IPadOS 16: stage director observations

Cmaier

Site Master
Staff Member
Site Donor
Posts
5,215
Reaction score
8,264
I can now confirm that it works on M1 iPads but not the old a12 iPad Pros.

You enable it in control center. At the bottom right of *some* apps there is a handle that lets you resize. Resizing grows in all directions. You can drag all the way until the app is rendered full screen.



“Tap the top of a list view to scroll to the top” doesn’t seem to work when you are in a window - tapping the top of the window or the top of the screen doesn’t work.

Split View doesn’t work for a windowed app. Tapping the three dots gives you this:

1654556575683.png


The left icon does full screen. The middle lets you add an app. The right removes the app from the grouping.

You can drag windows around, but there is always a margin on each side of the screen that is left empty. This is as far up and to the right I could get this window:

1654556738951.png
 

Cmaier

Site Master
Staff Member
Site Donor
Posts
5,215
Reaction score
8,264
Sometimes handles appear on the bottom left corner of the window (like if there’s room to grow on the left.
It’s a little confusing but I get it now. The “drag handles” come and go depending on proximity to the screen edge. So you can’t shrink a window that is butted up against the right edge of the window by grabbing it from the right. You need to shrink it from the left. It’s a little confusing to me. Maybe something they’ll change going forward - it would be less fidgety to just let us drag a corner, even if it means I have to drag multiple corners to get the window size I want, instead of hunting for the correct drag handle and having all sides shrink when I drag it.
 

Cmaier

Site Master
Staff Member
Site Donor
Posts
5,215
Reaction score
8,264
Also, I keep wanting to tap on the background to get back to springboard. But that isn’t a thing.
 

Andropov

Site Champ
Posts
605
Reaction score
755
Location
Spain
So M1 iPads have this *and* SplitView? I'll have to wait and try it, but it does look like a confusing multitasking environment.

Also, I keep wanting to tap on the background to get back to springboard. But that isn’t a thing.
It should be a thing. I hope they make it a thing.

On the macOS Stage Director demo, Craig talked about how you could tap somewhere (don't remember where) to go to the desktop, I though on iPadOS it'd do the same with the springboard. By the way, does the 5 finger gesture to go back to Springboard work while on Stage Director?
 

Cmaier

Site Master
Staff Member
Site Donor
Posts
5,215
Reaction score
8,264
So M1 iPads have this *and* SplitView? I'll have to wait and try it, but it does look like a confusing multitasking environment.


It should be a thing. I hope they make it a thing.

On the macOS Stage Director demo, Craig talked about how you could tap somewhere (don't remember where) to go to the desktop, I though on iPadOS it'd do the same with the springboard. By the way, does the 5 finger gesture to go back to Springboard work while on Stage Director?

You pick EITHER stage director OR the old way. You don’t get Split View if you have stage director turned on. The four/five finger crunch does go back to springboard when stage director is on.

Not sure if there is somewhere to tap to do that, too. Also not sure where the new spotlight search button is. Still playing around.

Haven’t figured out how to edit the Lock Screen (if that’s even supported yet).

Did turn on display scaling, and liking it so far.
 

Andropov

Site Champ
Posts
605
Reaction score
755
Location
Spain
Haven’t figured out how to edit the Lock Screen (if that’s even supported yet).
I think they said tap and hold on the lock screen to edit it, but it doesn't work on my iPad.

Speaking of which, I don't remember seeing the new lock screen on iPadOS. Hmm.
 

Cmaier

Site Master
Staff Member
Site Donor
Posts
5,215
Reaction score
8,264
I think they said tap and hold on the lock screen to edit it, but it doesn't work on my iPad.

Speaking of which, I don't remember seeing the new lock screen on iPadOS. Hmm.
Yeah, just commented on that - may be only iOS. But the new clock font is sucky, so I’d hope we can at least muck with fonts and colors and such.
 

Cmaier

Site Master
Staff Member
Site Donor
Posts
5,215
Reaction score
8,264
Also, needs a way to hide the dock. I don’t need the dock sitting there at all times, and it wastes space. I’d also be ok if they hid that stuff on the left. Let me drag from the edges to bring those out.
 

Andropov

Site Champ
Posts
605
Reaction score
755
Location
Spain
Also, needs a way to hide the dock. I don’t need the dock sitting there at all times, and it wastes space. I’d also be ok if they hid that stuff on the left. Let me drag from the edges to bring those out.
You can hide the dock. Not sure how, but see 3rd screenshot:
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1533933784176934912/

EDIT: Apparently you can just drag the windows down until the dock automatically hides.
 

Cmaier

Site Master
Staff Member
Site Donor
Posts
5,215
Reaction score
8,264
You can hide the dock. Not sure how, but see 3rd screenshot:
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1533933784176934912/

EDIT: Apparently you can just drag the windows down until the dock automatically hides.

Ah, thanks! That works! But you have to do it each time you open a new app, looks like.

An unfortunate glitch is that when you drag along the bottom of the screen to switch apps, it starts dragging your app, which feels wrong.

Edit: not a glitch. It just feels weird because the stuff on the left part of the screen stays anchored.
 

Cmaier

Site Master
Staff Member
Site Donor
Posts
5,215
Reaction score
8,264
Looks like Settings.app is special. No drag handle, and you can’t add a second app to a group with Settings.app.
 

Cmaier

Site Master
Staff Member
Site Donor
Posts
5,215
Reaction score
8,264
Looks like Settings.app is special. No drag handle, and you can’t add a second app to a group with Settings.app.

Ah. Games behave this way too. Looks like anything that didn’t support split view can’t be windowed (though it can appear as a small window with dock showing and app list on the left, with no resize handle, which seems dumb)
 

Cmaier

Site Master
Staff Member
Site Donor
Posts
5,215
Reaction score
8,264
When stage director is turned on, even if your window is full screen, you cannot drag the keyboard suggestions thingy out of the way.

1654561523880.png


It lurks in its place at the bottom of the screen, which causes issues sometimes (it also tries to adapt to windows that get too narrow, but doesn’t do a great job. Clearly a work in progress)
 

Cmaier

Site Master
Staff Member
Site Donor
Posts
5,215
Reaction score
8,264
Apparently, you can turn off the left-side thing.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1533932783843803137/
Wow thanks! You can turn off the dock, too, that way!

But while you can drag up to see the dock, you can;’t drag right to bring out the left side thing. That said, I don’t think the left side is useful - it just shows a few recent apps/groups, but you can get at those lots of ways (drag along bottom of the screen to go sequentially, cmd-tab if you have a keyboard to pick from apps, drag up from bottom of screen to see groups, etc.

This still seems to reserve a bunch of space on the left and right, though.
 

Cmaier

Site Master
Staff Member
Site Donor
Posts
5,215
Reaction score
8,264
I take that back on the reserving of space. I got it to use the space. But now the drag handles are stuck. A little buggy, looks like.
 

Cmaier

Site Master
Staff Member
Site Donor
Posts
5,215
Reaction score
8,264
Looks like my MDM (mobile iron) does have some problems. I can read mail, but I can’t launch any managed apps (which i rarely do, luckily).
 
Top Bottom
1 2