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At the beginning of June, the expected developer conference WWDC 2022 took place, during which Apple presented us with new versions of operating systems. Of course, they are loaded with a number of interesting novelties and overall, they push the systems to the next level. In any case, a function called Stage Manager has gained increased attention from apple lovers. It will specifically target macOS and iPadOS, and in the case of iPads, it should bring a revolution in the approach to multitasking and greatly expand the overall possibilities.

We have already talked about how Stage Manager works and how it differs from, for example, Split View in our earlier articles. But now quite interesting information has come to the surface - Stage Manager is more or less not a big news. Apple has already been working on the feature more than 15 years ago and only now completed it. How did the development begin, what was the goal and why did we wait until now?

The original form of Stage Manager

With more detailed information about the Stage Manager function, a former Apple developer who specialized in the development of functions for the macOS and iOS operating systems made himself heard. And we must admit that he has posted a number of warm points of interest. Indeed, when the Cupertino giant was dealing with the transition of Macs to Intel processors in 2006, this developer and his team instead focused on a function with an internal label shrinkydink, which was supposed to bring a radical change for multitasking and give Apple users a new way to manage active applications and windows. The novelty was supposed to completely overshadow the existing Exposé (today Mission Control) and Dock and literally revolutionize the system's capabilities.

shrinkydink
shrinkydink function. Her resemblance to Stage Manager is unmistakable

It probably won't surprise you that the function shrinkydink is literally the same gadget as Stage Manager. But the question is why the function actually came only now, or rather 16 years after the developer and his team worked on it. There is a simple explanation here. In short, the team did not get the green light with this project and the idea was saved for later. At the same time, it was an exclusive change for macOS, or OS X at the time, since iPads didn't even exist yet. Apparently, however, it is shrinkydink a little older. During the aforementioned WWDC 2022 developer conference, Craig Federighi, vice president of software engineering, mentioned that Stage Manager was also worked on by people from the team that had been working on a similar system 22 years earlier.

What would a developer change about Stage Manager

Although visually they are Stage Manager i shrinkydink very similar, we would find a number of differences between them. After all, as the development itself states, the new function is significantly more compact and sleeker, which they simply could not achieve years ago. At that time, there were no Macs with Retina displays that could easily handle the rendering of even the smallest details. In short, the situation was diametrically different.

It is also appropriate to mention what the original creator would actually modify or change on the current Stage Manager. As a true fan, he would give far more space to the newcomer and offer Apple users to activate it immediately when the Mac is first launched, or at least make it more visible so that more people can get to it. The truth is that Stage Manager brings a rather interesting and simple way that can make working with an Apple computer significantly easier for newcomers.

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