Apple's Craig Federighi Further Explains Why Stage Manager is Only for M1 iPads

[roncron]

“For example, the latest iPad Pro with an M1 chip is available with up to 16GB of RAM, compared to 6GB in the previous iPad Pro.”

Yes, but millions bought it with 256gb or less, which only comes with 8gb ram, same as the iPad Air 5.

That’s only 2gb more than the previous iPad Pro. Now, I’m a novice compared to most of you. I know 2gb more ram is not nothing. But it’s hard for me to imagine it’s necessary to run stage manager & external display. It’s easy, on the other hand, to imagine that Apple is trying to get people with 2-year-old iPad pros to buy a new one.

 

[hagar]

I really don’t see the issue. When you purchased a previous iPad, it didn’t have Stage Manager. You bought it anyway, used it every day, were happy with it.

And now you complain it will not be able to do something it never could do in the first place.

 

[AlexESP]

He forgot to mention that iPad sales are in the gutter. Technically, even if what he says is true, they could probably have gotten away with 3 virtual workspaces instead of 4 on older iPads. 2018+ iPads are plenty fast.

Personally, the more I think about it, the less I like the idea of not utilizing a big chunk of my screen real estate just to switch between apps. Most people I know don’t swap between groups of apps, either, which stage manager seems to have been optimized for… like virtual desktops.

I don’t know what’s your idea of “sales are in the gutter”. Almost peak revenue last year with $31.8 billion, basically the same as the Mac, and 2x more units sold.

 

[diego.caraballo]

Kind of worrying this new path at Apple...
My first Mac was a Pro 15" 2009. Added an SSD and more RAM and used it until early 2017.
During that time I had access to the latest macOS version available. So it was a 7 year span
of useful life and they got me as a customer.

Later on, when the launch of Catalina, things started to change. They cut the system requirements
at 2012 or newer models, then Big Sur upped the bet and only 2013 will do. Monterrey came last year
supporting 2015 or newer Mac and Ventura "needs" 2017 at least.

It's a trend and no one can deny it. It brings to me that bad memories of the Intel-Microsoft times
were they worked together to make sure that you need to buy a new machine each year. Because
you "upgradable" PC cannot be upgraded since Intel changed -again- the socket type and the new
RAM speed means a new RAM type, not compatible of course with your current board.

Imposing artificial limitations to the hardware is not something new at Apple, but they are doubling-down
on it. They become greedy. And the large number of executives explaining the latest limitation
imposed to the iPad is just ridiculous.

 

[Cognizant.]

I really don’t see the issue. When you purchased a previous iPad, it didn’t have Stage Manager. You bought it anyway, used it every day, were happy with it.

And now you complain it will not be able to do something it never could do in the first place.

 

[erikkfi]

It's plausible that the M1 iPads are the only ones that can run this multitasking interface without excessive battery drain and getting warm/hot. The question is, should Apple be architecting core new software features that will only work with the current model they're selling?

I guess the answer depends on whether you have an iPad with an M1 chip.

 

[Klapper.cz]

All that instead of simple small fully functional taskbar with notification, all windows accessible, some tile/arrange function and freely resizable apps, you know, like Windows has since always
Coming to Apple just this year still can't believe this basic OS dysfunction and sort of 'collective blindness' around it, just to have it "Apple way".

 

[MrGimper]

"If you look at the way the apps tilt and shadow and how they animate in and out. To do that at super high frame rates, across very large displays and multiple displays, requires the peak of graphics performance that no one else can deliver."

Just sounds like total horse poo. I'm sure people would happily take if without shadows and super-high frame rates. It's a window manager, not some industry-leading game.

 

[Wildkraut]

Ah the Silverback has been commanded to lie, they are looking hard for excuses.

It’s about time for him to join the crap marketing team, he fits well.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

Let’s face it, it’s only a matter of time before someone jailbreaks/modifies the OS of an older iPad to test this. I’m gently tapping my proverbial claws at this one (not that I could ever grow claws, sadly)

 

[Cognizant.]

"If you look at the way the apps tilt and shadow and how they animate in and out. To do that at super high frame rates, across very large displays and multiple displays, requires the peak of graphics performance that no one else can deliver."

Just sounds like total horse poo. I'm sure people would happily take if without shadows and super-high frame rates. It's a window manager, not some industry-leading game.

Yeah it's utter garbage. He's trying to convince us that Stage Manager is more demanding than all the high end 3D mobile games that pretty much every iPad in the last 5 years can play without issues. If anyone believes this, I don't know what to say.

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

I really don’t see the issue. When you purchased a previous iPad, it didn’t have Stage Manager. You bought it anyway, used it every day, were happy with it.

And now you complain it will not be able to do something it never could do in the first place.

It’s about future expectations. Apple could decide to do the same thing with any future feature and hardware lock the M1 when the M2 comes out. Apple has very expensive iPad configs so would you not be upset that a 2yr old iPad you spent thousands on was hardware locked even if it had the upgraded RAM? It’s a bad look for Apple as consumers will now be less willing to hand over $2K for an iPad if they think it be useless on the next annual hardware update.

The only thing non-M1 iPad users get is essentially the weather app. How is that ok?

 

[nvmls]

I really don’t see the issue. When you purchased a previous iPad, it didn’t have Stage Manager. You bought it anyway, used it every day, were happy with it.

And now you complain it will not be able to do something it never could do in the first place.

Apparently back in the day "What's a computer?" was a computer, but now, "What's a computer?" 2022 courageous version is the only one.

Stage Manager's code:

{isComputerCourage && <StageManager/>}

 

[AlexESP]

View attachment 2018754
This is what it looked back in 2012 on how much ram … ? in case anyone was wondering.

And a review from back in the day

It’s obvious that Apple’s hardware has gotten powerful enough to make this level of multitasking possible. On the iPad Air, I noticed zero lag or glitches while using multiple apps at once […] which speaks to the performance capabilities of the A7 chip.

The question is not whether it’s possible or not. It would have been possible on the first iPhone. I mean, it was possible many decades ago. The thing is whether you can provide a good experience.

I respect that some people liked those jailbreak implementations, but it seems like 99.9% of users didn’t use it. As almost no one uses Samsung DeX.

Creating a windowed interface for the iPad, which needs to be as fluid as expected in a touch device, needs more viewports but at the same time keep a good fullscreen experience, needs to handle a lot of situations (exiting stage mode, switching between portrait and landscape…), etc. is incredibly complex if you want to do it right. I don’t think people really stop to think about it, or they have a very low quality threshold.

 

[BootsWalking]

How do you know it's doable? Do you have documentation to back this up or merely speculating?

The original Mac had overlapping windows on a Motorola 68000 with 128KB ram. Just sayin' 😜

 

[WiiDSmoker]

I really don’t see the issue. When you purchased a previous iPad, it didn’t have Stage Manager. You bought it anyway, used it every day, were happy with it.

And now you complain it will not be able to do something it never could do in the first place.

Hey man, Daddy Apple isn’t your friend.

 

[antiprotest]

Apple is not going to make people happy here either way. If they enabled Stage Manager for non M1 iPads people would either complain that it runs poorly or that they can’t open as many apps.

But they would not complain that It doesn't run at all which is far worse.

 

[antiprotest]

How do you know it's doable? Do you have documentation to back this up or merely speculating?

Of course it is doable. Just slower.

Come on, you know it too.

 

[anthogag]

It is good Apple cares about fast seamless performance.

If Stage Manager 'stutters' on non-M1 devices then limit it to M1 devices. I have an M1 Mac mini to use Stage Manager. My next iPad Pro 14.1" will be M2.

 

[klasma]

One specific point I’m miffed at is that Stage Manager demonstrates that more apps can be fullscreened without black bars on an external display than previously enabled with screen mirroring. And that is an ability that’s unrelated to the virtual memory swapping argument. It’s bad enough that Apple hadn’t provided a better screen mirroring experience in the past, given they always stressed the “Pro” productivity narrative, but now that Stage Manager makes it obvious that it would have been possible all along and is not an inherent limitation of apps generally only supporting certain fixed aspect ratios, they still don’t provide it. I don’t care a lot about multitasked windows, but I’m sure the ability to render apps fullscreen on an external display would be greatly welcomed by many users, and certainly doesn’t require an M1.

 

[Joe Dohn]

Fast forward after lot of negative feedback in 2023.

“in iPadOS 17 we are introducing a new feature and we are calling it ‘back to the future’. Back to the future enables recent non-M1 iPad’s to make use of the same great user experiences many M1-iPad users love and enjoy that we introduced in iPadOS 16 like; Stage Manager. This was only possible by the amazing teamwork between our experts from the hardware- and software departments working on the best OS in the world only Apple can deliver.”

“(virtual)-crowd cheers”

This PR speech is so accurate it is creepy.
Well, except for the "Back to the Future" name. You need to work on a more boring, non-copyrighted feature name.
And make the logo silver.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I don't see this as a big deal. Keep your older iPad until a more substance feature comes along that doesn't give you pause not to buy.

 

[Menneisyys2]

The original Mac had overlapping windows on a Motorola 68000 with 128KB ram. Just sayin' 😜

and the c64 with 64k RAM with GEOS...

 

[AlexESP]

Dex is way better. Stage manager reduces more screen real estate than just having the letterbox from what I can tell. People asked for full screen external display OR some type of Dex hybrid system and they gave us yet another and more complicated way to use windows in the form of stage manager. Takes a huge brain to remember all the gestures and shortcuts on an iPad these days.

1. “People”, as a collective, don’t ask, and there are not even polls that say the majority wants what you said.
2. When people vote with their wallet, Samsung and DeX are way behind the iPad. I wonder why that happens, it seems like slapping a PC interface on a tablet still doesn’t work, as it didn’t 10 years ago…

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

Creating a windowed interface for the iPad, which needs to be as fluid as expected in a touch device, needs more viewports but at the same time keep a good fullscreen experience, needs to handle a lot of situations (exiting stage mode, switching between portrait and landscape…), etc. is incredibly complex if you want to do it right.

But that’s part of the issue; this ‘windowed system’ on iPadOS is nothing like that of macOS. The windows are fixed to specific sizes, they can only be moved to fixed areas of the screen and can’t be minimised to the Dock. I’m not saying it isn’t taxing on the SoC, but the relative performance cut going from an M1 to, say, an A12Z are surely not enough to bottleneck this feature.