display when any of the included app windows are clicked on in the dock on the iPad’s display. In response, Apple told Viticci that the feature “behaves as intended.”
Victims also informed Apple that there is a need for a way to move entire workspaces from an iPad to a connected external display from Stage Manager. Apple told him that his suggestion was “carefully considered” but would not be pursued at this time.
Stage Manager, which only works with iPads with desktop-grade M-series chips, is designed to bridge the longstanding gap between the capabilities of an iPad’s hardware and the software it runs on. However, the feature is far from perfect and it looks like Apple still has a long way to go.
What do you think about Stage Manager in its current form? Let us know in the comments below.
