In macOS 13 Ventura, Apple introduced something called, Stage Manager to macOS. I will be talking almost exclusively about Stage Manager on the Mac even though Apple introduced a very similar (but not identical) feature called Stage Manager on iPadOS.
Stage Manager is a great concept. In fact, as executed, it's almost good. Almost. If it was better executed, it would be great. As it stands now, it's a very frustrating experience.
<h2>The State of Window Management</h2>
For many years I've been annoyed with the state of Window management on the Mac. During the years of 2017—2020 I spent a lot of time working on Windows (10), and window management over on that side of the computing OS world has its own issues. Oh, Microsoft solves some of the problems that Apple doesn't seem to care to solve, but not many of them, and not to my satisfaction. Overall, my experience in modern Windows was that Microsoft has "caught up" to Apple in many ways, but I still prefer the Mac (and I'm back to using the Mac full time in case anyone is wondering).
The problem neither Microsoft nor Apple have been very interested in solving (up until Apple's Stage Manager) is the "window sets" problem. When I'm working on something, I tend to have multiple apps and multiple windows involved in that "something." And very often, I'll reach a point where I want or need to switch to something else for a while, but I want those window and app states preserved.
<h3>Multiple Desktops</h3>
For some time, Windows and macOS have both had a concept called "multiple desktops" (Apple calls it Spaces, but it's the same concept. The problem is, as implemented, neither option really solves the problems well<a href="#user-content-fn-1" id="user-content-user-content-fnref-1" aria-describedby="footnote-label">1</a>.
With Spaces on macOS, each display gets its own space, and you can have many spaces per-display. When you open an app that wasn't previously open, it opens in the current space. The trouble is that it "bounces" around a lot. Let's say I open a Safari window in one of my spaces, then open a Safari window in another space. When I <code>cmd + tab</code> to Safari, it will switch to the space with the Safari window that was most recently active. It's not great. And the only way I can see or switch spaces is by activating mission control, or swiping from side to side in a linear fashion
<img src="/images/blog/2022/11/20/macos-spaces.jpg" alt="macOS Spaces">
With multiple desktops on Windows, each "desktop" spans all your displays, and (usually) each desktop acts like its own computer context. As far as that desktop knows, no other apps exist besides what's currently in that desktop. If you click a pinned app in the task bar, or open an app that may or may not be open in another space, it will also open an instance in your current desktop. I said "usually" because some apps seem incompatible with this. There's the occasional app that is limited to one window, and it will only ever open on one desktop. Which isn't great. I also found that, despite that fact that my Windows computer was very beefy, using two desktops made the computer feel a lot slower. Using three brought the computer to its knees.
<img src="/images/blog/2022/11/20/windows-10-multiple-desktops.jpg" alt="Windows 10 Multiple Desktops">
So as you can see, I've been a little nonplussed by that window grouping landscape.
<h2>Enter: Stage Manager</h2>
When Apple announced Stage Manager, and demoed its abilities, I was really thrilled and impressed with what I was seeing. It looked like, more or less, what I was looking for, conceptually. Windows can be arranged in sets, and you can switch back and forth between sets of windows arranged exactly the way you like them.
Well, the reality has been something of a glass of icy cold water in the face. When I first installed Ventura, I immediately enabled Stage Manager, and for a bit, maybe even a day, I really enjoyed it. But eventually, I had to turn it off. And even though I try it again once in a while, I eventually have to turn it off again.
Thankfully, disabling stage manager appears to return everything to the previous, long-running, tried and true window management behaviors. And while I may be frustrated with that status quo, I know how to navigate and get along with it very well.
<h3>Terminology</h3>
In order to talk about Stage Manager, I must define the terms I'll be using to talk about things. <a href="https://daringfireball.net/">John Gruber</a> observed on an episode of <a href="https://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/">The Talk Show</a> (I don't remember which one so I can't link it directly, sorry) that the lack of clear terminology by Apple itself regarding Stage Manager may be an indication of what's gone wrong with Stage manager. I tend to agree.
Regardless, here's the terminology to understand:
<h4>Stage</h4>
A stage is where a window (or a group of windows) are.
<h4>Strip</h4>
<img src="/images/blog/2022/11/20/mac-stage-manager-strip.jpg" alt="Stage Manager Strip">
As far as I can tell, there is no official name for the thing on the left side of the screen(s) where the thumbnails/piles are visible. However, the common nomenclature bing used around the web seems to be strip so that's what I'll call it.
<h4>Thumbnails</h4>
In the strip, you see thumbnails.
In <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213315">Apple's official support document</a>, Apple refers to the things you see on the left side of the screen as "thumbnails." But when this document does so, it's only referring to a single app being present on each stage. The document does cover the ability to drag from the "thumbnails" to create groups of windows on your current stage and never re-labels the thumbnails in the strip on the side. However, the internet seems to be calling those…
<h4>Piles</h4>
A pile is a group of windows in the strip.
<h3>What are the issues?</h3>
<ol>
<li>It has a problem I would describe as "bouncy"</li>
</ol>
What I mean by this is, by default, every time you open a new app, it gets its own stage, which causes it to "bounce" to a new stage. Very often, most of the time in fact, I want an app to open in the current stage. There is currently no way to prompt this behavior. If you click on an app in the Dock, or <code>cmd + tab</code> to it, one of two things happens: 1. If the app is not running, a new stage is created and the app is placed in that stage, or 2. If the app is already running and has a window, the stage of the most recently active window for that app will be bounced to (sound familiar, Spaces users?)
And Finder has a problem whereby it might spawn a window for, say, decompressing a zip file. And guess what, that little bitty window gets its own stage, and that stage is brought to the fore for that tiny little window. Not fun.
Additionally, sometimes, for no discernible reason, the stage you're currently working in will "bounce" away and another stage will become active. This is almost certainly a bug, but it's a huge, frustrating one. And even if they fix this one bug, there's still the myriad other problems.
<ol start="2">
<li>It behaves a bit strangely on multiple displays</li>
</ol>
Actually, it behaves a lot strangely on multiple displays. That may be the primary reason I have disabled Stage Manager, actually.
Sometimes trying to drag a window from a pile or thumbnail in the strip on one display to a stage on another display results in that window disappearing entirely. Getting it back can be frustrating or impossible. Often I have to quit the app and open it again. Sometimes invoking Mission Control to show all Windows and clicking on the window will bring it back in a state where it's half-on one of the displays. Sometimes not.
Sometimes, when clicking on a pile to make it the active stage on one display, causes the stage to switch on another display too. That is never what you want.
Sometimes clicking on a thumbnail or pile does nothing. I put this issue here in the multiple displays section because I've never had it happen when using Stage Manager on a single display.
<ol start="3">
<li>It's nearly impossible to move a window of an app to a new stage if there are no other app's windows in the current stage</li>
</ol>
The problem is that Apple conceives of stages as being for an app. The idea that you could have multiple windows from various different apps grouped together seems almost an after-thought.
Let's use Safari as an example. Let's say I have Safari, and only Safari open in a stage. I click <code>cmd + n</code> for a new Safari Window and I want to put that window in a new stage by itself. Impossible. The "Remove from set" item in the "Window" menu is grayed out. Since Apple doesn't allow you to have empty stages, you can't go to an empty stage and drag that window's thumbnail to an empty stage. You simply cannot separate multiple windows of the same app into multiple stages. If you're working with one app, you must always be in the same context, according to Apple, I guess 🙄.
<ol start="4">
<li>Unplugging displays, then plugging them back in results in a HUGE MESS</li>
</ol>
I know <a href="https://hypercritical.co/">John Siracusa</a> frowns on this whole idea of using a laptop as your primary computer, plugged into displays sometimes, other times not. But I think the entire reason he objects to the concept so much is because Apple is SO BAD at remembering multiple display state. And Apple has not departed from the status quo here. If you are using multiple displays at your desk with stage manager turned on and arranged just the way you want it, and you leave your desk and disconnect your computer from the display(s), when you plug back in in 1 second, 5 seconds, or 1 day, your piles will be a completely scattered disaster. Assuming Apple will never fix this issue, because Apple has always had problems of this nature with multiple displays, it would be nice if you could drag piles from one display to another, but…
<ol start="5">
<li>Stages/Thumbnails/Piles can't be dragged to different displays</li>
</ol>
Like, seriously, what the heck? Such a basic, basic, basic feature. Non-existent. Because no one ever wants to use a group of windows an a different display, right?
<ol start="6">
<li>There's no way to see all the piles you have if they don't fit in the strip</li>
</ol>
So, if you have 7 piles, but only 4 fit on your display, tough noogies.
<ol start="7">
<li>Thumbnails/piles cannot be labeled</li>
</ol>
This, by the way, has been a long standing complaint of mine with Spaces/Multiple Desktop as well. And Apple has carried that baffling decision forward. And why not? No one knows, I suppose.
<h2>So, What Now?</h2>
I don't know where we go from here. Apple has a long history of shipping partially baked window management features on the Mac, then never returning to them to polish them up or make them work properly. Stage Manager has a lot of promise. It's so close to doing what I want and need it to do. Quite frankly, it's baffling that it's shipped in the state it's in. My list of complaints here can be considered a wish list of things I want Apple to address or fix. Will they? Who knows?
Funnily enough, many of these issues don't exist with Stage manager for iPadOS<a href="#user-content-fn-2" id="user-content-user-content-fnref-2" aria-describedby="footnote-label">2</a>. It's not "bouncy" on iPad, multiple displays currently aren't supported by iPadOS, so no worry about dragging piles between displays, and moving apps into and out of stages is quite easy on iPad.
If Apple can work out these issues that I've outlined, I'd love to return to Stage Manager. I pine for a solution to the issues Stage Manager is trying to address.
Help us, Apple-wan Kenobi, you're our only hope.
<h2 id="user-content-footnote-label">Footnotes</h2>
<ol>
<li id="user-content-user-content-fn-1">
Microsoft's implementation of multiples desktop's, I do find to be a little better than Apple's. <a href="#user-content-fnref-1" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
</li>
<li id="user-content-user-content-fn-2">
Of course, Stage Manager on iPad OS has it's own set of issues. <a href="#user-content-fnref-2" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
</li>
</ol>

Stage Manager on the Mac

So you see what it takes to get me to write. There have been many things I wanted to write about over the last little bit. But I've been so doggone busy. The Google Reader imminent shutdown really made me want to write. But this... this makes me write. You can see what's near and dear to my hard: Podcasts.
The internet is abuzz with the the news of Podcasts 1.2. <a href="http://www.macworld.com/article/2031574/hands-on-podcasts-1-2-is-the-one-apple-should-have-shipped.html">Chris Breen has a good rundown</a> of the new app. And I agree that this is the version that should have shipped in that it is far better than the previous app. But it still has some serious flaws that make it not worth using for me. Believe me, I want to use it, I want it to work. I was genuinely excited for the update. The addition of playlists stations is nice and brings it on par with Instacast in that way. And the stilly and quaint reel to reel playback screen is gone, for better or worse (I sort of liked it, but it was a wee bit hard to use).
Here is my biggest frustration. The reason I want this to work is because I spend as much time working at my Macintosh computer as I do out and about with my iOS device. iTunes, with which my phone syncs every night when I plug it in, has podcast subscription capabilities. But I rarely plug my phone directly into my computer. It syncs overnight and so podcasts could sync that way, but I might work at my computer for a couple hours, then head out in my car and want to pick up my podcasts where I left off. Without a physical sync this was impossible. And what if I subscribe to a new podcast on one of the devices? It's cable (or Wi-Fi sync) time to get everything on the same page.
Apple is touting full subscription sync for this version of the app, but here, as I have found, is the rub: that subscription syncing is only between iOS devices, NOT between iOS and it's sync master, iTunes (isn't that quite odd? iTunes syncs with the iOS, but only iOS devices can sync podcasts with each other over the air). This is growing beyond frustrating. Let me explain my experience.
Being excited as I was for this new version of the app, I went and downloaded it, and added a couple of my favorite podcasts to the app. I let the latest episodes download, then I fired up iTunes and waited, and waited, and waited. No podcasts were added to the podcasts section of iTunes. This must be some sort of mistake. So I closed iTunes, forced the podcasts app on the iPhone to refresh and tried again. Still nothing. So I manually subscribed to the podcasts in iTunes and played the latest episode for a few minutes. To my great delight (perhaps the only delightful part of this experience), even though the subscriptions don't sync over the air, the playback position does IF both devices have subscribed to the same podcast and downloaded the same episode. Yay.
So then I subscribed to a couple podcasts on iTunes. As expected from my experience trying it the other way, these podcasts did not automatically show up in the podcast app on iOS. A manual sync with a cable did make them show up. But here is the rub. THE SUBSCRIPTION SWITCH IN THE IOS APP DID NOT GET TURNED ON. You have to manually do that. So even though the podcast was synced over from the iTunes library, the podcast app does not consider that a subscription, it's just sort of parked there.
<img src="/images/uploads/IMG_9178.png" alt="">
LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME!
This does not seem that hard to get right. I don't understand why Apple is making this so painful? I don't get it. I want the features to work as advertised.
Here is what else I would be giving up to switch away from Instacast:
<ul>
<li>Push Notifications for new episodes</li>
<li>Show notes (why does Apple refuse to support this when this is such a standard now?)</li>
<li>More robust media management</li>
</ul>
I must admit that I am not thrilled with Instacast 3's slightly more dumbed down media management, but it is still way better than what Apple's app offers.
And I am excited because Instacast has teased that a Mac client is in the works with full sync. As a podcast geek and power user that will make me extremely happy. I will finally have what I have been longing for these many years.
But the real bottom line for me is that there are still not good and easy podcast solutions for the average person. Apple's app still adds complication by not working quite as advertised, and by trying to hard to make things easy. Sometimes trying to make things easy adds unexpected complication. And solutions like Instacast simple are not easy for mainstream consumers to grasp. Podcasts remain just out of reach for many average consumers in my opinion.
What is so maddening is that Apple could make this so easy and so good, but they just can't seem to manage it.
P.S. That icon is still hideous.
<hr>
Here is the orginal article I wrote about podcasts, and a quick follow up to that.
<ul>
<li><a href="/blog/2012/06/27/podcasts">Podcasts »</a></li>
<li><a href="/blog/2012/06/28/podcasts-a-quick-follow-up">Podcasts - A Quick Follow Up »</a></li>
</ul>

Apple's Podcast App Revisited


This video makes me cringe on multiple levels. For one, can the typing be any slower. Secondly, it looks like a really good way to crack the screen. Maybe that’s why the typing is so slow now that I think about it.
I’ll stick to my Apple keyboard.

YouTube

iTypewriter

As usual, Apple has a parade of iOS devices that get left in the dust when iOS 6 comes out. And just as usual, older devices that don’t get completely left behind still don’t get all the new features. And as always, some of the things on the list are obvious or really and actually limited by the hardware. Others leave you scratching your head.
<blockquote>
Flyover and turn-by-turn navigation will be available only on iPhone 4S and iPad 2 or later.
</blockquote>
This makes sense actually. I’m sure it requires a lot of horsepower under the hood.
<blockquote>
Siri will be available only on iPhone 4S and iPad (3rd generation)
</blockquote>
I kind of understand this. Siri needs a really good mic, and horsepower.
<blockquote>
Shared Photo Streams requires iOS 6 on iPhone 4 or later or iPad 2 or later
</blockquote>
Why?
<blockquote>
FaceTime over a cellular network requires iPhone 4S or iPad (3rd generation)
</blockquote>
Why?
<blockquote>
VIP list and VIP and Flagged smart mailboxes will be available on iPhone 4 or later and iPad 2 or later.
</blockquote>
Uh, WHY?!?
<blockquote>
Offline Reading List will be available on iPhone 4 or later and iPad 2 or later.
</blockquote>
WHY?!? WHY?!? WHY??? Do you really enjoy irritating users Apple? I know that you don’t, so why? <a href="#fn:leftbehindfn1">1</a>
<blockquote>
Made for iPhone hearing aids require iPhone 4S.
</blockquote>
Not enough information to scream about this one.
Like I said, a couple of these make sense, and others… not so much.
<hr>
<ol>
<li>Not that I really care since I won’t be giving up Instapaper anytime soon. But it’s the principle of the thing. <a href="#fnref:leftbehindfn1">↩</a></li>
</ol>

9to5Mac

Left Behind

(This link is almost 1 month old because, man did I get busy and get behind. The next several links might be fairly old as I get caught up and decide which ones I like enough to still post)
<blockquote>
Now that developers are finally catching up and updating their apps to match the new iPad’s Retina display, I’m running out of space.
That’s because many apps are a lot larger now that they support Retina-quality graphics. The worst offender so far is Wired Magazine. Conde Nast updated the Wired app over the weekend with support for the new iPad’s display. (It looked really ugly before.)
</blockquote>
I frankly think that it is a mistake for Apple to still sell a 16 GB iPad and I can almost guarantee you that the 16 GB model will not be in the lineup with the next hardware refresh.

Steve Kovach writing on Business Insider

16 Gig iPad

<blockquote>
iPad 3 reviews that complain “all they did was improve the display” are clueless bordering on stupidity. Tablets are pretty much by definition all display; nothing is more fundamental to the tablet experience than the quality of the display.
</blockquote>

Posts tagged “iPad” from the blog