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Testing Stage Manager on a 2018 iPad Pro With the New iPadOS 16.1 Beta

Stage Manager is a needless, awkward feature that doesn’t help with anything. I’ve used it on the beta and keep finding myself going back to the old multitasking. it’s pointless.
 
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citysnaps said:
That's quite an allegation. Of course you have proof to substantiate that, right?
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He's right. It worked in 2007. It's mind-blowing why it would be so extremely complex to accomplish with tech that is 15 years ahead.

On Geekbench, the oldest Intel Desktop I could find was a 2008 iMac. It scored 353 single-core and 623 multi-core. The A12Z scored 1121 single-core and 4649 multi-core. Even if one argued that Geekbench were not reliable, I think it's fair to admit that the A12Z iPad released in 2020 could be at least between 3X and 8X faster than a computer from 2008, let alone 2007.
 
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Eventually you have to figure Apple will just give iPadOS a fully windowed UI like the Mac has had all along. How many more convoluted iterations until we get there is the question I suppose.
 
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longofest said:
Stage manager is essentially not much different functionality wise than what we had in the earliest versions of Mac OS. I'm talking 1980s technology running on Motorola 68k. I 100% agree with your assessment that this is all about selling new iPads. (I understand your reference to stage manager being in the 2006 macos beta, but my point here is that it is essentially providing multiple processes' UI windows on the screen at one time.. something that has been in MacOS since forever)

I'm glad that there is finally enough uproar to make Apple think twice, though I wish Apple would also bring this feature to A14 based iPads. While on paper the A12Z has some additional cores, we've seen in geekbench results that the A14 is pretty much on par or better performing than the A12Z.
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Agreed!

I made an earlier comment that I don't understand the M1 limitation for external discrete displays either. Considering I have run dual monitors (as well as a separate TV) on my 1993 Quadra 840av. I am more than skeptical about Apple making the claim that discrete monitors & full stage manager having to be limited to only an M1 processor.

Windowed experience + multiple monitors has been part of Apple for decades, why they make it sound like a landmark achievement on an iPad (with 10s to hundreds of times the processing power) is just nonsensical.
 
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joshdammit said:
Stage Manager is a needless, awkward feature that doesn’t help with anything. I’ve used it on the beta and keep finding myself going back to the old multitasking. it’s pointless.
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I haven't run any betas, so I'm interested in how this feature will work when (if!) I get iPadOS (2018 iPP 11"). Do I have to shut off Stage Manager to get the old App Switcher back? Or do they work in tandem?

(I've enjoyed reading the perspectives in the thread on Apple's implementation/limitation of Stage Manager to certain models. It has been enlightening.)
 
Royksöpp said:
There was no reason it couldn't run on the A12X and A12Z. The 12Z was the chip developers used to create the first Apple Silicon apps. It's not all that different from the M1.
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The RAM is the issue. DTK had 16 GB of RAM. iPads have horrible RAM until M1. Been a constant complaint of mine with iPads.
 
I just upgraded my 5th gen iPad Pro to iPadOS 16.1 beta and am not seeing any way to use or invoke Stage Manager.

Anyone else run into this? I tried going to Settings > Home Screen & Multitasking and see no mention of Stage Manager there as well. Control Center controls list also doesn't have the Stage Manager control. So confused..
 
I repeat my view: this is wrong prioritization. Stage manager is meaningless on small ipad screens. It’s real value is with external displays. And now, it is delayed because of 0 (zero) people who will use it with smaller screens and even smaller windows.
 
teh_hunterer said:
The issue on the iPad Pro 2018 is the low RAM (4GB) and storage that can't do the memory swap needed for 8 apps to run smoothly side by side. And when the RAM is so low, more and more memory swap is required, which thrashes the already inadequate storage.

What Apple has done wrong is sell the iPad Pro at pro prices in 2018 with such crappy RAM and storage, when they probably knew they'd be releasing a feature like this in a few years. It was greedy. But they're not lying about Stage Manager.

You can't compare RAM requirements to software from 2008. And you can't tell me that the computer from 2006 or 2008 could run 8 modern iPad apps side by side with the same speed and responsiveness that users expect from an iPad in 2022.
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I agree. It’s not 2006. It’s 2022. Which is why my 1995 computer with RAM in the megabytes ran Microsoft Word just fine and Windows 95 just fine. But these days 8GB is the minimum for Windows 10/11 and Word via 365 subscription.
 
Installed the beta on a 2020 12.9" iPad Pro.
I like Stage Manager so far - after I unchecked the always-on recent apps & dock in the settings.

Very happy that Apple implemented this solution - as I understood they wanted (because we expect it) a buttery smooth experience on iPads, which is why the requirements are pretty high. The expectations are lower on Macs.

I "pay" Apple so that they make this kind of decisions and am pretty happy with what they have done here.
 
I'm glad this is happening. And really tired of the manufactured "limitations" from Apple. This is no different then back in the day with the iPhone 3G not having video recording capabilities while the 3GS did. Even though we all know the 3G could hardware could definitely handle it and it was PROVEN by jailbreakers pretty quickly.
 
tobybrut said:
You totally mischaracterized what they said. They never said it wasn't possible. They said they ran it on a lot of different iPads and didn't find the performance acceptable. Does that sound remotely like what you said? No. Stop mischaracterizing things out of your lack of engineering knowledge. You have no facts at all. You have no idea what it takes to write software, so stop telling those of us who do it for a living what we know or don't know.

I don't even use the feature, so I couldn't care less if it was ever invented. I'd be just as happy if they pulled the feature completely tomorrow, and I have an M1 iPad Pro. I'm using my 30 years of knowledge in software engineering to know what is or isn't possible and can see what they are saying. Your zero years of experience is worth exactly what?
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Agreed. Can Windows 11 technically run on unsupported hardware (less hardware than requirements state)? Yes. Should Microsoft be forced to change their requirements? No. This is a classic case of they didn’t want to offer it to older models because it performs worse. And it’s proven by the limitations in place. They also probably needed to add code in place to optimize for the older hardware that’s missing key features.
 
eicca said:
I didn’t miss it, it’s a lousy made-up limitation to make it look like older iPads can’t run 2006 technology.
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The A-series chips have actual hardware limitations for external displays. They only have one full featured display controller. This is the reason the external display support has always been very limited on pre-M1 iPads. The M1-series is the first Apple Silicon to fully support more then 1 display.
 
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Pezimak said:
It's beta. And others seem to think it's working fine?
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Beta is one thing.

The machines have less RAM. You can easily starve the GPU on these old models when Stage Manager is active.

That’s what Apple highlighted in their note.

I did so after multi tasking a bunch of stuff and stress testing. Took me 2 hours to find out how to slow it down.

Good example, watch some movie streaming apps and try making long posts or long documents at the same time.
 
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Ethosik said:
Agreed. Can Windows 11 technically run on unsupported hardware (less hardware than requirements state)? Yes. Should Microsoft be forced to change their requirements? No. This is a classic case of they didn’t want to offer it to older models because it performs worse. And it’s proven by the limitations in place. They also probably needed to add code in place to optimize for the older hardware that’s missing key features.
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Probably not the reason. I think it just wasn't the use case Apple really had in mind. I think Apple's original motivation was to extend pointer control to external displays now that they have a second display controller that can support more than just video playback on a TV. Forcing full-screen for external displays on these iPads would have looked ridiculous. I think Stage Manager on the internal display was the afterthought. It is nice to see them extend support to these older iPads. I tried it out on a 2020 iPad and it feels very reactive and up to iPad standards. I doubt that took optimizations to get there. I agree that comparing to Windows 11 isn't really relevant. The iPad has higher standards for smooth animations and reactivity. I think there is a slight benefit to Stage Manager on the 13" iPad, but it will be most valuable to developers that want to test their apps without buying a new iPad. The existing windowing features work fine on a smaller screen. Stage Manager was really designed for external displays. I still think it is great these iPads will not be fully locked out even if it might be more of an afterthought. The 2018 iPad is pretty close to being a desktop-class iPad and people expect some light multitasking with productivity apps. I think Stage Manager is better suited for these productivity tasks. As primarily a desktop user, I hope I could shed my MacBook Pro one day and just do Mac Studio and iPad Pro as my devices.
 
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4nNtt said:
Probably not. I think it just wasn't the use case Apple really had in mind. I think Apple's original motivation was to extend pointer control to external displays now that they have a second display controller that can support more than just video playback on a TV. Forcing full-screen for external displays on these iPads would have looked ridiculous. I think Stage Manager on the internal display was the afterthought. It is nice to see them extend support to these older iPads. I tried it out on a 2020 iPad and it feels very reactive and up to iPad standards. I doubt that took optimizations to get there. I agree that comparing to Windows 11 isn't really relevant. The iPad has higher standards for smooth animations and reactivity.
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The limitations are 4 apps vs 8 on the M1 iPads. It doesn’t perform as well as the m1 does. And yes comparing it to Windows 11 is exactly relevant. It’s a classic system requirements discussion. Any and ALL system requirements for anything is to get what the manufacturer seems as the best performance/features for the product. I have ran games, software, operating systems on hardware less than the system requirements. So that means everyone is lying then right?
 
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