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

[teh_hunterer]

They lied. Are those testing it claiming the performance is not acceptable? You really have been taken in by the Apple marketing. You really believe a giant trillion dollar corporation is doing anything for your benefit? Like keeping features software locked because 'they don't work well', yet here we are barely a year later and they seem to be working fine:

And Craig in just one interview stated this:

“It’s only the M1 iPads that combined the high DRAM capacity with very high capacity, high performance NAND that allows our virtual memory swap to be super fast,” Federighi says. “Now that we’re letting you have up to four apps on a panel plus another four — up to eight apps to be instantaneously responsive and have plenty of memory, we just don’t have that ability on the other systems.”

Apple resizes the iPad’s workflow with Stage Manager

SVP Craig Federighi on stretching Apple’s iPad to fit new ways of working

techcrunch.com

So I'll stand fully behind my original post thanks, you can co to use to listen to Apples marketing spin if you choose to, as I said it's all there in black and white.

You may not have read the news properly. Craig is stating that 8 apps side by side doesn't perform acceptably on the older iPads. They have allowed Stage Manager to run on the iPad display only, meaning it's limited to 4 apps side by side.

So how did Apple lie, and how are you standing fully behind your original post?

 

[840quadra]

My friend, that machine cannot run a retina level 4K display.

It can’t even decode and play a 720p h264 DVD rip. Even 1.5Ghz G4 struggled with that.

You cannot compare the interface and graphics abilities of today’s era to then.

That’s delusional or misinformed.

You too are latching onto the incorrect conclusion regarding the comment I made.

Why would anyone think I am suggesting that an old G4 can run 4K, 8K ETC displays?

My comment isn't about what the old machines can run now, it was to point out what those older systems could do in their day, with far slower tech and far less memory.

I understand that the iPad is intended to be a tablet, however, it has more than enough power / memory to support multitasking with fully active applications. iOS has supported as much for years now, with the only addition being that they can now be somewhat more windowed, with a mission control effect. This alone was a huge reason why people like myself and others complained directly to Apple about Stage Manager not being available on our devices.

Now on the subject of external monitors, as others have stated there are 3rd party applications that support discrete external displays in what is essentially a software workaround. Now that tool is a bit of a hack, but a decent enough proof of concept that these devices can support multiple displays at the same time. It I think it is reasonable enough for many of us to expect (with some developer guidelines) that full functionality could be extended to older iPad Pro models too.

iPadOS is efficient with memory management precisely because it gets to kill background apps. Stage Manager requires leaving all apps in the staff running. It also requires quickly resuming apps that are no longer in RAM at all when switching stages.

Great point, though these older iPads can have multiple active applications running at the same time, and the limit on older systems makes sense to some degree.

It is good to see that Apple extended support to the multi-tasking feature.

 

[teh_hunterer]

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.

The limitation is coming from an external display meaning you could have 8 apps running side by side (4 on the iPad itself, 4 on the secondary display). Of course, they could limit it to 4 apps in other ways - they could disable the internal iPad display when an external display is connected, or just confine Stage Manager to the external display so you've only got 4 apps running side by side. I guess they thought it's just too complicated to have that kind of stipulation.

I think this is all ultimately coming from the fact that the iPads before the M1 all had low amounts of RAM and phone-class storage that can't do the kind of virtual memory needed for 8 apps at once. Which is a shame, because some of those iPads were very expensive and sold very recently.

But yes, the lack of proper external display support on iPad is silly.

 

[chucker23n1]

You too are latching onto the incorrect conclusion regarding the comment I made.

Why would anyone think I am suggesting that an old G4 can run 4K, 8K ETC displays?

Because you keep bringing up that it runs "dual 1080P displays". If that isn't pertinent information (which it isn't), don't bring it up?

I understand that the iPad is intended to be a tablet, however, it has more than enough power / memory to support multitasking with fully active applications.

You're in luck: Apple is hiring!

iOS has supported as much for years now, with the only addition being that they can now be somewhat more windowed, with a mission control effect.

Which is a massive addition, because it heavily increases RAM requirements.

 

[teh_hunterer]

Great point, though these older iPads can have multiple active applications running at the same time, and the limit on older systems makes sense to some degree.

It is good to see that Apple extended support to the multi-tasking feature.

These older iPads are pretty limited in this regard. Any app using more RAM than it is allotted is simply killed and has to reload, and the amount of apps that truly can run at the same time is limited by the iPad's total RAM, because virtual memory has not been a thing at all on iOS or on the iPad. On these iPads it just starts killing the oldest loaded apps when it runs out of RAM.

With iPadOS 16, not only is Stage Manager allowing 8 apps to run side by side, but it's allowing them to keep running with far more generous RAM allowances, and allowing them to use virtual memory when the iPad runs out of memory. So not only do you have apps using virtual memory for the first time ever on iPadOS, but you're having 8 of them doing it at the same time.

I think the real story is how Apple had the iPad going on phone-class hardware with the exact same iOS limitations since its inception. These tricks allowed the iPad to have such paltry RAM and storage hardware for so long and still feel so fast and capable. But now that iPadOS is getting desktop style multi-tasking, it needs desktop class RAM (in terms of total amount of RAM) and desktop class storage.

And then the even realer story is how at the end of the day Stage Manager sucks anyway...

A 500Mhz G4 with 256mb of RAM could run dual 1080P displays, and run expose (far predecessor to mission control and Stage manager) without any significant issues. If you had a Quartz extreme capable GPU the experience was better, but the system still worked. In 10.4 you could also have widgets running in dashboard, again, without issue.

The minimal RAM in the older iPads is likely of minimal concern considering how efficient iPad OS is with Memory management.

It's only currently "efficient" with memory management because it just kills any apps that use too much RAM, and when the iPad starts running out of RAM it starts killing the oldest loaded apps.

 

[teh_hunterer]

People don't want to accept this, this is the truth though.

You replied to almost everyone who replied to you, except you conveniently didn't reply to me, so I don't know who's not wanting to accept the truth here.

 

[ratspg]

You replied to almost everyone who replied to you, except you conveniently didn't reply to me, so I don't know who's not wanting to accept the truth here.

I gave you a like on your post, but if you require a more direct reply, sure. Let me find your post.
...
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. (Had 2gb on my MacBook from 2006, with heavy apps such as Photoshop and Illustrator running with Stage Manager's equivalent on the MacOS beta, with an external screen, also using swap on a 5400rpm spinning hard drive. Much slower than the solid state chips we have now and it was still smooth, responsive, and worked great.)

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. (Completely agree that they were greedy about it and limited the iPad Pro from 2018. They aren't lying about Stage Manager with how its currently implemented, but they could optimize it further and for more devices if they really wanted to and had incentive to.)

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. (Of course I can. On my 2006 MacBook with integrated graphics (terrible) I had half the ram (2gb instead of 4gb on the iPad Pro 2018, or even 6gb in the higher storage iPad Pro) that was also slower (DDR2 instead of DDR4) and ran Photoshop and Illustrator which are larger than many apps, just fine with the Stage Manager equivalent.)
...

I'm speaking from experience of actually using the Stage Manager feature that Apple has decided to release now in 2022. It worked great then on crappy hardware. Apple could let it run on an iPad Pro 2018 externally at 1080p if they'd like (everybody likes to mention hi-dpi around here) but they choose not to. Never said it would be a 100% identical experience as to an M1 iPad Pro, but to say it can't be done is just not true.

 

[teh_hunterer]

I'm speaking from experience of actually using the Stage Manager feature that Apple has decided to release now in 2022. It worked great then on crappy hardware. Apple could let it run on an iPad Pro 2018 externally at 1080p if they'd like (everybody likes to mention hi-dpi around here) but they choose not to. Never said it would be a 100% identical experience as to an M1 iPad Pro, but to say it can't be done is just not true.

I don't think resolution or framerate is an issue. The issue is that Stage Manager on an external display would allow you to run 8 apps side by side, and that runs into limitations of total RAM, and storage capability.

Apple could probably make it so that if you run Stage Manager on a 2018 iPad Pro with an external display connected, apps will only go on the external display, with the iPad itself just showing the background, control centre etc but no apps. That would limit it to 4 apps running at once. My guess is they think that limitation would be too complicated or unwieldy to communicate to customers.

 

[ratspg]

I don't think resolution or framerate is an issue. The issue is that Stage Manager on an external display would allow you to run 8 apps side by side, and that runs into limitations of total RAM, and storage capability.

Apple could probably make it so that if you run Stage Manager on a 2018 iPad Pro with an external display connected, apps will only go on the external display, with the iPad itself just showing the background, control centre etc but no apps. That would limit it to 4 apps running at once. My guess is they think that limitation would be too complicated or unwieldy to communicate to customers.

They might think that and just decide it's not good enough for customers to use. I do feel that customers that bought a "Pro" product want to try those "Pro" features, even if they are limited in scope for them and I personally believe they deserve that choice.

 

[jole]

I ran what Apple calls StageManager today on a macOS beta in 2006. It worked smoothly and fine on that old laptop. iOS is heavily more optimized than Mac OS X from 2006 and the specs on those laptops were terrible compared to an iPad Pro from 2018.

My MacBook at the time had intel gma 950 graphics and had 2gb of ddr2 ram. I believe the intel core 2 duo cpu was 1.8ghz as well.

The iPad Pro 2018 has an A12X Bionic 4x 2.5ghz octa-core and 4x 1.6ghz tempest. Also 4GB lpddr4x ram.

Here is a comparison of the A12X to the Intel Core 2 Duo from 2008 in a midrange laptop. That Intel chip compared was 2 years newer (2008) than the Core 2 Duo in the MacBook I had (which worked fine with an external display and the Stage Manager feature.)

Apple is artificially limiting the ability on iOS 16 and their products. Business-wise I get why they do it, they want to sell more iPads and future devices, completely understood. But I just want to be clear, the hardware from 2018+ can run the feature just fine.

Apple A12X Bionic vs Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 - GadgetVersus

Comparison between Apple A12X Bionic and Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 with the specifications of the processors, the number of cores, threads, cache memory, also the performance in benchmark platforms such as Geekbench, Passmark, Cinebench or AnTuTu.

gadgetversus.com

Multi-tasking works well on Intel since 80386 implemented efficient memory virtualization in 1985.

A-series chips have been designed specifically for a non-swapping iOS "multitasking" that optimizes for battery instead of running maximum number of parallel processes. I have not seen specs on how well A-series implements virtualization, but apparently A12Z does have a working implementation (Apple used that on ARM-based developer-only Mac mini to run macOS that requires full memory virtualization). That said, whether SSD swapping speed is acceptable or SSD durability for swapping is there, is still unknown.

Due to Apple choosing to implement multitasking with an overly complex window manager (that requires full framebuffers for all concurrent apps), it is IMO plausible that A-series chip capabilities just are not there for running Stage Manager with acceptable UX.

With that, I am quite confident that Apple is not just making stuff up to sell more hardware, but that the limitations are technical.

Just to repeat: Limitation is not about CPU "speed". It is about efficient memory management (including swapping virtualized pages fast to SSD and/or SSD durability when swapping) and the total memory capacity.

 

[ratspg]

Multi-tasking works well on Intel since 80386 implemented efficient memory virtualization in 1985.

A-series chips have been designed specifically for a non-swapping iOS "multitasking" that optimizes for battery instead of running maximum number of parallel processes. I have not seen specs on how well A-series implements virtualization, but apparently A12X does have a working implementation (Apple used that on ARM-based developer-only Mac mini to run macOS that requires full memory virtualization). That said, whether SSD swapping speed is acceptable or SSD durability for swapping is there, is still unknown.

Due to Apple choosing to implement multitasking with an overly complex window manager (that requires full framebuffers for all concurrent apps), it is IMO plausible that A-series chip capabilities just are not there for running Stage Manager with acceptable UX.

With that, I am quite confident that Apple is not just making stuff up to sell more hardware, but that the limitations are technical.

Just to repeat: Limitation is not about CPU "speed". It is about efficient memory management (including swapping virtualized pages fast to SSH) and total memory capacity.

I appreciate your response and explanation, thank you.

 

[teh_hunterer]

Multi-tasking works well on Intel since 80386 implemented efficient memory virtualization in 1985.

I have not seen specs on how well A-series implements virtualization, but apparently A12X does have a working implementation (Apple used that on ARM-based developer-only Mac mini to run macOS that requires full memory virtualization). That said, whether SSD swapping speed is acceptable or SSD durability for swapping is there, is still unknown.

It's related to the RAM and storage included. On the variant of the A12Z they used in the developer test Mac, it came with 16GB RAM and Mac-class storage.

 

[hoodafoo]

I'd love to be able to set my iPhone in a dock and use stage manager on an external display with a mouse and keyboard. It will never happen though.

What would you run on your phone that you would need an external display??

 

[hoodafoo]

Who the heck is Stage Hero designed for? On my 2018 12.9 iPad Pro, I run Reddit, Safari and Gmail and that's about it. Does Apple think we use our iPads to actually do WORK on? The iPad is play device used to ESCAPE from work

 

[Unregistered 4U]

You may not have read the news properly. Craig is stating that 8 apps side by side doesn't perform acceptably on the older iPads. They have allowed Stage Manager to run on the iPad display only, meaning it's limited to 4 apps side by side.

So how did Apple lie, and how are you standing fully behind your original post?

And 4 apps is only one more than the 3 apps I can work with WITHOUT Stage Manager. And, since getting to a fourth app is just a four finger swipe away, I can understand why Stage Manager was originally bundled with the external monitor improvements. It’s still not stable enough for me (likely due to my massive number of Safari tabs) but once it is, I’ll give it a go to see if using smaller versions of the windows I’m using now by four finger swiping makes using 4 apps “that” much better.

 

[Abazigal]

You may not have read the news properly. Craig is stating that 8 apps side by side doesn't perform acceptably on the older iPads. They have allowed Stage Manager to run on the iPad display only, meaning it's limited to 4 apps side by side.

So how did Apple lie, and how are you standing fully behind your original post?

I don’t think any reading was done at all. It’s just another day of feeding in to the current popular narrative that Apple has gotten too greedy and is try to force upgrades by obsoleting older hardware.

People are making it seem like stage manager coming to older iPads is somehow proof of Apple lying, not seemingly realising (or caring) that it’s not the same stage manager that was initially intended to work with M1 iPads.

 

[teh_hunterer]

And 4 apps is only one more than the 3 apps I can work with WITHOUT Stage Manager. And, since getting to a fourth app is just a four finger swipe away, I can understand why Stage Manager was originally bundled with the external monitor improvements. It’s still not stable enough for me (likely due to my massive number of Safari tabs) but once it is, I’ll give it a go to see if using smaller versions of the windows I’m using now by four finger swiping makes using 4 apps “that” much better.

Yeah, with all the fighting about why the older iPads aren't getting it, the question as to whether Stage Manager is actually good or not fell into the background.

At least in its current form, you're right, it sucks. I tried it for about 15 minutes and gave up. And then I kinda laughed how everyone was fighting about this feature when if you actually try it you probably won't ever use it again.

But I do hope they improve it. Just give me macOS style windows on the external display.

 

[ratspg]

Yeah, with all the fighting about why the older iPads aren't getting it, the question as to whether Stage Manager is actually good or not fell into the background.

At least in its current form, you're right, it sucks. I tried it for about 15 minutes and gave up. And then I kinda laughed how everyone was fighting about this feature when if you actually try it you probably won't ever use it again.

But I do hope they improve it. Just give me macOS style windows on the external display.

Stage Manager really does suck , lol. Completely agree!
I tried it on macOS Ventura... turned it off pretty quick.

 

[840quadra]

Because you keep bringing up that it runs "dual 1080P displays". If that isn't pertinent information (which it isn't), don't bring it up?

Just as you are, I am free to bring up any comment or opinion on this topic. Differences in opinion are fully acceptable on these forums.

Regarding your gripe, I commented on why I brought it up in a portion of my post you deliberately omitted in your response.

My comment isn't about what the old machines can run now, it was to point out what those older systems could do in their day, with far slower tech and far less memory.

3rd party applications can display discrete information on the built in iPad display & external monitor via software. The fact that Apple doesn't permit this in the native iPad OS feels like an artificial limit. If the hardware couldn't support it, how can developers (even hack to) make it happen?

These older iPads are pretty limited in this regard. Any app using more RAM than it is allotted is simply killed and has to reload, and the amount of apps that truly can run at the same time is limited by the iPad's total RAM, because virtual memory has not been a thing at all on iOS or on the iPad. On these iPads it just starts killing the oldest loaded apps when it runs out of RAM.

With iPadOS 16, not only is Stage Manager allowing 8 apps to run side by side, but it's allowing them to keep running with far more generous RAM allowances, and allowing them to use virtual memory when the iPad runs out of memory. So not only do you have apps using virtual memory for the first time ever on iPadOS, but you're having 8 of them doing it at the same time.

I think the real story is how Apple had the iPad going on phone-class hardware with the exact same iOS limitations since its inception. These tricks allowed the iPad to have such paltry RAM and storage hardware for so long and still feel so fast and capable. But now that iPadOS is getting desktop style multi-tasking, it needs desktop class RAM (in terms of total amount of RAM) and desktop class storage.

And then the even realer story is how at the end of the day Stage Manager sucks anyway...



It's only currently "efficient" with memory management because it just kills any apps that use too much RAM, and when the iPad starts running out of RAM it starts killing the oldest loaded apps.

RAM v.s. v-ram is the bigger question here and I agree with most of your points. With it being limited to 4 active applications on older iPads as opposed to 8, it addresses some RAM issues.

I really wish there was a native activity monitor on the iPad like we have in OS-X. Running iPad Applications on my M1 and M1 pro systems I have some idea of how my main apps impact memory, and have actually be impressed ( in most cases) with how little they actually use!

Also agree stage manager is a bit janky, but it is a step forward for multi-tasking on iPads as compared to the older system. Part of me wishes we could have a lite version of MacOS on iPads with a full on / normal window manager for those of us that would like it.

 

[teh_hunterer]

RAM v.s. v-ram is the bigger question here and I agree with most of your points. With it being limited to 4 active applications on older iPads as opposed to 8, it addresses some RAM issues.

I really wish there was a native activity monitor on the iPad like we have in OS-X. Running iPad Applications on my M1 and M1 pro systems I have some idea of how my main apps impact memory, and have actually be impressed ( in most cases) with how little they actually use!

Also agree stage manager is a bit janky, but it is a step forward for multi-tasking on iPads as compared to the older system. Part of me wishes we could have a lite version of MacOS on iPads with a full on / normal window manager for those of us that would like it.

I guess virtual memory becomes more of an issue the less RAM you have, as the virtual memory is going to need to be accessed more. And then the iPads with less RAM are also going to have lower quality storage, so the problem snowballs quickly.

I suppose when it comes to the iPad, it has a reputation for being very quick and responsive and fluid. So if you've got an edge case where you've got a big app using a bunch of memory, and you've got 7 other apps running at the same time and visible on the screen, they can't just be killed like the iPad normally does.

The user can see them, and expects them to stay open and running smoothly like they expect iPad apps to run. If the apps can't be killed, then virtual memory has to be used, and if it results in slow performance, Apple throws away the reputation of the iPad being fast.

And there's always the fact that touch based UI needs to be responsive as you can feel lag more easily.

And yes, a macOS experience when you dock the iPad to a display is exactly what I hope they do eventually.

 

[abowlby]

I think it’s more that the iPad was never designed with display extension in mind, and enabling it requires reworking a lot of stuff from scratch. As it seems, said feature doesn’t even work without a Magic Keyboard or equivalent accessory.

Because the MK is what gives iPadOS a kernel level “reworking” which allows it to extend the display? C’mon Mang. Third party developers have managed to kludge solutions together but I’m supposed to buy that Apple’s hands are tied whenever they have access to all the nuts and bolts? No sale.

 

[iZac]

All this hullabaloo may also be indicative of how aggressively iPadOS trims apps out of RAM because at its very core iPadOS and iOS run as full screen mono-task devices and the iOS home screen / Springboard is literally just a launcher app rather than a fully fledged window and program manager, as evidenced by why we have a Files app rather than having it integrated into the user experience.

 

[SoldOnApple]

I watched the video and saw it in action, but can someone explain to me what the point is without the external display? How is this different to split screen mode or that mobile sideview mode?

 

[Davieis]

Does anyone with the latest beta on iPadOS 16.1 and an iPad Pro 2018/2020 get display scaling (screen zoom) options? I’ve seen that some have the option but others not, and it was not announced as a feature coming with Stage Manager.

 

[Pezimak]

You may not have read the news properly. Craig is stating that 8 apps side by side doesn't perform acceptably on the older iPads. They have allowed Stage Manager to run on the iPad display only, meaning it's limited to 4 apps side by side.

So how did Apple lie, and how are you standing fully behind your original post?

And the post from the moderator right below yours states their is software that allows external display support on the older iPad Pro’s. It’s nothing more then marketing ad sales tactics by Apple. And Craig was pretty adamant that only the M1 could do stage Manager in his old interviews. Of course he states 8 apps etc as that was one of its selling points, they are always very careful with their words as they are salesman at the end of the day, but Applemdid claim only M1 could run Stage Manager, doesn’t matter how many apps, that is what they said. I absolutetly stand behind my post, it’s Apple, it’s locked software features for purely marketing and sales purposes.
Maybe they can only run 4 apps, but they can run external displays. So we’ve had Apple claim only the M1 could run Stage Manager, and older iPad Pro’s don’t work with an external display?