Another software engineer here and here are a few reasons for not giving you Stage Manager on non M1 iPads:
1. RAM is quite low so more swapping needed, resulting in possible lag
2. Flash Memory is slower, resulting in possible lag
3. Graphics card is slower, resulting in possible lag
4. Because of the above limitations the CPU needs to do more work, resulting in higher battery use
So probably Stage Manager might work on some of the faster non-M1 iPads but it is likely to cause lag and result in faster battery draining. Both bad user experiences!
And can you already here the screaming saying Apple gave us **** with Stage Manager!! So yes, I totally understand what Apple is doing here. Giving a good UX experience to those who have the iPads for it, while not having to deal with the fallout from a less than ideal UX for the rest.
Awesome to see a CS in here! I am an RF-EE (in the dark side of marketing now lol) and I’m sure you have had a lot of Program managers down your throat about getting a piece of Code out or a new hot fixes like yesterday.
Timelines and pressure to fulfill any kind of AGILE style gates is really killing our industry and causing this friction between advances in hardware and ability to code for the latest hardware. We need remember that user bases tend to migrate quickly on software and slower to hardware.
I totally get it, I think it goes to show that the Berkeley and by Extension the UC system (UCSD Grad 21’) way of producing CS/EE cross pollination and saying look software should help inform hardware and vice versa is alive and well at Apple. What we did lose in that cross pollination is the ingenuity (maybe even a WOZ factor) to make software run efficiently and portable across the broad base of processor technology/platforms things like open standards try to fix this but can’t be on bleeding age (ratification by IEEE or other CS certs take a while).
Because Apple makes both hardware and software they are in the unique ability to say whatever they want and nobody can really tell them other wise because nobody does what they do. That’s why I buy their products.
But what really grinds my gears is when we literally have evidence of stage manager working on a core M3 equipped MacBook but the A12Z which was literally trotted out next to an I7 on stage has more raw Performance Per Watt can’t do it is kinda eye-watering. Not to mention my A12Z machine can run full screen applications on external display can multitask while doing this with split screen yet I can’t have an extended display support on Home Screen is beyond me.
So weather we call a business decision, lazy coding, planned obsolescence or whatever else we’ve cooked up to explain this. Is that the fact Apple has decided to start dropping feature support on a device that was on sale less then 18 months ago, I think that’s excessive. Now we are told it was tested but was not “satisfactory” performance why should they get to set a bar that nobody outside Apple can see.
As engineers we know the risk of running chips hot, sending too much transmission power over radio waves to increase signal performance (but at a cost to amplifiers). We should at least get to choose if we wanna run this at reduced functionality or performance hit or battery life consumption these are our products we bought.
I’ve tried to explain before that there is a balancing act between business and engineers, as someone who’s seen both this looked like more of a business decision or at least a overzealous shepherding act by Apple then a hardware one. I’m glad they’re being forced to clarify and hopefully they see this as a fragmentation of OS functionality within 18 months.
I hope you all have fun chewing on this, I’m sure I will be hearing it now being called “cheap” or “why would you invest in a product’s hopeful functionality.” I might pick up the M2 variant Pro but I also know that this is wasteful, not necessary and is spurred on by Apple quest for record profits all so I can have one app running in my iPad window and another on a secondary display.