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People complain too much about engineering issues they have no idea about.
Because some of us have been using computers for 30 years. It has been many, many years that we have been running several programs concurrently. We started doing so with computers that had single-core processors that were less than 1GHz, and with less than 500 MB of RAM.

So don’t try and tell us that several mobile apps can’t run concurrently on a device with less than an 8-core M1 with 6 GB of RAM - it’s just not reasonable.
 
It’s weird that every Mac I have used over the past 25 years has had no problems handling onscreen windowing.

Now all of a sudden “windowing” requires insane computing resources that my non-M1 iPad can’t deliver.

Huh.
macOS and iPadOS are fundamentally different. Have you ever noticed that iPads reload apps and safari tabs, but Macs don’t?
 
I wonder if the M1 limitation is mostly due to the external display support. I'm guessing Stage Manager would work fine on an iPad Pro with 6GB of RAM, but the experience could be subpar when plugging into a 6K display.

Running Ventura on my MBP, I found that I personally don't care for Stage Manager. I agree with Craig that it's an arrow in a quiver of multitasking tools you have access to on macOS. When the majority of iPad users own the base iPad or older, I don't imagine a lot of people actually using this feature. I'm more curious as to why SM is one of the first main features to be software-locked, you'd think Apple would lock away some dual-boot macOS or FCP for iPad Pro M1...
 
It’s weird that every Mac I have used over the past 25 years has had no problems handling onscreen windowing.

Now all of a sudden “windowing” requires insane computing resources that my non-M1 iPad can’t deliver.

Huh.
Were all your macs the last 25 years lightning-fast touch interfaces?

In an interview with TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino shared earlier this week, Federighi said the M1 chip's performance ensures that all apps being used in Stage Manager are "instantaneously responsive," as customers expect from a touch-based interface.


Reading is hard.
 
It’s weird that every Mac I have used over the past 25 years has had no problems handling onscreen windowing.

Now all of a sudden “windowing” requires insane computing resources that my non-M1 iPad can’t deliver.

Huh.
I want you to use your PowerMac G4 from 25 years ago and tell me it's just as fast as an M1 chip handling onscreen windowing. I dare you.
 
so much fuss about such a tiny feature. If you want 4 apps on ipad and 4 apps on external screen and all those apps are running then its common sense to know that it requires a lot of hp (especially ram). It doesn't surprise me at all that it needs M1 minimum.

People are unrealistic
 
The M1 chip had to be developed for Macs in the first place because they couldn't just throw an existing A chip into a Mac and expect reasonable performance. Now it turns out making iPadOS more macOS-like when it comes to managing running programs requires an M1 chip for reasonable performance. I really don't see why this is a surprise to anybody. But then people are going to jump on any excuse they can to howl "planned obsolescence" at the company that supports their old mobile OS devices far longer than any other mobile OS device maker on earth.

And before anyone mentions the Developer Transition Kit Mac mini - I've never used one, but I would be shocked if it was a great machine that offered good performance. That's not what it was designed to be and it's why it was not sold to consumers.

I say all this as someone who is stuck on Apple's last A-series 12.9" iPad Pro. I'm certainly upset and it sucks, but I'm not going to blame it on anything other than bad luck. Glad most other features will work.
 
This reminds me a little of back when I had a second generation iPod touch, which didn’t get multitasking or wallpapers when iPhone OS 3 (I think it was?) produced those features to iPhones. I wrote apple and complained - it was still a relatively new device - and even jailbroke my iPod and toggled those features on.

Turns out Apple was right and those features both sucked and drained the battery like crazy and made the iPod heat up like crazy. The way they implemented multitasking and the wallpaper Engine just didn’t work well on the device. Sure Cydia has tweaks to add wallpapers that worked fine, but the “official” way truly wasn’t optimized well for the iPods downclocked processor.

It’s the same here. Could you get the feature to work if you paired it way down? Sure. But Apple won’t, they want a feature to have a unified experience across all compatible devices. So in a rare case, I actually feel this is an honest limitation that they just don’t want to hamper pre M1 iPads and make them run slower and worse, and they don’t want to limit the glamor and fabulousness of Stage Manager. So the only solution in this stand off is to just make it available for M1 iPads only.


I bought buy my iPad Air 4 in 2021 for what it could do at the time I purchased it. I was never promised fancy new features. I’ve gotten lots of new features through updates that I appreciate, but I’m in no way upset that I didn’t get all of them.

I understand the frustration, but all the anger built around it is rather… unproductive…
 
A little lie: Not all iPad M1 have 16GB of RAM. Most M1 models have 8GB.
The M1 is about 30% faster than previous CPU.
So, just tell me how much RAM is needed for this to perform “as you expect it”.
As if you cared for the performance hit in many iPhones each year. You can see the benchmarks every year and older devices perform faster in older IOS versions, now, all of a sudden, you care about the performance…
Yes. Also, USB-C to Thunderbolt seems a fairly minor difference for this purpose (20 vs. 40 gbps max). Like this needs an additional 10 or 20 gbsp? Or maybe its 20.1 gbsp? And what, how fast does the ssd have to be for this all to work?

It's not very believable. At least they didn't tell us that the fedex guy was late, dogs eat all the 2019 ipad pro cables and Tim's grandmother was is in the hospital so they won't be able to get the development done.
 
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I have a feeling some would just accuse Apple of intentionally crippling it to prove a point.
No. Sorry. I meant add it in beta 2 to other devices without changing any of the code. Let users see how it performs. Then as beta progresses begin removing abilities to boost the performance (three apps instead of 4, etc) until the GM build goes live.
 
Even if it’s true, then more Apple shenanigans applies, soldered RAM and selling devices with low RAM.

The amount of iDevice RAM was always a critical topic that Apple used to excuse and say it’s more than enough because it’s not Android, and suddenly it isn’t enough anymore.

It’s all on purpose, carefully crafted dead end roads to fool customers.

The next victims on the list will be the ones they fooled to buy a M1 Macbook with 8GB.
 
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Why not let the older iPad pros with a12-gen processors run a slightly modified version of macOS el capitan? That os ram extremely well on a dual core cpu! With only 4 gb of ram! And I could open more 8 windows at a time!
 
Want to know why there’s no calculator app on the iPad? Because resizable windows is only available on M series chips. They would be restricting a basic feature to “pro users” and Apple wouldn’t be able to live with it.

That's not a serious answer, is it?
Because I do have a calculator app in my phone, which has non-resizable windows, and a third-party calculator in my iPad.
 
Maybe Apple should take people who will never buy bigger than the iPad Mini seriously and treat the device like an actual product and not whatever is in the junk bin.

iPad Mini less than a year old. Not good enough for the flagship features of iPadOS 16 but still running iPadOS so it gets none of the new features of iOS. No reason to upgrade my mini. Not getting Locksreen widgets and not getting external display which would be really nice.

Yes there are tons of other wonderful things in the update I am sure people will care about.

Make a Mini Pro if you have to. I just want a decent feature rich iPad in the mini form factor.

I've had two bigger iPads over the years they never get used they are almost as heavy as a laptop with none of the benefits of a laptop.

I always get the Pro iPhone since the Max is cumbersome. The Mini is the perfect solution for when I need/want something a bit bigger and it's always behind because they put old parts in it.

Literally have a hole burning in my pocket for a Mini Pro.
 
The whining on this topic is insufferable. Companies are allowed to introduce new features - whether or not the existing install base can handle them or not. My 1973 Impala Station Wagon did not come with traction control. Should I be screaming that I was ripped off because today's models have that capability? No. Get over it.
 
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