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Operating system updates should be like good cinematography: Yes, an important backbone, but not one that stands out too obviously. Change a device’s user interface or features too radically, and you lose the muscle memory and personal workflow developed over time. But at the same time, change too little and no one will feel the need to update.
The new version of MacOS from Apple, called Ventura, should be coming later in 2022, but the public beta is available now. Everyone always says not to install beta operating systems on your primary devices, and I’ve offered similar counsel in the past. But honestly, once it hits the public beta phase (as opposed to a locked-down developer beta), things are usually in pretty good shape.
So with that mindset I downloaded and installed MacOS Ventura on a Macbook and iOS 16 on my phone. Didn’t even back anything up, just went for it. Yolo, I suppose.
The next bit of unspoken OS update truth is that most people will never see, use or even be aware of most of the updates, especially as so many are small tweaks that operate behind the scenes, or add functionality you’re probably not even looking for.
But Ventura does a little more than most OS updates, and when combined with iOS 16 or iPadOS 16, you get access to some really useful features. So, while most of Ventura probably won’t make a big difference in your day-to-day life, here are four new features in the beta that stand out the most.
The single biggest visual change in Ventura is this fresh new way to sort and organize various windows across different apps. Rather than the traditional Command-Tab or swiping up with four fingers, Stage Manager puts your active apps in a thumbnail column on the far left side of the screen.
Click on the app you want and it jumps to the middle of the screen, making it easy to swap between apps on the fly. Sure, it wasn’t hard to jump between apps before, but this is a new, very visual way of doing that. If you have multiple windows open in an app (like multiple browser windows), clicking on the thumbnail on that left rail will jump between those windows.
Now that I’m using Stage Manager, I can’t imagine going back to not using it. However, it does leave us with what I’d call the Double Dock problem. You’ve now got a horizontal dock at the bottom of the screen and a second quasi-dock running vertically down the left side of the screen. If you want a really clean desktop view and need to hide Stage Manager, pop open the Command Center (the two pills icon) and toggle it off.
