Screen Mirroring / Stage Manager Settings

[Motion_Perpetual]

I wasn’t sure if I should post this in the iPadOS or iPad threads. Anyway, I don’t know if it’s expected behavior or just my misunderstanding or a bug, but when I plug my iPad into an external monitor through an HDMI or USB-C cable, it seems like has started defaulting to Stage Manager mode, regardless of whether it’s turned on or off in the Control Panel. Turning Stage Manager off and on in the Control Panel doesn’t seem to change anything, for that matter, except add the little handle in the lower righthand corner on the iPad.

For example, when I plug it in, on the external screen I see a blank desktop with my dock. I’m using the Freeform app with a projector, so I want to be able to mirror the screen so I can see what I’m doing without having to look at the projection screen. I would expect that if Stage Manager was turned off, then it would just mirror the iPad display, but maybe I don’t really understand how it’s supposed to work?

The only way I can get the screen mirroring to work is to dig into the Display settings and check the Screen Mirroring box.

Is anyone else experiencing this? Is this how it’s supposed to work? If so, what is the Stage Manager setting supposed to do when using an external display? If not, how is it supposed to work?

I’m on iPadOS 16.3.1. This seems to be relatively new behavior. It always defaulted to screen mirroring in the past.

 

[SeaDaddytheRed]

Most people have the opposite problem; mirror when they want stage manager.

The only way I know that the os will default to stage manager is if a mouse and keyboard are connected and used BEFORE the external display is connected.

If this is happening without a mouse and keyboard active I would say it is a bug. A bug I wouldn't mind having!

 

[Motion_Perpetual]

Now that you say that, it makes a little more sense. I've been using the iPad Magic Keyboard at work, and that corresponds to the times I noticed that it was not mirroring. Prior to that I just had the iPad connected to HDMI. So, with the keyboard and mouse connected what is the Stage Manager button supposed to do?