iPadOS 16 introduces a feature I’ve wanted on iPads for years: more true multi-window multitasking and true external display support for extended workspaces. A public beta preview of the software is now available (which I wouldn’t recommend installing on your everyday personal device). How iPadOS accomplishes both is the curious part. Navigation needs a lot of detail, based on my early experiences so far. You also need an M1-equipped iPad for these new multitasking features to work, which means a current iPad Pro or iPad Air model. No other will be compatible. These iPads are on the expensive side, making this a professional feature that you may not yet consider worth upgrading for. Read more: iPad Air 2022 (M1) review. I could go into other iPadOS features, but I’ll do that later because, really, this is the feature this year. Stage Manager, which allows for these extra multitasking perks, brings a whole 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 doesn’t feel quite Mac-like. It seems that Apple is trying to evolve a new computer interface, but through tiny steps and experiments. As iPadOS moves between iPhone and Mac, picking up more parts from each and putting them together, the pieces don’t always make sense. That’s where I am after trying the public beta: trying to find my feet on iPadOS. Putting iPad apps on a large screen is finally useful in iPadOS 16. Scott Stein/CNET
The Good: Watch the magic
Plug in a display now and wow, it’s just like a Mac. Apps can be opened on the screen or on the iPad, and the mouse or touchpad cursor will simply move back and forth 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 an 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 clipped it in front of my Dell monitor and it 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 also doing things with the touch screen on the iPad with an app open there. For me it was playing Catan while also answering emails and Slacks. Dumb, and also awesome. Now I’m playing some John Williams soundtracks while writing and Slacking and playing Catan and checking Twitter, and that’s basically 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 experiences on its tablets and phones when connected to a display. Years ago, I found that DeX ended up working surprisingly well, sometimes. Apple makes a similar move on the iPad M1 models, but extremely powerful. Running multiple apps at the same time is much more useful than you might think, as you probably do it unconsciously every day on your laptop. Plug in a display and you’ll find it connects the way displays should, allowing separate apps to open independently of the iPad’s display. In a new Settings for Displays feature, you can also choose to mirror your iPad in a way that iPadOS only allowed before (who wants that?). Display settings allow the second screen orientation to be moved: if you select the display as “up” from your iPad, the mouse/touchpad cursor will move from the iPad to the screen when you move up. There’s also a new extra resolution feature on the iPad screen 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 shrink the text. On the larger 12.9-inch iPad Pro, it can make the display more laptop-like. To open apps at the same time, you need to open them from the dock and drag them into place. Application windows can be resized now, but not with complete freedom. Windows can be pinched and stretched and made horizontal or vertical, but Apple limits the sizes and shapes. It feels like vague experimentation to get the layout you want. And if the windows get too big, Apple overlays the windows. But only in very specific ways, so it’s not as free as the window-based operating system (not Windows!) of a regular Mac. Multiple windows become less useful on the iPad screen, especially if you don’t have the larger 12.9-inch iPad Pro (right). Scott Stein/CNET
The Bad: How does that work, again?
Getting all the apps to open, work and figure 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 cryptic icon with a block and three dots. No one will ever understand normally. It gets weirder. Stage Manager has instances of grouped open apps, but if an app is already open, you’ll just switch to that view instead of overlaying it with the others that are open, although you can also drag open apps in and out of that view side stand and in your workplace. On the iPad itself, these other app windows stay open on the side, reducing your app’s free display space. 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 windows, which still handles zooming, splitting, and minimizing apps just like iPadOS 15. Are you following me? I expect you’re not. I lost my way, even though I was a long-time iPadOS user. And apps can’t be easily moved from one window to another. Just when I started to feel like I was slipping into a Mac flow, iPadOS drops me back into an uncanny valley. And there are public beta bugs too: connecting to a display mutes the iPad unless I’m using headphones. Sometimes I got sudden error restarts from too many open apps. And, if I disconnect from the screen, I find that some groups of applications suddenly have empty black windows. Oh, and I tried to launch Catan on my screen and it started lopsided. Beta explorers, good luck. Stage Manager gets so annoying on the iPad screen that I immediately turn it off again unless I’m connected to a monitor. For me, it’s specifically a screen multitasking mode. The deeper I go, the weirder and more confusing I find it. I’m trying to launch Batman Returns on my Apple TV to watch while writing this and it’s automatically playing on the screen instead of my iPad screen. I can transfer the entire video to the screen completely, but not again to the iPad. And then when I try to switch Pages from screen to screen on the iPad (which is done via that little three-dot icon at the top of each window, which now has a menu that vaguely says “switch to display”) , the app suddenly goes blank and I have to quit.
Overall: A step forward (if you like screens), but weird
iPadOS 16 has most of the greatest hits of iOS 16, minus that cool new, customizable lock screen feature. There’s also an Apple-made weather app, now, finally (yes?). There are more comprehensive ways to share documents and collaborate as a team through Messages or FaceTime, expanding on what started last year. Apple’s promising collaborative whiteboard app, called Freeform, isn’t in public beta yet, but it’s due this fall. I still don’t recommend downloading a public beta version of the operating system from Apple on your main device because too many weird and bad things can happen. iPadOS 16 beta has crashed many times for me. But just for this way it can make the M1 iPads use an extra screen as a true second screen, I’m already excited. I wish the whole Stage Manager process made more sense and allowed for much more fluid or flexible window placement and screen jumps, because right now it feels very much like a beta feature. Even the way Apple lets you turn the feature off and on through the Control Center suggests that it might not yet be considered an everyday feature, but instead a “pro” one you’ll have to consciously seek out to use. But I like to write and play Catan at the same time. Having the iPad Pro at my desk is a lot more fun and a much more productive tool, even if it makes me less productive. Sorry, now it’s my turn. I’m going to build a city.
