Apple Tested Stage Manager on iPads Without M1 Chip and Wasn't Satisfied

[hans1972]

What part of "8 month old device" are you not understanding?

We are understanding it perfectly.

You shouldn't expect to get any particular new feature on existing hardware. Even if it was only 1 hour since you bought it. Unless explicitly promised to you by Apple.

What you absolutely should expect is you won't get new features you want.

 

[hans1972]

I explained a perfectly valid complaint and now you resort to petty belittlement?

I don't think it is a valid complaint.

Any complaint relying on getting something you weren't promised is an invalid complaint in my view.

 

[hans1972]

I can't believe there are people supporting apples move here. This kind of multi tasking has been around for what 35-40 years on desktops, ever since GUI layers took over?

It's Apple's property. I wholeheartedly supports them deciding how to make their own software.

Customers should have no right to complain what Apple does with its property just like Apple shouldn't have right to complain what customers to with their property. Customers only job is to decide if they want to buy or not buy Apple products.

 

[hans1972]

People are pissed, rightfully so, and Apple needs to do something about it. A less than year old product should be getting all the updates. I'm not sure why that is so hard for you to grasp I really don't.

No it shouldn't. It's up to Apple to decide that.

You seem to want to infringe on Apple property rights to its own software.

 

[Realityck]

It's Apple's property. I wholeheartedly supports them deciding how to make their own software.

Customers should have no right to complain what Apple does with its property just like Apple shouldn't have right to complain what customers to with their property. Customers only job is to decide if they want to buy or not buy Apple products.

Your reaching. If most of us think that Apple dropped the ball with the development of a better iPadOS it is what it is as far as multitasking.

 

[HaddockW]

What part of "8 month old device" are you not understanding?

Happens all the time. I could buy a 8 month old Dell Laptop with a RTX 2060 card. A new monitor comes up w/ 4K 120hz requiring a n RTX 3060. Oh well, I guess I am out of the running. I am not gonna expect my 8 month old laptop to connect to a brand new LG C2 OLED tv that was just released and full features. Same can be said for my $4k M1 Max Macbook which will never be able to connect to that LG C2 at 4K/120. If the M2 Macbook comes out and does it, it is what it is. Doesnt matter if Apple unlocked 4K/120 on displayport and not HDMI.

A $4k Macbook is harder to swallow than a $1500 iPad Pro. yet, it happens all the time. I bought that laptop for what it can do today and I know the hardware limitation (no HDMI 2.1).

 

[hans1972]

People bought those iPads in the fall thinking all the new iOS features would be compatible because that's how it's been in the past since the iPad was released.

Apple pulled a **** move of limiting one of iPadOS 16s best features to only certain iPads. I'm not sure why you and your two brigading friends can't figure that out. It's not hard.

That's the error they did.

In fact, it proves they didn't read the license agreement they accepted where Apple explicitly reservers the right not to support all features of newer releases on all devices or to even create new releases at all.

 

[hans1972]

Meanwhile, Apple has said nothing on why they dropped the iPhone 7+ from iOS16.

Curious on what Apple's marketing is thinking.

Because there are so many good reasons for Apple to do it:

• Save development time
• Save development cost
• Save testing time
• Save testing cost
• It's 6 years old so they can reasonably abandon it for new features
• Some of those users will buy a new iPhone which increases the revenue of Apple
• There are still iPhones sold who supports Touch ID.
• Redusing the number of slower iPhones in the market makes it easier to introduce more resource intensive features in the future
• By including the 7+ even though maybe only the 7 was a bit problematic just simplifies the message

It almost seems like no-brainer for Apple do drop support.

 

[hans1972]

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.

The A12Z doesn't have much memory. The Intel M3 (?) have even less memory but it got more external memory, probably 8Gb?

 

[teh_hunterer]

People bought those iPads in the fall thinking all the new iOS features would be compatible because that's how it's been in the past since the iPad was released.

Apple pulled a **** move of limiting one of iPadOS 16s best features to only certain iPads.

I understand why people did that - the iPads were from a CPU/GPU perspective more powerful than the entry level Macs, they had "Pro" in the name, Apple just released the magic keyboard and put mouse support into iPadOS. The advertising from Apple also pointed towards iPad becoming more capable of replacing a computer. The signs all pointed towards more pro features, and as we just saw at WWDC everyone was right that Apple would release more pro features.

The true dick move is that Apple probably knew they were bringing these more demanding pro features to the iPad, and yet they chose to release the 2018 iPad Pro and more egregiously the 2020 iPad Pro with RAM and storage that weren't going to be enough for a swap file and running 8 apps at once. It's also the reason I didn't buy an iPad Pro back then - because my thinking at the time was I wasn't willing to pay that much money for something that wouldn't be able to run macOS.

I believe Apple when they say using stage manager to its full capacity on the A12x/z wasn't a good experience. But I also believe they were greedy charging pro prices and skimping on RAM and storage in the previous two iPad Pros.

 

[hans1972]

Processor Comparison - Head 2 Head

Apple A12Z Bionic vs Apple A15 Bionic - Benchmarks, Tests and Comparisons

www.notebookcheck.net

A12z geekbench multiple score is around same as a15 in iphone 13 pro max.

6gb ram is enough for any model OS

It's not the OS which requires the memory, it's the applications!

When the applications together can request 128Gb of memory, 6Gb seems a bit low. I would argue even 16Gb of memory seems low.

 

[hans1972]

I made comment before that I was reminded of lesser systems of yesteryear that was able to do things of a similar nature including OS/2. I find this a bit curious as to why there is such a challenge and, the amount of memory they are talking about makes me personally wonder if the programming went in a direction that is overly resource-hungry. All very curious.

An application can request 16Gb of memory. When you have 8 of them you need a lot of memory.

What would happen on OS/2, Windows and OS/X is that the system would crawl to a halt if you requested several times the physical memory and used it.

Apple is trying to avoid that.

 

[hans1972]

https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-intel_core_i5_8257u-961-vs-apple_a12z_bionic-1651

Last i5 in last macbook pro which runs latest MacOS, has much lower multiple geekbench score than a12z

I have proved pro 2020 has more than enough to full whole ipadOS 16 in my replies, with links and benchmarks

Keep telling me "ipadOS 16 just likes M1 not Intel,just believe my 6th sense" kind of your own feeling comments without any number in benchmarks or test does not help the discussion.

Why are you focusing on the CPU?

It's the amount of memory and the fast file I/O which are the most important bottlenecks for Stage Manager.

 

[hans1972]

So you are telling me that ipadOS requirement is higher than MacOS, lol xd

You can see that running multiple memory-intensive applications at the same time requires more memory?

Apple doesn't want users to have a slow experience with Stage Manager.

On macOS users are allowed to bring their Mac to almost a stand still by starting to many applications at once. That freedom to be in control isn't something you have on iOS and iPad OS. There Apple is in command.

 

[hans1972]

In response, Apple make use of the obscene power of the M1 by releasing a... window manager. And apparently, this particular window manager is so resource-intensive that it can't even run on one of the still most powerful mobile chipsets in the world.

This is akin to if Microsoft would release Windows 12, but restrict the new taskbar to only run on an i9‑12900KS. It's ridiculous obviously, and definitely not something that should require an M1 to run. If indeed an M1 is required to run something this basic, I'm not sure if that actually reflects good on Apple. If they introduced features that realistically actually could be argued made use of the extra power, such as, I don't know, actual PRO apps that require more power to run I wouldn't complain, but this really aint it.

The pro apps which requires a lot of memory are what's causing the high requirements for Stage Manager.

Let's say you have 3 applications which each request 10 Gb of memory for a total of 30Gb of memory. Then Stage Manager job is to make that a fast user experience.

How easy it is to such a thing with 4 or 6 Gb of memory? Or 8? Or 16?

 

[hans1972]

What you are saying, in other words, is that up until the M1 iPad Pro, the platform -- which cheekily asked 'What is a computer?' -- was designed with so little headroom across the board that it is basically incapable of performing very basic features that other computers (yes with lower expectations on responsiveness) have been able to do for the last few decades?

Fair enough, I guess, but it really doesn't give me a lot of confidence in buying one of these with any expectation of longevity unless it's the typical consuming content on the go and browsing the web machine. For that, at least for me, the cheapest iPad would do, though.

Have you used an iPad for the last 12 years?

They have never worked like Windows, macOS or any traditionally desktop operating system.

They have always been bad if you wanted the multi-window multitasking of applications which you have in those systems.

Those people who wanted such an experience should have never bought an iPad .

 

[hans1972]

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/o7ntoo

M1 is not really that much faster than a12z because it is just a14x, and 6gb is more than enough for Apple OS or any OS.

That's because that person and you don't know that it's more to a SoC than the CPU.

The M1 has some hardware specific optimisations to run macOS which aren't in the A-series. Please ask the Reddit-guy to tell you about those.

 

[hans1972]

False. Windows 11 can be run on 2008 laptop with official Microsoft bypass with 4GB DRAM while Apple claims that iPads are better than recent PCs so their double-standard will open them up for false advertisement lawsuit.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...ndows-11-e0edbbfb-cfc5-4011-868b-2ce77ac7c70e

"Better" is very subjective. A computer can be better to some even if it only allows one application window at a time compared to another computer where you can have hundreds of windows open.

 

[hans1972]

Apple says that its new iPad Pro is “more powerful than most Windows PC laptops”​

By Ben Rogerson ( Computer Music , Future Music ) published March 18, 2020
11- and 12.9-inch models promise the highest performance yet seen in an iPad

YOU ARE TELLING ME THAT MY IPAD PRO 2020 cannot run stage manager. I am being lied to by Apple and the fanboys in this rumors forum is touting the company line. Please stop protecting Apple or call out them for their lies. If my 2020 is faster than a PC which actually runs windows, then don't say it can't run Stage Manager. Please stop the lies.

You are quoting a third party. Please provide a link to Apple's original statement.

Apple probably said in a context having to do with CPU/GPU performance.

 

[caffein8dnotopi8d]

Apple needs to stop justifying this and stick to its guns.

People were screaming for a reason to have M1 when iPadOS didn't need that kind of HP. Now that its here, those same people are moaning those reasons make them upgrade.

You don't get to have it both ways.

How many people could there be on the internet? What, like 20?

Or… maybe it’s possible that people who have M1 are satisfied that they got the stage manager… and those with A12X/A12Z are the ones upset about their not-that-old devices being left out of new features (especially in the case of 2020 iPads which some may have bought as late as early 2022)?

Also, I’ve never seen Apple try to justify a decision they made so hard. It’s reeeally not a good look for them.

 

[hans1972]

It is in the ssd controller, you can use swap in Linux too with any reasonable speed cpu, it is nothing new as long as you have ssd. You don't even know what you are talking about.

The fast file I/O with M1 makes the swap faster. When you have faster swap you can delay performance degrading in low-memory situations a lot.

It's why a 8Gb M1 Mac performs so well compared to a 16Gb M1 Mac in many situations.

On Linux, there is no problem for the user to overextend the resources of the machine and make it seem slow.

 

[hans1972]

It is mainly about the ssd and iPad pro 2020 ssd is definitely fast enough

Someone postet performance number here on Macrumors and it seemed the SSD on an M1 iPad Pro where up to 5 times faster in certain benchmark tests.

Comparing to M1 Air isn't a good test.

 

[hans1972]

I argue with links and benchmarks, guys like you keep sharing your "feeling" without any links,benchmarks,figures. Continue your love with Apple, no point for me to continue to talk about the truth.

You are to concerned about CPU benchmarks.

CPU speed is not the limiting factor here. It's the amount of memory and you don't need a benchmark to measure the amount of memory.

What would be interesting if you found a benchmark comparing older iPads Pro with M1 iPads Pro when it came to sequential reads and writes for the SSD happening in blocks with the same size as the page size in iPad OS.

 

[hans1972]

If what Apple says is true… then either Stage Manager/iOS is running inflated inefficient code that needs proper optimisation… or the foundation of iOS is fundamentally flawed… I suspect it's the latter, since no other OS fails to multitask dozens upon dozens of open windows.

And all those other implementations the user is able to slow down the system easily.

What it seems to me is that Apple wants Stage Manager to handle several memory intensive applications in a low memory environment without suffering performance degrading.

And they're doing it on a system that was originally optimised to run only one window at a time.

 

[babyexercise]

And all those other implementations the user is able to slow down the system easily.

What it seems to me is that Apple wants Stage Manager to handle several memory intensive applications in a low memory environment without suffering performance degrading.

And they're doing it on a system that was originally optimised to run only one window at a time.

Air 5 does not meet stage manager requirement but Apple let it runs it, all your technical ideas cannot explain why. The only reason is just making more $$$.