brianus

The surprise inclusion of Preview sounds like it's in keeping with the idea that the "26" OS upgrades are supposed fo make the experience on all Apple devices more seamless and uniform. If an app - especially a built in app with iCloud sync - exists in one OS, then it should exist in all of them, at least all of the ones where it makes sense (in the case of Preview, iOS, iPadOS and visionOS at a minimum should get it. Maybe not watchOS, tvOS, homeOS or CarPlay...).

There are several apps Apple still leaves "stranded" on their platforms, which I hope they'll also take this opportunity to address:

• TextEdit, stranded on macOS 
• Health, exists on iPadOS and iOS but not macOS 
• Fitness, needs a macOS app and the iPadOS version needs all the features of the iOS one (ie, seeing your rings, awards and historical data)
• Journal, stranded on iOS 
• Playgrounds, no iOS version
• QuickTime, stranded on macOS 
• Time Machine - not needed outside of macOS so much as they need to introduce a version of iCloud backup for Macs. TM is practically abandonware at this point 
• DiskUtility - could be useful on USB-C iPads and iPhones 
• FontBook - stranded on macOS and PLEASE GOD bring it to iPadOS already, and iOS while you're at it
• Digital Color Meter - a builtin macOS utility that could really come in handy on iPadOS 
• Xcode - obviously whatever they'd bring to iPadOS would be seriously hobbled but it's better than being stuck with Playgrounds 

Sounds like it's in keeping with the idea that the "26" OS upgrades are supposed fo make the experience on all Apple devices more seamless and uniform. If an app - especially a built in app with iCloud sync - exists in one OS, then it should exist in all of them, at least all of the ones where it makes sense (in the case of Preview, iOS, iPadOS and visionOS at a minimum should get it. Maybe not watchOS, tvOS, homeOS or CarPlay...).

There are several apps Apple still leaves "stranded" on their platforms, which I hope they'll also take this opportunity to address:

• TextEdit, stranded on macOS 
• Health, exists on iPadOS and iOS but not macOS 
• Fitness, needs a macOS app and the iPadOS version needs all the features of the iOS one (ie, seeing your rings, awards and historical data)
• Journal, stranded on iOS 
• Playgrounds, no iOS version
• QuickTime, stranded on macOS 
• Time Machine - not needed outside of macOS so much as they need to introduce a version of iCloud backup for Macs. TM is practically abandonware at this point 
• DiskUtility - could be useful on USB-C iPads and iPhones 
• FontBook - stranded on macOS and PLEASE GOD bring it to iPadOS already, and iOS while you're at it
• Digital Color Meter - a builtin macOS utility that could really come in handy on iPadOS 
• Xcode - obviously whatever they'd bring to iPadOS would be seriously hobbled but it's better than being stuck with Playgrounds 

mikethemartian said:

Do most users want these kind of UI updates? I mostly prefer not changing unless there is a problem. Both in operating systems and applications companies just seem to move things around for the hell of it.

Absolutely not. Something useful is always lost in the transition, and frequently a new UI comes with new "system requirements" that either require a hardware upgrade outright, or result in degraded performance on older devices. Not to mention the bugs, I want Apple to improve and to innovate - "skating to where the puck is going to bell as they used to say --  not change things to change them (or to distract from the lack of innovation).

Plus the glass UI makes no sense. On Vision Pro it does, because these floating windows obscure the real world, and transparency minimizes that as much as possible. But full-screen devices like the iPhone and watch don't have any "background" to bleed through. I suppose the folding phone's supposed Stage Manager like UI would "benefit" from this transparency when opened; maybe that's part of it, but if so that again just sounds like a Windows Vista gimmick from 20 years ago.

9secondkox2 said:

Windows vista ui on iPhone, here we come. 

  hate to say it but I came here for this comment. First thing I thought. What’s disturbing is all the other parallels to that era of MS history too. Apple is now the aging behemoth that’s run out of ideas while its competitors build innovative products that define the zeitgeist. I remember all the leaks about internal dissension and dysfunction at Microsoft leading to the delays and then debacle that was Vista… sounds a lot like Apple’s AI push today. Slapping a glassy coat of paint on everything just like MS did back then is just a great comedic touch on top of everything else. 

tht said:

Don't expect productivity, multitasking miracles here.

• As others have alluded, you don't really display multiple apps at the same time on an 11" display. It's a little bit better on a 13" display, but not great. Bigger is better for display multiple apps at the same time. Definitely will hopefully be better on a large external display, but at 11", you won't be displaying a lot of apps simultaneously.
• Having background apps continue running is just about 80% of the ask for iPadOS, imo. Like, you are downloading something large over the Internet or copying something large over USB, those types of tasks should be allowed to run until completion at least, whether it takes 1 minute or 100 minutes.
• Backgrounded apps should not be killed. Theoretically, Apple and the developer will save the state of the app, and if it is removed from memory, it will be brought back to exactly the same state when foregrounded. Too many developers ignore this, and Apple hasn't been able to force them to update properly. It's been like 6 years. Developers aren't going to change now. So, either Apple forces the proper saving of an app's state, or solves it in a way that doesn't require developer updates.
• Stage Manager is not a good multitasking UI. Just add a multitasking app icon in the dock. Upon a tap, a pop-up list of apps can be displays, ordered in terms of last touched and or in-memory. App windows would be a submenu in the pop-up list. I suppose you can set a tap on the multitasking app icon to bring up the task manager and other things too. Stage Manager might be better if it allowed unlimited number of open windows, but the current four windows doesn't improve upon Split View, Slide Over much.
• Get rid of gestures as a UI design. Design the UI for direct manipulation. I'd get rid of long press as a UI input even. Add a meta button in a hot corner. You will need to press on that with one finger and tap on the target get the target's pop-up menu. Two finger tap can do the same thing, or a double tap to get a list of the target's menu items to pop up. When dragging and dropping, there needs to be at minimum a UI target or a delay to execute the action. Like a long press on a URL opens up a preview and a slide up of the preview creates a Slide Over app or a Split View app. That slide has to go to a specific target, like the top of the display, and maybe have a delay timer. iPadOS generally is direct manipulation, but there are some frustrating exceptions.
• Terminal.app and Xcode.app needs to be on iPadOS.