Code in iOS betas hints at changes to Stage Manager, including iPhone support

In a recent video as part of its iOS Decoded series, 9to5Mac takes a look at some rather interesting code found within the latest iOS 18.5 betas.

This code references and enables features that aren’t expected to be a part of iOS 18.5 when it goes into wide release, however. Instead, it looks like experiments for what might be a part of iOS 19, or maybe even future products.

Some of these features may ship, some may not, but they at least give us a look at what Apple is considering. Here are the major changes in brief:

More flexible Stage Manager: Stage Manager is very limited with how you can position and resize windows. In the test version demonstrated in 9to5Mac’s video, there are far fewer restrictions—you can more freely resize windows, size windows so they obscure other windows, and even more them almost entirely off-screen.

Stage Manager on iPhone: Jeff Benjamin says he’s seen Stage Manager working on iPhone, complete with external display support. While that would be cool, he says he doesn’t expect Apple to ship such a feature.

SuperDomino for widgets: There’s a flag for SpringBoard (the home screen and lock screen manager for iOS) called “SuperDomino” that shows full screen clock widgets to be displayed on only half the display in StandBy mode. This makes those widgets pretty square, which fits in nicely with the rumored “HomePad” device.

Photographic Styles for video: The code found by 9to5Mac suggests that the non-destructive Photographic Styles currently available when taking photos can be used for video. Perhaps they’ll be called Smart Styles in the future, as they apply to more than photographs.

Photographic Styles for third-party apps: Those “Smart Styles” may be accessible to third-party apps as well with new framework.

The rest of the video concerns some relatively minor updates, like some new icons in the SF Symbols font and seeing saved bank account numbers in the Wallet & Apple Pay settings panel, and the ability for developers to see which Macs have been paired to their device.

Some of these things found by enabling hidden flags and features with iOS betas are simply experimental—it’s Apple working on features or capabilities that may not ever see the light of day. But lots of real features start off this way as well, so there’s a decent chance that, when WWDC rolls around in June, we may have a better understanding at what this hidden code is for.