The eagerly awaited Stage Manager is one of the new features in iPadOS 16.1, which Apple has just released for tablets.
Owners of iPads should verify that an upgrade is available as iPadOS 16.1, although Apple warned that announcing it as iOS 16 is confusing because it’s the first release following a delay in an OS update to enhance Stage Manager. This release, which comes a week after Apple revealed the new M2 iPad Pro and budget-friendly 10th generation iPad in 2012, is thus the first official release of iPadOS 16.
Stage Manager’s new multitasking feature resizes apps and windows for easy task switching. It allows overlapping windows, provides a new way to switch between apps, and allows a user to connect an iPad to an external monitor to create a second iPad desktop for him instead of simply mirroring the same desktop.
However, when Apple announced that it would extend Stage Manager from M1 (and M2 and newer) iPad Pros to older iPad Pros, support for M1 external displays was also postponed. Apple plans to enable Stage Manager support for external displays later this year with an update to the M1 and M2 iPad models. Supporting displays with resolutions up to 6K, users can simultaneously work with up to 4 apps on iPad and up to 4 apps on external displays.
Stage Manager is also available in the newly released macOS Ventura in Control Center. For faster app switching, you can access the background apps column while the current window is centered. In other updates, Messages users can edit, recall, send, and mark conversations as unread.
iPadOS 16.1 also brings easy sharing options using the iCloud Shared Photo Library and live activities for real-time sports updates on the lock screen. This update brings the well-known iPhone weather app to iPad and includes new Safari Passkeys, a way to sign in to websites and apps with Touch ID or Face ID.
Apple has announced that it will release a new productivity app for sketching and collaborating called Freeform later this year.
The Mail app, on the other hand, provides clever options like a “remind” feature that lets you return to an email later, automatic follow-up ideas, and alerts that appear when a sender forgets to include recipients or attachments.
Visual Look Up is another amusing iPad camera app trick. Users may now tap and hold a photo’s subject to remove it from the backdrop and share it in the Messages app. People, statues, birds, and insects can all be recognized by it. Text in videos is also recognized by Apple’s iPadOS Live Text. Users can copy and paste text to translate it while the movie is pausing.
Additionally, Home on iPadOS receives Matter functionality for controlling Matter-certified devices throughout the ecosystem, just like the Home app on iOS. Support from Apple, Amazon, and Google