Apple Explains Why Stage Manager is Limited to M1 iPads in New Statement

[4jasontv]

I know what you said, you are incorrect according to apple.

I am familiar with calendars. I am not wrong. The new iPads lack the feature, but the old ones have it.

 

[landi.erik]

If google could do it mostly with software, so could have apple.

Agreed they COULD do it, but I’m just making the point an extra sensor is a valid point for feature gating.

Makes more sense to me then the Swap file performance and I/O argument they use.

 

[hans1972]

And according to you, I'm supposed to believe Apple's statement because "they said so", and because Stage Manager won't be "fast enough", even though Mr. Dee just confirmed the 2017 Macbook Pro can run Stage Manager just fine.

Yes, you have to trust Apple. Only they can decide if the feature is up to their requirement on older iPads.

I'm pretty sure that 2017 MacBook Pro has more memory than the A-series iPads.

 

[I7guy]

Agreed they COULD do it, but I’m just making the point an extra sensor is a valid point for feature gating.

And I’m making the analogous point to stage manager. Apple could probably do it on older iPads but what about a consistent experience? That’s one reason force touch was neutered, in favor of a consistent experience.

 

[KevinN206]

Apple is a business.

Shouldn't you expect they make business decisions all the time and that such decisions are better than technical ones?

Why do you believe a technical decision is better than a business decision for a business?

Probably because Apple claims it's for technical reasons for not having Stage Manager on recent non-M1 iPads while the true reason is most likely business.

 

[hans1972]

"Delivering this experience with the immediacy users expect from iPad's touch-first experience requires large internal memory, incredibly fast storage, and flexible external display I/O, all of which are delivered by iPads with the M1 chip."

A very carefully worded statement. It describes why the M1 can support Stage Manager - it doesn't say that other chips couldn't also support Stage Manager.

Most people are really bad at reading original statements from Apple. They rely on third parties to relay it and they are so angry they can't think clearly.

Large internal memory = most iPads don't qualify
Incredible fast storage = most iPads don't qualify, they probably only have fast storage
Flexible external display I/O = my experience is that most iPads sucks with external displays but this is something I have little experience with.

 

[landi.erik]

And I’m making the analogous point to stage manager. Apple could probably do it on older iPads but what about a consistent experience? That’s one reason force touch was neutered, in favor of a consistent experience.

Not being condescending but I wanna understand what sensor is preventing me from multitasking? And same question with regards to proper extended display support.

There is a clear difference gating features due to hardware and artificial software limitations.

 

[hans1972]

Nope. All the necessary hardware is physically present in the 2018-2020 iPad Pros, unless Apple really wants us to believe that graphical multitasking can't run on devices with the power of a modern desktop.

What's missing is enough RAM.

Yes, you can multitask on low amounts of memory but it's not going to be a good experience.

 

[aevan]

So then what about swap files running on spinning disks? I mean this to me was a slap in the face response (from Apple not you aevan). Swap files have been around for decades in OSX-Windows-Linux.

As I keep saying - the performance would (most likely) not be what Apple wants. Maybe you'd be fine with that, maybe even me - but iPad is a touch-first device and it needs to be super-responsive and I think this would slow down non-M1 iPads to unsatisfactory levels. Remember, the iPad doesn't even have a beach-ball 🙂 It's not a Mac, people have different expectations.

Of course, I could be wrong - but "forced upgrades" makes little sense to me, Apple has more to gain with having all iPads as powerful as possible and they know it.

 

[I7guy]

Not being condescending but I wanna understand what sensor is preventing me from multitasking? And same question with regards to proper extended display support.

There is a clear difference gating features due to hardware and artificial software limitations.

If apple is saying they want an m1 processor for proper functioning of the feature, one will have to take them at their word. Same way they said they require LiDAR for night sight. That’s the point I’m making.

 

[aevan]

The new iPad was just released a few months ago

It has a 3-year old CPU and 3Gb RAM. It's a great device, don't get me wrong, but nothing in it is exactly "new".

 

[supergt]

No one who has knowledge has said its impossible to implement multitasking on iPads or iPhones.

In fact, iPhones and iPads have supported multitasking since day 1. It's built into the OS.

The problem is that not everyone has knowledge. Bottom line is that apple continues to deliver subpar software in the realm of multitask and their excuse in this stage manager fiasco is ridiculous and offensive to the user base.

 

[hans1972]

I know he’s just another Apple PR mouthpiece. He neglected to mention 8GB RAM configurations are sold by Apple. 2GB of RAM does not make the difference between having a window manager and not.

It's not the window manager which is resource intensive but the applications themselves.

The M1 also are just better at fast swapping which makes it much easier to hide performance slowness when you're low on memory.

 

[landi.erik]

The problem is that not everyone has knowledge. Bottom line is that apple continues to deliver subpar software in the realm of multitask and their excuse in this stage manager fiasco is ridiculous and offensive to the user base.

Thank you, the fact we’ve been complaining about this since iPad OS1 goes to show you they’ve not gotten the fundamental functionality fleshed out.

 

[landi.erik]

It's not the window manager which is resource intensive but the applications themselves.

The M1 also are just better at fast swapping which makes it much easier to hide performance slowness when you're low on memory.

Hans, what about Fusion Drives and SSDs running on SATA interfaces. How did they get great swap performance and my PCIE based storage on my 2020 be worse?

 

[I7guy]

The problem is that not everyone has knowledge. Bottom line is that apple continues to deliver subpar software in the realm of multitask and their excuse in this stage manager fiasco is ridiculous and offensive to the user base.

Offensive to who? You? Me? 10 MR forum members?

 

[hans1972]

Exactly. I can't believe that people actually buy Apple's excuse that the A12X and A12Z are incapable of running Stage Manager. They recently marketed those devices as being fast and powerful, but now they can't handle putting windows on a screen. Complete and utter cow patties.

They aren't incapable of running Stage Manager but might be running it in a good way.

Let's say you have 4Gb of memory in your iPad. What should Stage Manager/iPad OS do if one application request 16Gb of memory?

 

[aevan]

There is a clear difference gating features due to hardware and artificial software limitations.

But how do you know these are artificial limitations? I mean, are you sure a 3 or 4Gb RAM device with roughly 200Mb/s write speed (don't remember the exact numbers, but M1 iPads have quite a bit faster SSDs than previous ones) can comfortably run that many apps at the same time? Multitasking on older iPads is intentionally one or two apps on screen so that when the system closes an app in the background, you don't see it. But having four apps visible at once - where one of them can be Safari with several tabs and the other something like Procreate - not sure how well that would work with a 10Gb swap file on a slower flash disk.

Maybe I'm wrong - but being so certain this is an artificial limitation and not a hardware one is strange to me.

 

[landi.erik]

If apple is saying they want an m1 processor for proper functioning of the feature, one will have to take them at their word. Same way they said they require LiDAR for night sight. That’s the point I’m making.

Okay I definitely agree that’s the explanation they are using but I don’t take their word for it. Not after looking at declining iPad sales and the fact most iPad customers upgrade +2 year basis. I mean kinda great timing to say this on the investor call and then magically have a feature that only works with latest gen iPad.

 

[landi.erik]

But how do you know these are artificial limitations? I mean, are you sure a 3 or 4Gb RAM device with roughly 200Mb/s write speed (don't remember the exact numbers, but M1 iPads have quite a bit faster SSDs than previous ones) can comfortably run that many apps at the same time? Multitasking on older iPads is intentionally one or two apps on screen so that when the system closes an app in the background, you don't see it. But having four apps visible at once - where one of them can be Safari with several tabs and the other something like Procreate - not sure how well that would work with a 10Gb swap file on a slower flash disk.

Maybe I'm wrong - but being so certain this is an artificial limitation and not a hardware one is strange to me.

The homebrew community has some really powerful features both unlocked and totally written from scratch. So that’s what I base my argument off of, plus the development flags showing support was at least in development at someplace in iPad OS16 dev.

 

[aevan]

Exactly. I can't believe that people actually buy Apple's excuse that the A12X and A12Z are incapable of running Stage Manager.

Sure they are. Pair them with 8Gb RAM and an SSD found on a modern MacBook Air - and no problem.

How many A12X and A12Z iPads have these? Zero.

Of course, you could have a 10-15Gb swap file on these iPads, around 3x the size of their RAM, on a relatively slow SSD compared to a modern Mac - it would work, but we don't know how performant it would be. I doubt it would be as snappy as these iPads are now. So, Apple decided not to do it.

 

[aevan]

I mean kinda great timing to say this on the investor call and then magically have a feature that only works with latest gen iPad.

People have been asking for a feature that uses the full potential of M1 for more than a year. Well, here it is.

 

[hans1972]

Hans, what about Fusion Drives and SSDs running on SATA interfaces. How did they get great swap performance and my PCIE based storage on my 2020 be worse?

Fusion Drives didn't provide fast swapping. It was just normal slow SSD speed on SATA. I wouldn't be surprised if the M1 together with the flash memory in modern iPads can provide up to 10x faster swapping speed.

I have an iMac with Fusion Drive and if you use a lot of memory and it starts swapping, it will slow down a lot because after 4Gb of swapping, it has to utilise the HDD quite often.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Neither did I. You came up with that definition, and my conclusion was you mean Apple users bashing Apple for some recent business decisions, because -as I stated before- the percent of non-Apple users here (and by 'here' I don't mean specific non-Apple subforums) is well below 5%, if that much.

All I wrote was “anti-apple”. I don’t really see how someone can read “anti-apple” and assume it refers to “people WITH apple products that don’t like apple”. As can be determined from the headlines of stories here and across the internet, there’s a significant number of people that have made a livelihood or just find it entertaining to be anti-apple. And, just going by the number of folks that own Apple devices, their numbers are likely larger as well.

Is it possible that “anti-apple” and “folks with apple products that don’t like Apple” cross over in their statements about Apple? I’d say that’s possible.

 

[landi.erik]

People have been asking for a feature that uses the full potential of M1 for more than a year.

And we’ve been asking for proper multitasking for YEARS now… two things can be right at the same time. I agree M1 is the way to go for future proof. But we’ve asked a looooooong time for a well designed app manager/multitask interface.