iPadOS 16 Includes Internal Mode for Testing Stage Manager on Older iPads

[T Coma]

“but we also don't want to hold back the definition of a new experience and not create the best foundation for the future in that experience.”

That is some admirably meaningless marketing bull****. Bravo. Press secretaries, take note.

I can’t wait to use a version of that the next time my kids ask for something.

 

[prime17569]

I think a lot of people are getting worked up over something that should be clear when comparing the A12Z and the M1:

According to cpu-monkey.com, the A12Z's P-cores run at 2.49 GHz, while those of the M1 run at 3.20 GHz. That's almost a 30% speed increase, not counting improvements to IPC (instructions-per-clock), L2 cache, process improvements (5nm on M1 vs 7nm on A12Z), or RAM bandwidth between those CPU generations.

Comparing the Geekbench scores for the 12.9" M1 iPad Pro vs the 12.9" A12Z iPad Pro shows that the M1 has, in fact, a 52.2% single-core score increase and a 54.7% multi-core score increase. The M1 is significantly faster, at least in this benchmark.

These speed increases, plus the larger amounts of RAM in the M1 iPad Pros, are likely what provides the additional power to run Stage Manager, in addition to improved disk I/O speeds for (where available) virtual memory swap.

It's also worth mentioning that, unlike macOS, iPadOS has no notion of a beachball cursor or app loading indicator (i.e. apps don't bounce in the Dock when launching), so apps need to be very responsive and the bar for performance is much higher than it is on the Mac. Also, unlike the M1 MacBooks, which all have 60 Hz screens, all iPad Pros run at 120 Hz, which increases the performance requirements further.

Apple could work on Stage Manager to make it performant on older iPad Pro models, but IMO that effort is probably better spent on making Stage Manager better and smoothening its rough edges.

EDIT: Regarding the A12Z DTK, it had 16 GB of RAM as opposed to the 4 or 6 GB in the 2018/2020 iPad Pros. In addition, many units stopped working a few months after being given out to developers due to a hardware issue - something that Apple most likely does not want to happen again with older iPad Pros.

It's also worth noting that M1 Macs initially had issues with some external displays that were later fixed with a software update. If this was the situation with M1, there are likely more issues with A12Z that Apple does not want to deal with.

 

[Zdigital2015]

I was using my 2017 iPad Pro in Split Screen (Safari and Notes) with Maps in Slide Over and I never really felt like I was being deprived multitasking-wise. I’ll add a floating window playing PlutoTV, just for kicks. Everything seemed to run fairly
smoothly for me. That was on iPadOS 15.5.

At this point, all I want is to install the iPadOS 16 beta and have the same or a little better/smoother/quicker experience and I’ll be just fine without Stage Manager. The real kicker will be how Apple fixes those friction points that make users jump through hoops to accomplish relatively simple tasks in iPadOS. That’s where the real magic lies, not in a fancy window manager.

 

[HQuest]

Others have pointed out that Stage Manager is also included in macOS Ventura, which works on Intel Macs that were released as early as 2017.

on machines that eats 300W+, powered by the wall socket and would care less about battery time because have no battery, it sure works.

 

[mazz0]

Wow, we're really milking this "controversy" aren't we?

 

[daved2424]

Shut the flip up about this! The “journalism” on this site is in nose dive.

Look, Apple can do whatever the fudge they want with Stage Manager. Even if it works on the iPad 1, so what? New features drives new sales. If you want the new feature you have to buy the new device. Does this suck? Yes of course it does. But Apple is not a charity. They are a business. They’ve made their decision and some people will miss out.

Shut up and move on.

 

[TimB21]

Hey MR, how about not stoking the fire on this? I know you love clicks and engagement but this is not productive!!!

 

[Wildkraut]

if you test 8k for sure crash . try 1080p .

Or 2k,4k

 

[genovelle]

I hope they get this mod working and I am curious with what excuse Apple comes up with then.

Why can’t they just be honest and say they don’t care about existing sold hardware and just want to sell more M1 iPads by making features exclusive.

Because they clearly do, but users don’t care when they work hard to extend the life of products. They are facing a 900 million dollar lawsuit in the EU over battery gate. Because they chose to implement a throttle when conditions would create a spike in older batteries as they die. This allowed them to include more devices in updates and support more challenging software longer.

If they were to include a feature that significantly deprecated the responsiveness of the device, they would be crucified. They smartly passed

 

[benwiggy]

This is not the first feature that "might work a bit if you hack some settings". Apple is all about "the experience", and if they think an A15 isn't up to the job, then that's their call.

If they really had a "Planned Obscelence Dept" thinking up ways to write-off older hardware, then they're not very good at their job, because some models get a longer ride over the years than others.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

And this is why I don't care about iPads anymore and just stick to Macs now.

 

[t0rqx]

Anyone remember the previous newsthread comment about Apple introducing a new feature called “back to the future” in 2023?

This is it.

 

[vinesy]

I don't care about quick switching between apps in a side-dock. I don't care about 6k.

What I do want is the ability to plug an A12Z iPad into a 1080p monitor, and for it to fill the screen by extending the display, like my 2008 MacBook used to be able to do. I am quite content if it is limited to one app on secondary display.

But until then, my iPad Pro is not a laptop replacement.

 

[klasma]

Only some unbiased third-party testing Stage Manager on non-M1 iPads and having it confirm Apple's statement will ever kill this for good.

No, it won’t, because the argument will be made that the confirmed slowness is due to certain design or implementation choices, and that’s an argument that’s almost impossible to disprove.

 

[cupcakes2000]

I don't care about quick switching between apps in a side-dock. I don't care about 6k.

What I do want is the ability to plug an A12Z iPad into a 1080p monitor, and for it to fill the screen by extending the display, like my 2008 MacBook used to be able to do. I am quite content if it is limited to one app on secondary display.

But until then, my iPad Pro is not a laptop replacement.

It can do this already on an app by app basis. You could urge the dev of your favourite apps to take advantage of the feature. Aside from that you’re out of luck with this request for the moment I think.

 

[klasma]

What I do want is the ability to plug an A12Z iPad into a 1080p monitor, and for it to fill the screen by extending the display, like my 2008 MacBook used to be able to do. I am quite content if it is limited to one app on secondary display.

Right, and Stage Manager demonstrates that this would have been possible on existing iPads, because the only previous argument against it was app incompatibility.

 

[ppj845]

Just say it’s for privacy reasons and call it a day

 

[saudor]

This is probably similar to the ipad Air 2 and sidecar. Technically there's no sidecar support but it could be enabled and works perfect wired but because the A8X doesn't have HEVC hardware decode, wireless mode isnt the best/uses more battery.

I guess apple goes the route of all or nothing since it assumes its users are dumb and thought they couldnt handle a two button mouse for the longest time (aka no hack/workarounds that disrupt the experience consistency).

 

[babyexercise]

This topic has become even more funny lol

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

It's just a matter of time before someone makes the Stage Manager work on a non M1 iPads.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Why do you think they’re being dishonest in the first place?

When asked they simply said- we don’t think it works up to our standards on anything less than m1. They didn’t say it didn’t work. They simply alluded to it being a feature for the most modern cpu architecture in the iPad line.

I mean, that’s it. There no dishonesty there, and as far as everyone knows, their reply was an honest one.

Maybe YOU think something else, but that doesn’t make them liars with anything they have said.

It's not dishonest exactly, it's just frustrating to see the Apple Doublespeak. They talk like politicians.

They aren't just talking to us like people, they have to have a carefully crafted paragraph that skirts the issue a bit.

Nobody has said: could you have done stage manager on the A12Z without external display support? and gotten a straight yes or no answer.

 

[yabeweb]

Even evidence would not stop people from complaining .....

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

@sorgo Thoughts on this? Another article did end up getting posted. Did you change your mind yet?

 

[yabeweb]

It's fun to stop and think about WHY we are all arguing about this.

Will Apple change their mind on this issue? Perhaps, but I'd say the odds are strongly against it.

And Apple certainly won't be basing their decision on what all of us say on MR forums (it's depressing, I know).

People are not arguing, they are complaining....

Apple technically canont change their mind because:

If (and evidence point in that direction) they said the truth, there's nothing that will make an older chip / lower ramwork just because people complain.

If Apple was not honest (wich again is not what we see) they cannot admit that they lied anyway.

 

[Abazigal]

I bet the next “gate” will be when people see that stage manager runs like crap on older iPads, and then accuse Apple of deliberately rigging the software to not be optimised on those devices.