macOS Ventura preview: Stage Manager is the star of the show

It's rare for Apple to change the way people work on Macs, but that's exactly what the company is attempting to do with Stage Manager. It's a quick way to switch between applications. Since OS X's debut 21 years ago, window management issues have plagued Macs, but after testing the first Ventura public beta over the past week, I think it may be possible to fix them. I have always hated Apple's dock.

Ventura has a lot of improvements that should make life easier for Apple users. Mail gets the biggest change, but there's also better collaboration with Tab Groups, as well as much needed features in Messages. Last year's Monterey update was more limited than this one.

The stage manager is making sense of the madness.

I've never found OS X's Dock to be very useful in the nearly two decades I've used Macs. It was a huge visual upgrade when it was first released. I was amazed that a dock icon could show a video. The Dock is a confusing mix of shortcut and application indicators that was criticized at the time.

If you want to find a specificSafari window, you have to press Control, click on the dock icon and then select it from the drop down menu. With a single click on the task bar, I was able to zero in on specific apps. In 2003 Apple made it easy to see everything you're running at once with the introduction of exposé. One corner shows everything that's open, another shows me windows just for my current app, and the other brings me to the desktop. When you have a God's-eye view of your entire system, you don't need a confusing dock.

Stage Manager is an on-screen tool that helps you jump between your apps. It's main function is to help you focus by actually reducing the amount of time you spend on your screen. Stage Manager will make other windows disappear when you select a recent app from the store. You can cycle through windows if you hit the app shortcut again.

Stage Manager is like an attempt at bringing an iPad-esque workflow onto Macs, but it also lets you group apps together and remembers where you are. While writing this preview, I kept the two together so that I wouldn't have to worry about sending messages from other places. I always found it difficult to do something similar with Apple's virtual desktop feature. Stage Manager makes it simple to hit a single icon.

Stage Manager can be turned on and off from the Title Bar if you're a Mac pro- user already set in your ways. It's a refreshing way to make sense of macOS, as someone who's struggled with window management over the years. Stage Manager can be hidden until you need to use it. I like to hide the Dock and leave Stage Manager running on the side.

Other updates include mail, messages and more.

I haven't used a desktop email application in years, but those who do will appreciate Apple's Mail updates in Ventura. It should be easier to find a specific message now that the search function has been completely reworked. It's finally getting some much-needed features, like scheduled send, undo sending, rich-text link embedded and alert about missing Attachments. It's nice to see those features make their way to the desktop, they've kept me hooked on the web interface for a long time. I would love to know what happened with Apple.

The changes to Messages would be appreciated by everyone. Texts can be edited, deleted, and marked as unread. Since they require your friends and colleagues to be running Monterey, we're not expecting any major surprises with how they work. When I edited a message to an iMessage group, my friends received a separate text notifying them of the changes. It appeared as an edit in the existing message for me.

There are a few changes to watch out for.

• The Continuity Camera allows you to use your phone as a high quality camera. I haven't been able to get this feature to work yet, but on paper it's a great way to increase your video chats without spending a lot of money.

• It's easy to collaborate with friends when planning a trip in a shared tab group.

• Passkey is a way to sign on to websites with your Apple account. I wasn't able to try it out yet, but it's more secure than traditional passwords.

• There's a way to change the auto-generated passwords in the browser.

• Collaboration through Messages will allow you to work with friends in Apple software, as well as some third-party applications.

• This isn't available to test yet, but it appears to be an Apple spin on a whiteboard app.