New iPadOS beta adds Stage Manager support to older iPad Pros

Posted:
in iPad
Owners of older iPad Pro models will get Stage Manager, as the latest iPadOS 16.1 beta introduces support beyond M1-equipped versions.




When Apple introduced Stage Manager during WWDC, it was determined that it would only be available on iPad Pro models using the M1 chip. With the latest iPadOS 16.1 beta, it appears the feature will now work with more models.

The update now enables Stage Manager in the beta for all generations of the 11-inch iPad Pro, as well as all 12.9-inch iPad Pro models from the third-generation and later. Earlier 12.9-inch models and the 9.7-inch iPad Pro that don't have the A12X or A12Z chip won't gain the added support, reports Engadget.

The expansion also won't bring over all elements of Stage Manager. Even when external display support is added to the feature, models made without a M1 chip or newer will be limited to using Stage Manager only on the built-in display, and not on an external monitor.

"Customers with iPad Pro 3rd and 4th generation have expressed strong interest in being able to experience Stage Manager on their iPads," said Apple. "In response, our teams have worked hard to find a way to deliver a single-screen version for these systems, with support for up to four live apps on the iPad screen at once."

The M1 iPad Pro models will also see a change to Stage Manager, which will remove the external monitor support for the moment. It will apparently be reintroduced in a software update before the end of 2022.

Previously, Apple explained that Stage Manager needed the fast memory swap feature in iPadOS, which allowed free flash storage to be turned into up to 16GB of makeshift RAM. This is a resource-intensive feature, which Apple deemed was only possible with the M1 and not earlier A-series chips.

Apple's full statement reads:
We introduced Stage Manager as a whole new way to multitask with overlapping, resizable windows on both the iPad display and a separate external display, with the ability to run up to eight live apps on screen at once. Delivering this multi-display support is only possible with the full power of M1-based iPads. Customers with iPad Pro 3rd and 4th generation have expressed strong interest in being able to experience Stage Manager on their iPads. In response, our teams have worked hard to find a way to deliver a single-screen version for these systems, with support for up to four live apps on the iPad screen at once.

External display support for Stage Manager on M1 iPads will be available in a software update later this year.
Read on AppleInsider

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 16
    This is excellent news. I am happy my iPad Pro 2018 will be getting this new feature.Thanks Apple!
    danoxwatto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 16
    thttht Posts: 5,421member
    Seemed a rather obvious decision to make from the beginning. Lots of strange UI decisions with Stage Manager.

    Another thing they need to do is to let users turn off the auto-sizing and auto-placement of apps. It's admirable that they want to protect their novice users and make sure they know that their app-view isn't hidden behind another window, but anything auto-adjusting for the market of expert users is typically despised. So, there should be a way to turn off auto-adjusting parts of Stage Manager.

    For Split View and Slide Over, I like there to be a target zone to get apps into them. Currently, it's a long press to lift, slide up and release. People do this naturally just scrolling, and Apple's algorithm really can't tell the difference. So just have a 0.5" drop zone at the top for activating Split View and Slide Over, which would be much hard to accidentally activate.

    lam92103FileMakerFellerbyronlwatto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 16
    Apple seems to be taking a cue from politicians. First create the problems, then claim credit for magically solving them. This is what happens when you put too many people who care about profits & money incharge. They loose focus of the products and end up doing dumb shit like this or trying the Burger King strategy (small, medium & large) with phones.

    This is exactly what Steve Jobs had bought to the company. He was a guy who cared about good products & user experience first, and the profits would just follow along as a consequence.
    edited September 2022 danox
  • Reply 4 of 16
    thttht Posts: 5,421member
    lam92103 said:
    Apple seems to be taking a cue from politicians. First create the problems, then claim credit for magically solving them. This is what happens when you put too many people who care about profits & money incharge. They loose focus of the products and end up doing dumb shit like this or trying the Burger King strategy (small, medium & large) with phones.

    This is exactly what Steve Jobs had bought to the company. He was a guy who cared about good products & user experience first, and the profits would just follow along as a consequence.
    Totally disagree. Jobs made poor decisions too, we just tend to forget them. He made arbitrary support decisions many a time. PPC support was dropped in what, 4 years? iOS support of 2007 and 2008 iPhone models were dropped pretty quick! I think the rate of mistakes is basically about the same, but Apple's breadth of product now is basically 10x larger now than 12 years ago. So, there appears to be more mistakes.
    gilly33FileMakerFellermuthuk_vanalingamwatto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 16
    Gotta say, it sounds to me like more phased obsolescence to encourage upgrading. Oh, we can’t do this magic without fast swap. Oh hang on, turns out we can…🤔

    My 32G 3TB Fusion, 2014 5k 27” iMac is rocking the latest MacOS even though Apple blocked support. Thank you OpenCore!
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 16
    netroxnetrox Posts: 1,415member
    I doubted Stage Manager cannot be done on older iPads but I am sure the fluidity of switching will not be as good as M1 and will likely degrade overall performance. 


    watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 16
    lam92103 said:
    Apple seems to be taking a cue from politicians. First create the problems, then claim credit for magically solving them. This is what happens when you put too many people who care about profits & money incharge. 
    Explain how this benefits Apple financially to announce support for this feature in older models later than initially, both prior to public release. Keep in mind 99% of users will never know this was even a factor.

    They loose focus of the products and end up doing dumb shit like this or trying the Burger King strategy (small, medium & large) with phones. 
    That must be why they sell so few iPhones. 😆

    This is exactly what Steve Jobs had bought to the company. He was a guy who cared about good products & user experience first, and the profits would just follow along as a consequence.
    Right, and Apple under his tenure never made questionable decisions with regard to pulling support for older products, or made changes to announced support for software features, so forth. Never! "Steve Jobs would never let that happen." lol
    StrangeDayswatto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 16
    danoxdanox Posts: 2,804member
    netrox said:
    I doubted Stage Manager cannot be done on older iPads but I am sure the fluidity of switching will not be as good as M1 and will likely degrade overall performance. 


    So?
  • Reply 9 of 16
    lam92103 said:
    Apple seems to be taking a cue from politicians. First create the problems, then claim credit for magically solving them. This is what happens when you put too many people who care about profits & money incharge. They loose focus of the products and end up doing dumb shit like this or trying the Burger King strategy (small, medium & large) with phones.

    This is exactly what Steve Jobs had bought to the company. He was a guy who cared about good products & user experience first, and the profits would just follow along as a consequence.
    Nonsense. This is what happens when you have time to continue solving engineering problems. I know you guys think software pops out of a clamshell fully formed, but in reality it takes time & work to implement things. This isn’t even released software yet, so kudos to them for having it ready at launch!
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 16
    Gotta say, it sounds to me like more phased obsolescence to encourage upgrading. Oh, we can’t do this magic without fast swap. Oh hang on, turns out we can…🤔

    My 32G 3TB Fusion, 2014 5k 27” iMac is rocking the latest MacOS even though Apple blocked support. Thank you OpenCore!
    Gotta say, it sounds like you aren’t a software developer. 

    Going back to the original Macintosh, advancements were made by contributors that sped things up and opened doors. 

    https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 16
    Gotta say, it sounds to me like more phased obsolescence to encourage upgrading. Oh, we can’t do this magic without fast swap. Oh hang on, turns out we can…ߤ䦬t;div>
    My 32G 3TB Fusion, 2014 5k 27” iMac is rocking the latest MacOS even though Apple blocked support. Thank you OpenCore!
    Gotta say, it sounds like you aren’t a software developer. 


    Going back to the original Macintosh, advancements were made by contributors that sped things up and opened doors. 

    https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt
    Haha. I absolutely agree that thoughtful and ingenious software developers have the potential to make the biggest difference to a system.

    That's pretty much my point though — there's a long history of new features being withheld from Apple hardware that is well able to support it. Like in my example with Sidecar, AirPlay to Mac, Night Shift, and Universal Control. 

    https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/
    edited to sort quoting
    edited September 2022 danoxwatto_cobra
  • Reply 12 of 16
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    Surprised that none of the commenters have picked up on the fact (which is clearly stated in the article) that the Stage Manager support in non-M1 iPads is scaled down to fit into the capabilities of those machines, which is a compromise Apple was hoping to avoid. 

    The real question for non-M1 iPad owners will be whether Stage Manager Jr is better than not having any Stage Manager at all. 

    Personally, as a consumer, I like that users have a choice and can decide for themselves whether the Jr version is good enough. This removes the mystery and FOMO. Of course it won’t suppress the inevitable complaints that will arise the first time someone runs into the limitations of the Jr version. 

    As a software developer or architect I’d be cringing because this is exactly the kind of functionality slicing and dicing that leads to code bloat and maintenance issues. But this won’t be the last time that a product manager instructs the developers to do whatever it takes to make it work so customers can safely ignore the man behind the curtain. It comes with the territory. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 13 of 16
    danoxdanox Posts: 2,804member
    Gotta say, it sounds to me like more phased obsolescence to encourage upgrading. Oh, we can’t do this magic without fast swap. Oh hang on, turns out we can…ߤ䦬t;div>
    My 32G 3TB Fusion, 2014 5k 27” iMac is rocking the latest MacOS even though Apple blocked support. Thank you OpenCore!
    Gotta say, it sounds like you aren’t a software developer. 


    Going back to the original Macintosh, advancements were made by contributors that sped things up and opened doors. 

    https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt
    Haha. I absolutely agree that thoughtful and ingenious software developers have the potential to make the biggest difference to a system.

    That's pretty much my point though — there's a long history of new features being withheld from Apple hardware that is well able to support it. Like in my example with Sidecar, AirPlay to Mac, Night Shift, and Universal Control. 

    https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/
    edited to sort quoting
    I like the fact that many people tapped Apple on the shoulder and said wait a minute, what are you trying to pull.
  • Reply 14 of 16
    danoxdanox Posts: 2,804member
    Gotta say, it sounds to me like more phased obsolescence to encourage upgrading. Oh, we can’t do this magic without fast swap. Oh hang on, turns out we can…ߤ䦬t;div>
    My 32G 3TB Fusion, 2014 5k 27” iMac is rocking the latest MacOS even though Apple blocked support. Thank you OpenCore!
    Gotta say, it sounds like you aren’t a software developer. 


    Going back to the original Macintosh, advancements were made by contributors that sped things up and opened doors. 

    https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt
    Haha. I absolutely agree that thoughtful and ingenious software developers have the potential to make the biggest difference to a system.

    That's pretty much my point though — there's a long history of new features being withheld from Apple hardware that is well able to support it. Like in my example with Sidecar, AirPlay to Mac, Night Shift, and Universal Control. 

    https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/
    edited to sort quoting


    There still are simple housekeeping things that are missing in terms of printing and file management that have been around for 35 years that are still not there.
  • Reply 15 of 16
    thttht Posts: 5,421member
    Gotta say, it sounds to me like more phased obsolescence to encourage upgrading. Oh, we can’t do this magic without fast swap. Oh hang on, turns out we can…🤔

    My 32G 3TB Fusion, 2014 5k 27” iMac is rocking the latest MacOS even though Apple blocked support. Thank you OpenCore!
    Try running macOS on 4 GB of RAM. 32 GB makes things a lot easier.

    Apple is basically like us all, where we have warring desires with constrained time and money. Finance folks want more revenue. Programmers want less features. Managers want to hit schedule milestones. Marketing (Apple's "Marketing" department is not advertising, it's product features) want good products. Customers want everything for the minimum money. Apple chooses. They obviously make mistakes. It's a good sign that they are willing to change their mind and add in the support for A12X/A12Z models, and to delay external monitor support. They'll get there.

    I am curious how they will do it with the M1 iPad Air 128 GB without a page file. There will be occasions where there will be apps that want more memory. This will cause apps to be killed. Live running applications will be terminated without the page file. I can only guess that on the iPad Air 128 GB, the OS will only allocate a smaller maximum amount of memory, like 1.5 GB RAM, and apps have to be designed to fit in that amount.

    This would be opposed to the 256 GB storage M1 models with the page file. In those systems, apps can, say, allocate 3 GB of memory, or possibly have higher dynamic limits.
    appleinsideruserwatto_cobra
  • Reply 16 of 16
    netrox said:
    I doubted Stage Manager cannot be done on older iPads but I am sure the fluidity of switching will not be as good as M1 and will likely degrade overall performance. 

    My guess is that one will be able to turn it off.
    watto_cobra
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