If you’ve used an iPad in the last few years, you’ve probably heard of Stage Manager: it’s the feature that brought iPadOS closest to feeling like a real desktop operating system.
What it is, in detail
Stage Manager is the window management system Apple introduced on iPadOS that lets you open multiple apps at once in resizable, overlapping windows, instead of being limited to full-screen view or classic split screen. Open apps are grouped into dedicated workspaces, which you can quickly recall from a side bar, a bit like virtual desktops on a computer.
How it changes the way you work
Before Stage Manager, multitasking on iPad was fairly limited: at most two apps side by side. With Stage Manager, you can keep several windows open together, move and resize them freely, and quickly switch between groups of apps depending on the task at hand — say, one group for writing with a document and browser open, another for mail and calendar.
Which iPads support it
With the most recent versions of iPadOS, Stage Manager is available on a wider range of iPads than in the past, when it was reserved for M-series chip models only. It’s still an experience best appreciated on larger screens (iPad Air and iPad Pro) and paired with an external keyboard, where managing several windows at once genuinely makes sense.