Twitter, Slack, Outlook and Safari are all open at once and I’m browsing and scanning between them all. It’s on my monitor. It’s like any other day. Meanwhile, I’m playing Catan on my iPad. Everything I do is powered by the iPad, with the monitor connected via USB-C as a secondary display. It almost feels like a Mac. But I am not.
iPadOS 16 introduces a feature I’ve wanted on iPad for years: more true multi-window multitasking and real external monitor support for expanded workspaces. A public beta version of the software (which I wouldn’t recommend installing on your everyday personal device) is now available. The strange part is how iPadOS makes both of these happen. The navigation needs a lot of refinement, based on my early experience so far.
You also need an M1-equipped iPad for these new multitasking features to work, which means a current model iPad Pro or iPad Air. Others will not be compatible. These iPads are on the expensive side, making this a pro feature that you might not even think is worth upgrading to.
Read more: iPad Air 2022 (M1) review.
I could go into other iPadOS features, but I’ll do that later because this is really the feature of the year. Stage Manager, which enables these additional multitasking benefits, brings an all-new layout that’s also extremely alien. And that’s the problem with iPadOS now. It’s powerful and it’s also weird and still not Mac-like enough.
It feels like Apple is trying to develop a new computer interface, but through small steps and experiments. As iPadOS moves between iPhone and Mac, picking up more parts from each and mixing them up, the parts don’t always make sense. Here’s where I’m at after trying out the public beta: trying to find my iPadOS sea legs.
Placing iPad apps on a large monitor is finally useful in iPadOS 16.
Scott Stein/CNET
The Good: Monitor magic
Plug in a monitor now and wow, it’s just like a Mac. Apps can be opened on the monitor or on the iPad, and the mouse or trackpad cursor will simply move back and forth, just like on a Mac connected to a monitor. I don’t think Apple’s new Stage Manager changes things much for people working directly on the iPad (see below), but wow, it opens up possibilities if you have a monitor nearby.
Using an iPad Air with a Magic Keyboard attached, I simply perched it in front of my Dell monitor and felt like it had finally become a dual-screen device. It’s especially weird and fun to control apps with the keyboard and trackpad while doing things with the iPad’s touchscreen with an app open there. For me, it was a game of Catan while answering emails and Slacks. Silly and also awesome.
Now I’m playing some John Williams soundtracks while I write and Slacking and playing some Catan and checking Twitter, and that basically feels like my typical screen-immersed day, but all iPad-enabled.
The whole experience reminds me in many ways of using Samsung’s DeX, which enables desktop-type computing experiences on its tablets and phones when connected to a monitor. I found years ago that DeX ended up working surprisingly well, sometimes. Apple makes a similar type of move on the iPad M1 models, but super powerful. Running multiple apps at once is a lot more useful than you think, since you probably do it unknowingly every day on your laptop.
Plug in a monitor and you’ll find it connects the way monitors should, allowing individual apps to open independently of the iPad’s display. In a new display settings feature, you can also choose to mirror your iPad in a way that iPadOS only allowed before (who wants that?). The monitor settings allow the second display orientation to be moved: if you select the monitor as “above” your iPad, the mouse/trackpad cursor will move from the iPad to the monitor when you move up.
There’s also a new Extra Resolution mode on the iPad’s display itself, which compresses text and apps for “more space.” On the 11-inch iPad Air, it didn’t seem to do much for my work experience other than making the text smaller. On the larger 12.9-inch iPad Pro, it can make the screen feel more laptop-like.
To make apps open at the same time, you need to open them from the dock and drag them into place. The size of application windows can now be adjusted, but not with complete freedom. Windows can be squished, stretched, and moved horizontally or vertically, but Apple limits sizes and shapes. It feels like fuzzy experimentation to get the layout you want. And if the windows get too big, Apple overlaps the windows. But only in very specific ways, so it’s not as free as a regular windowed (not Windows-based!) Mac OS.
Multiple windows become less useful on an iPad display, especially if you don’t have the larger 12.9-inch iPad Pro (right).
Scott Stein/CNET
The Bad: How does this work again?
Getting all the apps open and running and figuring out how to navigate them is another matter. Apple introduced Stage Manager, a new multitasking manager, but the app/feature is only launched from the Control Center by swiping down and tapping a mysterious icon with a block and three dots. Usually no one will ever know that.
It gets weirder. Stage Manager has instances of open apps grouped together, but if an app is already open, you’ll just switch to that instance instead of overlaying it with the others that are open, although you can also drag open apps on and off this side dock and in your workspace. On the iPad itself, these other app windows stay open to the side, shrinking your free space to display apps. Apps can be re-expanded, but jumping back and forth to select apps quickly becomes confusing. And then there’s that three-dot icon above the windows, which still handles app scaling, split-screen, and minimization just like iPadOS 15. Follow me? I expect you are not.
I’ve lost my way, even though I’m a longtime iPadOS user. Also, apps cannot be easily dragged from one window to another. Just when I was starting to feel like I was slipping into the Mac stream, iPadOS threw me back into the uncanny valley.
There are also public beta bugs: connecting to a monitor mutes my iPad unless I’m using headphones. Sometimes I had sudden crashes, reboots from too many apps open. And if I turn off the monitor, I find that some groups of applications suddenly have blank black windows. Oh, I tried to launch Catan on my monitor and it launched sideways. Good luck beta explorers.
Stage Manager gets so annoying on the iPad display that I immediately turn it off again unless I’m connected to a monitor. For me, it’s specifically the monitor’s multitasking mode.
The deeper I go, the weirder and scarier I feel. I’m trying to launch Batman Returns on the Apple TV to watch as I type this, and it’s automatically playing on the monitor instead of the iPad screen. I can move all the video to the monitor completely, but not back to the iPad. And then when I try to move Pages from the monitor to the iPad screen (which is done via that very small three-dot icon at the top of each window that now has a menu that vaguely says “move display”), the app suddenly disappears and I have to force close it.
Overall: a step up (if you like monitors), but weird
iPadOS 16 has most of iOS 16’s greatest hits, minus that cool new custom lock screen feature. Now there’s finally an Apple-made weather app too (yes?). There are more integrated ways to share documents and group collaboration through Messages or FaceTime, expanding on what was started last year. Apple’s promising collaborative whiteboard app called Freeform isn’t in public beta yet, but it’s expected this fall.
I still don’t recommend downloading a public beta OS from Apple on your primary device because too many weird and bad things can happen. iPadOS 16 beta crashes several times for me.
But this way alone can make the M1 iPads use an additional monitor as a true second screen, I’m already excited. I just wish the whole Stage Manager process made more sense and allowed for much more fluid or flexible window placement and screen jumping, because right now it feels like a beta feature. Even the way Apple lets you turn the feature off and on through the Control Center suggests it might not yet be considered an everyday feature, but instead a “pro” one you’ll have to consciously seek out to use .
I enjoy writing and playing Catan at the same time. It made my iPad Pro on my desk a lot more fun and a much more productive tool, even if it made me less productive. Sorry, it’s my turn now. I will build a city.
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