I like it, but, hopefully iPad mini will gain stage manager as well?
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iOS 19 Rumored to Add Stage Manager Support to USB-C iPhones
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If iOS19 will bring Stage Manager to iPhone, that might mean iOS19 will bring multitasking to iPhone as well—maybe split screen and/or slide over, or some other way to keep one or more background apps active and easily accessible.
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If you think about it, the folding iPhonebook makes less sense without split-screen or stage-manager so this is paving the way for that.
Back when I was on Android, I plugged my Samsung device into a dock at work to charge, Dex then appears on the monitor etc, I noticed that the phone screen went black but functioned as a trackpad so you could use it as a mouse etc.
We really need Apple to fully support Mac OS on these devices instead of the garbage in iOS and that iPad OS junk. An iOS skin to pretend to be a phone for iPhones. It's not hard to conceptualize and should be hard for any competent SW org to implement.
On macOS too! Just the other day, my Dad got frustrated and confused because somehow Stage Manager had appeared on his screen and he didn't know how to get rid of it. I talked him through switching it off in System Settings.
(System Settings, by the way, is another bad user experience... Apple really screwed up the redesign they did a couple of years ago. Needs another re-think/rewrite.)
Editing a Pages, Numbers or Keynote document in a larger area, while still having email or whatever on the smaller screen. The iphone could even become a keyboard and trackpad, perhaps.
Very cool! I could see docking an iPhone to an external display to do a bit of writing or whatever. I like the idea of rolling up to a place with just my phone, working for a bit on a real keyboard and mouse, and then leaving with just my phone in my pocket.
I'm using Stage Manager on macOS a lot.
Once you have everything set up IMO it's quite handy to switch from one set of windows to another, but the process of opening a new app and having it join a set of existing windows is truly awkward.
It's a mixed bag and I really hope they improve it. I don't think it changed at all between Sonoma and Sequoia, and I'm hoping they don't just leave it to stagnate.
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Well next year it’s rumoured the foldable iPhone will finally ship. When it’s opened maybe it’ll run iPad apps but they might also need some tweaks or changes Apple wants to work best.
It’s possible this might be something they ship to try to get devs to make changes they want to those apps upfront in the name of supporting this feature but actually will give them a leg up on apps for the iPhone Fold next year.
My guess and a key feature will be iPhone apps that when the Fold is opened will scale to the iPad sized app without you losing where you were. Plugging in your phone to a Stage Manager, they could say they want apps to have this capability. Next year they’ll launch the phone and say they already have tons of apps supporting the Fold fully out of the gate.
So my guess and if Apple is doing this right, the iPhone will run iPad apps when plugged into an external display if this feature is true.
I imagine the apps will only be able to run in portrait or landscape windows rather than be resizeable, kind of how iPhone apps work with Stage Manager on an iPad now.
I for one, don't see the point of this. If you can drive a display off of a phone w/ an A-series processor... why not just put it in the display to start with and make it easy to share content with your phone and other devices? Why not have the display be usable without having your phone chained to it? Why not be able to use multiple displays?
I doubt that because the architecture of the system is different.
I can see this being useful if the iPad layout of apps (as well as iPad style multitasking) can be used this version of Stage Manager.
Funny if they eventually converge into a folding device and go full circle:
“…announcing three revolutionary devices; an iPhone, an iPad, a Mac. An iPhone, iPad, Mac. Are you getting it? These are not three different devices…”
“…announcing three revolutionary devices; an iPhone, an iPad, a Mac. An iPhone, iPad, Mac. Are you getting it? These are not three different devices…”
Before that can happen, someone at Apple needs to decide what problem Stage Manager is actually trying to solve. Because I’ve been playing with it off and on since it first appeared on both iPad and my Mac, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what it’s for.
Who uses Stage Manager? Be interesting to know what percentage of Mac users actually use it. I don't know of any.
Somebody (Asus?) did this like 10 years ago with a Linux phone. Although the recent Apple ARM processors probably mean it would be a functioning computer not just a trade show curiosity.
I still don’t get stage manager though. There are at least half a dozen other mainstream ways to do window management. Every one of them is MUCH better than Stage Manager. Stage Manager’s central design premise is “let’s throw away 40% of the available display area… because reasons”.
I still don’t get stage manager though. There are at least half a dozen other mainstream ways to do window management. Every one of them is MUCH better than Stage Manager. Stage Manager’s central design premise is “let’s throw away 40% of the available display area… because reasons”.