ou can already split screen and multitask other ways which was already impressive on a tabletWell, Apple can let them run 2 apps. That still qualifies as multitasking
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple's Craig Federighi Further Explains Why Stage Manager is Only for M1 iPads
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Completely unacceptable to have free os updates. Or paying for it. Oh wait.
iPad 3 ran like crap after 9.3.X. Basically unusable. I’m shocked to hear you ran a multi-window configuration 🤯
iPhone’ users using Lightning to transfer ProRes video files doubt this statement.
That said, he’s in charge of software, not hardware so this probably has nothing to do with him.
Again, kind of ridiculous that they designed iPadOS to only be able to support up to 8 simultaneously active devices on their beefiest iPad SoC. You should not need an 8 core CPU and 8GB of RAM to be able to multi-task on an ARM64-based computer, let alone a heavily modified ARM64 instruction set that is, by and large, superior to standard ARM64. AT BEST, I can see a justification for this not being something that you'd do on the smaller canvas of an iPad mini. The fact that the A15, let alone A14, let alone A12/A12X/A12Z cannot do this stuff otherwise is baffling.
Gee, I got a great idea, let's over-engineer basic multi-tasking in a computer more than capable of multi-tasking so that only an overkill SoC can do it!
Gee, I got a great idea, let's over-engineer basic multi-tasking in a computer more than capable of multi-tasking so that only an overkill SoC can do it!
Sorry, but this is flat out wrong. There are well over 100 new features in iPadOS 16, and Stage Manager is only one of them. The photo features and collaboration features are pretty impressive, as are the new Home app with Matter support and the Freeform app. There are new Mail and Messages features and many video and text-based features that take advantage of the Neural Engine. There's a new multi-trip Maps app, and the most important feature to me is live translation and closed captioning for all video along with Family iCloud Photo Library. I have well over 10,000 photos my family can't really see because it's sitting on my iCloud account and with this update, they finally all will have access to them.
Nobody has ever given a rip about the weather app. It's just a reason to complain and now it's a reason to denigrate iPadOS 16. Even without Stage Manager, it's the biggest iPad update in years. Did you rather forget about the other 30 minutes of the iPad presentation? For the rest of this year, people are going to complain about the calculator app, and when they provide one, it'll be another, "Well, at least we got a calculator and nothing else," while ignoring the hundred new features iPadOS 17 will provide... and iPadOS 18... and iPadOS 19... and who knows how many more.
People also forget that 2020 iPads have also had changes in iPadOS 14 and 15 while 2018 iPads have had updates for iPadOS 12, 13, 14, and 15 and will likely get at least three more. But I guess four years of iPad updates just doesn't mean anything if you can't have one feature.
Being blinded by one feature makes everyone forget just how huge this update really is. It's not even the best feature because most people will never use it, even if they have it. The standard multitasking works just fine for the vast majority.
Just imagine if people started seeing beachballs on their iPads because they pushed Apple into expanding the feature set to older iPads. Latency is expected on desktops/laptops. Things are expected to be instantaneous on tablets.
That system and systems before it could also have multiple free form windows open.
No they won't. You can already hear the complaints if they had created a scaled down experience for non-M1's. "We could already run four apps at once with the old multitasking. Why can't we have eight?" Or "Why doesn't this work on my 4K monitor? Nobody has 2K anymore." "If they can do 4, how hard is it to do 8?" "Why am I now seeing so many beachballs on my iPad when I never saw one before?" You know it, and I know it. There are some people who will never be happy.
BTW, the 6K isn't a Stage Manager feature. It's a Thunderbolt feature. With or without Stage Manager, the iPad Pro with Thunderbolt can handle a 6K monitor as can the Air with its USB-C 3.2 Rev 2 controller.
We already have complaints with Stage Manager. "This isn't real multitasking." "It wastes desktop space. Why is there so much empty space wasted?" "How come the apps aren't infinitely resizable?" "My Mac can open dozens of windows. How come this is restricted to only 8?" "How come some apps will only open full screen?" "How come my phone apps can't share space with other apps?"
And the complaints go on. Apple loses with many users no matter what they do.
When in iPadOS 17, they introduce an M2-only feature like ProRes video because there's ProRes encoders/decoders on the M2 and not on the M1, we'll hear more complaints. "Why couldn't they do a software codec?" And so on, and so on.
Wow, it sounds like everyone complaining, actually went out and bought their iPads a few years ago with the sole purpose of using stage manager in the future, they obviously have them sat in their boxes unused because they spent money in the past on something that is completely unusable until iPadOS 16 was released in the future!
Now you are asking Apple devs to completely reengineer the feature. See, it’s hard enough to have an annual development cycle, but if they had to start taking major features and breaking them down into smaller component features… **** would be buggy AF because engineering resources would now be scattered between multiple iterations of one feature. Terrible idea
Methinks they doth protest too much. Obviously only Apple knows for sure but realistically I think most are fairly convinced that Stage Manager could have been made to work on pre-M1 processors had the business decision not already been made to exclude those systems. The 6K external monitor support is another matter entirely.
Probably. I'm thinking they figured they had to release a new iPad since it had already been two years since the last one and they didn't have any new chips on the horizon. They hadn't made an A13X the year before and they were too busy working on M1 and its variants to make an A14X. I'm also thinking they wanted to test out LIDAR on a shipping product before throwing it on an iPhone. The 2020 iPad was a stop gap before they could produce an M-series chip. They couldn't release an A14 iPad Pro because it would be slower than the A12X with only half the performance cores and half the GPU cores.
It's why I passed on the 2020 and just kept my 2018 version. I wasn't about to buy a new iPad because of one graphics core and a LIDAR camera.
It’s simple. When you are developing something, you start with Requirements. You say “These features are a must. A bare minimum.” Then you say “These features are nice to have, but not a must.” Finally, “These features are out of scope.”
Once you have established the requirements, you can start looking at things like “which iPads do we support?”
Clearly the requirements were
- 8 apps at a time
- all 8 must be instantly responsive
- 4 of the 8 will run on an external TB display up to 6K
- animations must be buttery smooth
- subtle shading and other effects to make it look classy
Then, which iPads can do this? Clearly only the M1.
I couldn’t imagine how difficult it would be to start going out of scope just to give older iPads a neutered version of their minimum requirements. It’s hard enough to have an annual development cycle, that would introduce too much complexity in an already complex project.
The 6K monitor support was there by default just by having a Thunderbolt controller on the M1 iPad and a USB-C 3.2 Rev 2 controller on the iPad Air. It had nothing to do with Stage Manager.
That was kind of what I meant but probably failed to articulate the point properly 👍
Stage Manager basically confirmed that they're going to release a 14.something" iPad Pro. It will be unusable on the 11" Pro and just about manageable on the 12.9". I'd never use it on macOS, but would on iPad as it's the only real multitasking option (unless you just need two apps at once and a slide-out Slack/Messages/Email/Twitter checker).
They should have used the 'Recent Apps' area of the Dock on macOS, in my view. No extra real estate taken up that way, but I'm guessing they went for like-for-like and development of the feature was lead on iPadOS. Windows 11 is amazing at window management, and I wish Apple had taken a leaf out of that book as another window management option for the Mac.
Also true but I think the cynicism in the minds of a few is the distinction between won't and designed not to.
I wonder how people feel about iPhones where every single year, new features are brought out that aren't available on the last model. Strangely, I don't hear the complaints about why my iPhone 12 Pro can't do ProRes video and Cinematic video despite it being one year old. Or why it couldn't do 120Hz. But that iPhone 12 Pro will still get six more years of updates, probably. I don't hear anyone say Apple was being scum for making their iPhone 12 Pro obsolete because it didn't get the top-line feature of the iPhone 13 Pro. Neither did the iPhone 11 Pro get the top-line feature of iPhone 12 Pro. Or so on, and so on. Every single year without fail, the newest iPhone "obsoletes" the prior year's iPhone. But not a peep about it, oddly.
It's the same thing with Stage Manager. It's a feature that isn't available on that four year old iPad yet will still get OS upgrades for at least three more years, possibly more.
How are these iPhone upgrades any different than not getting a single feature in iPadOS, yet those iPads will still continue to get upgrades for years? Would people have felt better if Apple had introduced Stage Manager last year, keeping it as M1-only while pushing Universal Control for this year? I'm guessing they didn't have the resources to do both last year. Personally, I think UC is a lot cooler than SM, so I think they did it in the right order. But why are iPad updates thought of differently than iPhone updates, which always reserve one or two features for the latest model?
Will people feel equally bad when iPadOS 17 limits ProRes video to M2-only iPads because the encoders/decoders are only available on the M2 as it was on the A15 versus the A14?
It's the same thing with Stage Manager. It's a feature that isn't available on that four year old iPad yet will still get OS upgrades for at least three more years, possibly more.
How are these iPhone upgrades any different than not getting a single feature in iPadOS, yet those iPads will still continue to get upgrades for years? Would people have felt better if Apple had introduced Stage Manager last year, keeping it as M1-only while pushing Universal Control for this year? I'm guessing they didn't have the resources to do both last year. Personally, I think UC is a lot cooler than SM, so I think they did it in the right order. But why are iPad updates thought of differently than iPhone updates, which always reserve one or two features for the latest model?
Will people feel equally bad when iPadOS 17 limits ProRes video to M2-only iPads because the encoders/decoders are only available on the M2 as it was on the A15 versus the A14?
My daughter is going to a tier 1 research university and ipad pros are getting recommended as the 1st device in a huge number of majors this year.