It’s pretty late in the game, but Stage Manager on iPadOS keeps changing—most lately adding support for older iPad Pros while temporarily dropping support for external displays. What’s going on, and where does it go from here? Meanwhile, Apple execs take a European tour, allowing us to marvel at Eddy Cue’s energy and wonder at the surprising company Tim keeps.
Of all of Apple’s major product lines, it seems like none has been the subject of such intense debate and scrutiny over the last decade as the iPad. Can one do “real work” on it? Is it a computer replacement? Will it some day replace the Mac for all our computing needs?
While products like the Mac and the iPhone have always had a clear role in our technology lives, the iPad’s place has been more ragged around the edges. It fits into the gaps in our lives, solving problems that neither the iPhone nor Mac are quite equipped to, but without supplanting either.
Still, for all of that, the iPad has continued to live under the shadow of its two progenitors. And as it embarks upon its second decade, the future of the iPad is less than clear: its recent evolution–especially when it comes to the much anticipated Stage Manager feature–seems to suggest it heading in one of two directions.
Okay, Apple, listen up. I’m calling you on the carpet.
Stop stealing my gig.
Oh, sure, play innocent. But I’ve been watching for you for years.
Look, it started innocently enough. Time Machine. I get it, it’s a pop culture trope. And the feature lets you go back in time and get your files. Plus, I have to admit, it’s saved my bacon more than a few times over the years so I’ll let it slide; after all, it’s not like you went the whole way and called it DMC DeLorean or TARDIS.
But then you couldn’t help yourself: you just kept going. Deep Fusion? Really? A16 Bionic? The Photonic Engine?
Is your marketing department just two people with a set of darts and a copy of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual?
I get it, I do. Naming is an important part of product development and not every product is going to be as instantly iconic as the Macintosh or the iPod or the iPhone 14 Pro Max with Super Retina XDR display. Sometimes you end up with a real stinker.
Frankly, you had a good thing going with the ‘i’. Those were the days, right? iPod, iPhone, iMac—stick ‘i’ in front of any old thing and Bob Mansfield was your uncle. Didn’t even have to spend that much time thinking about it: iDVD? iTunes? Wait, are there podcast and movies and TV shows in it too—never mind, ship it!
Next came your super-generic phase, where apparently you outsourced your naming convention to a toddler who was supremely pleased with their ability to identify simple objects: Pages. Numbers. Books. Music. (That toddler clearly didn’t know how hard it would be to Google a simple question about Apple software for years to come.)
But I’m asking you, please, for the love of Steve, leave the science-fiction jargon to the professional science-fiction authors. Like you haven’t already made it difficult enough for us hard-working writers? We painstakingly spend a two-hour brainstorming session that only looks like we’re blankly staring out the window at the pouring rain, racking our brains to come up with the perfect key piece of technology only to discover it’s instantly obsolete because you actually created it. But now you’re taking the hacky names that we come up with too? Enough is enough!
Unless, of course, you’re hiring. Because I’ve got a copy of Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels, an itchy page-flipping finger, and a small child who will need to go to college some day.
[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His next novel, the sci-fi adventure Eternity's Tomb, will be released in November 2026.]
If you’re looking for a premium ereader get a Kindle Oasis. The Kobo Sage feels cheap (things that cost $300 should never produce that “creaky plastic” sound under normal use) and worst of all: the page turn buttons sometimes just don’t work. Given the whole point of the device is to turn pages, that’s a dealbreaker. Don’t get this thing.
Furthermore, the official case, which can be used as a stand whilst reading, is an abomination that Kobo should just stop selling.
I will say, however, that it charges via USB-C which is nice and I look forward to getting a Kindle that does the same (I’m not getting another Kobo, you see).
Some quick responses:
Yes, the Sage’s case not having a power button cut-out is a real head-scratcher.
Scott’s right that the Kobo hardware is a cut below Amazon’s in terms of fit and finish. The Kindle Oasis, while smaller than the Sage, has a metal back and doesn’t do the creaky-plastic thing.
As Scott writes, the gap between Kindle and Kobo software has closed substantially. Kobo had a huge lead over Kindle, but Amazon has closed the gap quite a bit. And while I enjoy the fact that the Kobo software is better integrated with Overdrive for library books, I do most of my library searching and checking out on an iOS device with the Libby app, making Kobo’s advantage less relevant.
I’m mystified at Scott’s story about the Sage’s buttons not working. I’ve never had an issue with nonworking buttons on any of my Kobos and if I were Scott, I’d probably send the Sage back and get a refund or a replacement.
Anyway, my preferred e-reader of the moment is still the Kobo Libra 2, which is $120 less than the Kindle Oasis, but is the same size and also offers physical page-turn buttons. The Oasis is much nicer hardware—the Libra 2 is all plastic and has a recessed screen—but it’s also $120 cheaper, so…
My thanks to Rogue Amoeba for sponsoring Six Colors this week.
I love Rogue Amoeba’s apps. As a podcaster, I rely on Audio Hijack and Loopback to do my job. I’ve praised Audio Hijack here repeatedly.
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Dynamic Island, Stage Manager, and October Events
We debate the right behavior for the Dynamic Island, try to find the root of the problem when it comes to Stage Manager on Mac and iPad, and wonder about if Apple will hold an event in October.
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness month, and once again, my friends at Relay FM are raising money for St. Jude. A lot of money. Members of our community have already given more than half a million dollars this month, and more than two million dollars since Relay began doing this four years ago.
My friend James Thomson has made a completely bananas macOS screensaver for this campaign, and everyone who donates $60 or more will get it. It is… extra. And then there’s extra on top of that. And when you think there’s nothing extra left, there’s extra.
Jason reviews the iPhone 14, we speculate about how Apple could make an October Mac event worth having, Myke solves his iPhone migration problems, and we answer your Dynamic Island questions!
Since the near-simultaneous arrival of the iPhone 8 and iPhone X in 2017, Apple has been on a mission to split the iPhone product line into two distinct sets of models: a more expensive set that incorporates all the cutting-edge features Apple can dream up, and a set that trades some of that high-tech flash for affordability.
This year’s iPhone 14 and 14 Pro feel like the final resolution of that mission. The iPhone 14 is a very mildly updated version of the iPhone 13, down to it being powered by last year’s A15 processor. But while the iPhone 14 has stood (almost) still, the iPhone 14 Pro has rocketed further ahead. The result is that Apple’s new iPhones for the fall of 2022 are more distinct from one another than ever before.
That’s a good thing for Apple, because the more that users are tempted to spend bigger on the extra features, the more money for Apple. But I’d argue that it’s good for potential buyers too, in the sense that if they’re choosing to spend money on the more expensive phone, they’d want to know what they’re getting for their money. And if those features don’t impress, you can save your money.
There are dozens–if not hundreds–of new features strewn across the major software updates Apple releases every fall. But for every one that gets top billing (iOS 16’s new customizable Lock Screens, for example) there are a whole slew that get little, if any attention. It’s hardly fair, but hey, that’s life: we can’t all be the stars of the show.
Fortunately, the massive number of people looking at these updates helps ensure that no new feature stays unknown for long. Having myself spent a large amount of time with iOS 16 and watchOS 9 over the past several months, I’ve developed my own feelings on which are the best features that you might not immediately try right away—the ones that are often squirreled away in an app you haven’t opened for a while, or buried under several levels of menus. And because I want you to enjoy them too, I’m going to share three of my favorites.
Each newsgroup was like a messageboard dedicated to a topic: fans of Atari’s 16-bit ST computers would post messages in comp.sys.atari.st. If you were a Star Trek fan, you might hang out in rec.arts.startrek.current. It likely will not surprise you to learn I frequented both those newsgroups.
Like me, Joe Reiss was a Trek fan, and in the fall of 1992, he decided to solve a problem at the intersection of syndicated television and Usenet.
As a dedicated participant in rec.arts.startrek.current in college and grad school1, I was honored to be quoted in Josh’s piece along with the dean of Star Trek episode reviewers, Tim Lynch.
Almost every feature of the Web was prefigured in the pre-Web Internet. We didn’t have the right tools quite yet, but the desire and enthusiasm was there. (And, of course, most of the people who built the early Web were also participants in Usenet and other pre-Web communities.)
Nerds! I know. But Star Trek TNG was very much the Show of the Moment when I was in college. Everyone, and I mean everyone, watched it and talked about it. ↩
My thanks to Daylite for sponsoring Six Colors this week.
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Here’s the same location, shown in Explore, Driving, and Transit modes in Maps. Each screen is a bit zoomed in, and they’re all shown in Dark Mode. Note the low-contrast gray-on-gray of the Transit view.
I am a frequent transit user — or I was before the pandemic. That distinction is important because, on a pair of recent trips, I came back into content with transit and Apple Maps in a way that left me scratching my head. Was it like this before?
Here’s what you see when you plot a transit trip and get off the bus a few blocks from your destination. Not terrible, but a turn-by-turn option with higher contrast text would be better.
When I’m in Austin, Texas, where I live, I use the excellent Transit app to find bus and train connections. Mostly, I’m looking for departure times and connections. I don’t really need turn-by-turn directions, because I know where the Republic Square station is, thank you very much. But when I spent a few days each in San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, over the summer, I relied on Apple Maps for transit and walking directions. The experience was a mixed bag.
Both cities are extremely transit-friendly and walkable. I’ve spent time in each before, but I don’t have the street grids committed to memory. And as someone with low vision, I like having a live map and turn-by-turn directions to keep me on track. It’s far easier for me than reading street signs.
In the early days of transit in Maps — iOS 9 was the first release to support it — turn-by-turn walking directions were available. To be fair, transit directions rolled out slowly across the world, so you couldn’t just show up anywhere and get bus schedules. And the interface was far different than it is today — less integrated with the rest of Maps. This 2016 WWDC video shows what early transit support looked like in Maps.
Sadly, the turn-by-turn feature is no more for transit trips. If you enter a destination, then choose a transit-based trip, Maps will plot a route that includes both transit and walking segments needed to get you where you’re going. And once I step into the bus or train, it keeps up with the route and gives me a nudge on my phone and/or watch when my stop is near. But before I can board the bus in a partially familiar town, I need walking directions to the stop.
What I get instead is a map with a dotted line showing my walking route. It updates as I move but does not offer turn-by-turn directions, as it would if I had chosen a driving or walking trip. So the map won’t remind me to make turns along the way, either visually or with speech. And it won’t reroute me if I go wrong. Had I simply plotted a walking route to the bus stop, Maps would have given me turn-by-turn guidance and the audio feedback I want, piped directly into my ear and onto my wrist.
Unfamiliar Territory
In dense downtown areas with lots of tall buildings around, you could also end up being derailed by GPS glitches that keep your phone from updating its position as often as it should. That can be a problem whatever mode you’re using to travel, but it’s more pronounced when you’re walking, especially when you’re navigating an unfamiliar place. Without turn-by-turn directions, it’s slower to get your bearings again once your phone makes renewed contact with the satellites, or even to be sure you’re receiving data when your little dot stops moving along the dotted line on the map.
A little personal perspective here: my low vision causes me to be extremely sensitive to light. It’s hard to read my phone in direct sunshine. The spoken aspect of turn-by-turn directions, along with a full-screen display that updates my progress, is something I sorely miss when walking to a bus stop with Maps. Additionally, Maps displays labels differently when you’re in Transit mode than it does in Explore or Driving mode. In Explore or Driving, street names use high contrast with the roads themselves. In Transit mode, it’s gray text on gray streets. I did a sort of “blind taste test” of this disparity, handing my phone to my fully-sighted husband and inviting him to navigate to the nearest Portland train station. He noticed the poor contrast right away, with no prompting from me.
Alternatives and Workarounds
Google Maps’ walking layout for a transit trip is similar to Apple’s, including the dotted line pointing the way to the bus stop. But the contrast is better, and if you zoom in enough, you’ll see pop-out street labels.
Having gotten myself turned around one too many times in Portland, I wanted to find a fix for my turn-by-turn transit problem. I checked out walking directions in both Transit and Google Maps. Like Apple Maps, each will draw a walking route on screen and then give you pretty snazzy transit-focused guidance, once you’re riding. Transit’s real-time, crowd-sourced Go Mode gives you vehicle ETAs, and keeps an eye on delays. But mapping for walking segments mirrors Apple Maps. There are no turn-by-turn offerings. From my perspective, it’s no better or worse, no easier to read.
Google Maps, whose greatest failing, again from my low vision perspective, is the lack of support for dynamic type sizes in iOS, at least has a map display that’s somewhat easier to read, with higher contrast between roads, labels and backgrounds than Apple Maps.
For me, the only practical workaround is to first plan a transit trip as I normally would, choosing departure and destination points, and choosing the best route, and noting where my first bus stop is located. If I use turn-by-turn guidance to the stop, I’ll start over, rerouting from my current location to the bus stop, using walking mode in Maps. Once I reach my stop, I’ll repeat the transit trip.
If you’re wondering whether iOS 16’s new “Add a Stop” feature will help here, the answer is no. It’s only available for driving trips.
Julia’s under the weather, so Jason asked our editor, Steven, to join him to talk about Amazon’s NFL broadcast, Apple TV+ exclusivity of MLB record-breaking games, the insolvency of Bally Sports, and the mystery of NFL Sunday Ticket.
Our computer and desk setups, the feature we’d add to iOS to make the biggest impact on how we use our iPhones, our device-protection habits, and whether the iPad is living up to its potential.
Call it the Godzilla Problem. Apple is so big and influential that any move it makes will have enormous consequences for someone, somewhere. If Godzilla takes a walk, he leaves enormous footprints (and, let’s be honest, a bunch of crushed stuff) behind him.
And like any large corporation (or nuclear Kaiju), Apple knows when it’s time to tread lightly and when it’s time to throw its weight around. Any choice it makes-especially where the iPhone is concerned-can move markets, make or break suppliers, and distort the trajectory of the tech industry.
When Apple announced the iPhone, it broke the control that wireless carriers had over our phones. Apple would bring the iPhone to the company that agreed to keep its paws off the phone’s Apple-built interface, AT&T (then Cingular) agreed, and the rest is history.
