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New iPadOS 16.1 Beta Expands Stage Manager to Older iPad Pro Models, Delays External Display Support

Kylo83 said:
So why did Apple say it was only for m1 they must have lied when they said they couldn’t bring it to older ipads
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I bet they can make it work with even older iPads than this article says. It will work slower and they could limit how many apps are open on the left, but they can do it if they want to. Saying it's impossible or that it will ruin user experience is a lie and always has been a lie. I would respect them more if they would say that they just didn't want to for business and logistical reasons, such as not wanting to devote resources on supporting new features on old iPads. Then at least they would be honest.
 
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fel10 said:
So the whole “older iPad Pros can’t handle stage manager” was just BS from apple?
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If you take away the external screen support and screen scaling (which Apple did for the non M1 iPads), what is left is a new take on resizing windows for only 4 apps at once. With side-by-side, slide over, and pip we already had 4 windows open, so we all knew our “old” iPads could do it. They just needed a reason to sell more M1s. BS indeed.
 
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G46&Fbnth5 said:
I hope people keep complaining so we get even external display support with 16.2!
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Since external display did work throughout the beta phase, I’m going to go out on a limb and say Apple working on dual-monitor support.

or possibly claimshell
 
hovscorpion12 said:
Since external display did work throughout the beta phase, I’m going to go out on a limb and say Apple working on dual-monitor support.

or possibly claimshell
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It worked and it will work again on M1 iPads, but, according to Apple, it won’t on A12X/Z devices.
 
It still doesn't mean that older iPad Pro devices are going to be able to run external monitors using stage manager.
 
What is the true limit? Why not the Air 4? RAM constraints? It’s difficult to explain this at this point. The Standard A12 cannot run it? How much RAM is really needed? Is 4GB not enough? 1st gen 12.9-inch iPad Pro? 2nd gen iPad Pros? What’s the real technical cutoff?

I reckon that the only iPad Pro that might be truly, technically inadequate to run it is the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, 2GB of RAM might actually be too little. As for the rest? Pro and non-Pros, I’m not sure. After Apple faltered on their explanation, I don’t think we can identify the true lower bound specs required.
 
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fel10 said:
So the whole “older iPad Pros can’t handle stage manager” was just BS from apple?
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They didn't say can't handle, they said it didn't meet their own performance requirements. So they either further tweaked it enough to make it run good enough on the older devices, or finally caved to the onslaught of complaints from their pro users. Now apple isn't one to usually cave under pressure considering their years of controversial decisions. So im guessing they managed to optimize the stage manager software enough to allow it to run on the older iPads. So props to them, its not too often you see apple add software enhancements like this to 4 year old devices.
 
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ersan191 said:
Glad they are supporting older devices, but my Air 4 with a newer A14 and the same 4GB RAM doesn't make the cut I guess? Whack.
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I am in the same boat, so I hope this isn’t the case. Shouldn’t the A14 with 4GB be fine if they are putting Stage Manager on the A12X Pros? I bought the Air 4 in 2020, so it’s just over 2 years old….seems like it should get Stage Manager. But, who knows at this point!
 
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Apple didn't lie. Extenal display support is a feature of Stage Manager, and they probably expected it to be a required thing for their Stage Manager support. But it looks like Apple decided to yank display support from Stage Manager on lower end iPads so they can widen support to older iPads.
 
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FeliApple said:
What is the true limit? Why not the Air 4? RAM constraints? It’s difficult to explain this at this point. The Standard A12 cannot run it? How much RAM is really needed? Is 4GB not enough? 1st gen 12.9-inch iPad Pro? 2nd gen iPad Pros? What’s the real technical cutoff?

I reckon that the only iPad Pro that might be truly, technically inadequate to run it is the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, 2GB of RAM might actually be too little. As for the rest? Pro and non-Pros, I’m not sure. After Apple faltered on their explanation, I don’t think we can identify the true lower bound specs required.
Click to expand...

According to Apple, it's because A12X and newer chips have virtual memory swap.
 
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jonnyb098 said:
It’s not a weird take.l.it’s an accurate one. The apple of lately does this. The Apple Watch was a great example. They had NO IDEA how to market it. Indeed under prior leadership apple made more iconic things that told a story and convinced people I GOTTA HAVE THIS. That doesn’t happen anymore. It’s ….here’s are latest phone that can piss farther than the other guys.
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Apple: releases iPhone with no third-party apps.
Customers: we want third-party apps!
Steve Jobs: no, web apps are fine.
Developers: we want third-party apps!
Steve Jobs: no, build web apps!
Apples internal development team: we want third-party apps!
Steve Jobs: no, web apps!
Five months later:
Steve Jobs: fine, have your third-party applications!
AppStore: becomes the gold standard for application distribution, helps the iPhone an iPod touch grow exponentially.
But sure, they shouldn’t listen to their customers, developers, and internal teams
 
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CarAnalogy said:
Might also be more about display size. I don’t think the feature would work well on anything smaller than 11”.

Also the Pros have upgraded video hardware.
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So it works well on an 11 in Pro screen but not a 10.9 in Air 4 screen? That doesn’t sound quite right to me. Besides, they are putting stage manager on the Air 5 with an m1, and it has the same size screen as the Air 4…..
 
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JPack said:
According to Apple, it's because A12X and newer chips have virtual memory swap.
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The 64GB Air 5 doesn’t have virtual memory swap either. Their entire explanation has faltered, imo. Like I said, maybe the 9.7-inch iPad Pro (which I have and I really like) doesn’t have enough RAM. The rest? I’m not sure they can’t pull it off.
 
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I hope I can disable it (iPad Pro 2018). I don't need a bad Window manager like Stage manager but a fullscreen Terminal, Xcode, VSCode and configurable keyboard shortcuts like in macOS
 
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