Stage Manager is an entirely new multitasking experience for M1 iPads that automatically organizes apps and windows, making it quick and easy to switch between tasks. For the first time on iPad, users can create overlapping windows of different sizes in a single view, drag and drop windows from the side, or open apps from the Dock to create groups of apps for faster, more flexible multitasking. The window of the app users are working on is displayed prominently in the center, and other open apps and windows are arranged on the left-hand side in order of recency.
Available on iPad Pro and iPad Air with the M1 chip, Stage Manager also unlocks full external display support with resolutions of up to 6K, so users can arrange the ideal workspace, and work with up to four apps on iPad and four apps on the external display.
Matthew Panzarino for TechCrunch:
I had a chance to talk briefly with Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi last week about the new iPadOS features aimed at enhancing multitasking and multi app work…
“Building to M1 was critical…” says Federighi. “From the start, the iPad has always maintained this extremely high standard for responsiveness and interactivity. That directness of interaction in that every app can respond to every touch instantaneously, as if you are touching the real thing underneath the screen. And I think it’s hard sometimes for people to appreciate the technical constraints involved in achieving that.”
Stage Manager takes advantage of the more powerful GPU, faster I/O in virtual memory, faster storage and more RAM that the M1 chips brought to the table. That all had to come together to keep the experience fluid and this year, they did, says Federighi…
“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… We also view stage manager as a total experience that involves external display conductivity. And the IO on the M1 supports connectivity that our previous iPads don’t, it can drive 4k, 5k, 6k displays, it can drive them at scaled resolutions. We can’t do that on other iPads.”
MacDailyNews Take: Stage Manager offers a lot, so it’s not surprising that it requires at least an M1 iPad.
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I’m glad someone else has figured out this out. Like always, many tech YouTubers posted click-bait headlines complaining about the A-series not getting this feature and started their conspiracies to explain the why. Only Rene Ritchie, got it right…the guy does his homework.
Here’s the point, if you bitch and moan about wanting the iPad to have desktop like features, you should’ve realized its going to take a more robust processor to run it smoothly.
So why didn’t Apple release stage manager alongside their M1 iPads last year, since there was no other clear reason for the M1 iPads to exist? Answer: It would have been too obvious that Apple wanted to kickstart their iPad sales by dumping all of their recent iPad customers overboard.
There is no technical limitation to allowing a desirable, even if limited, form of multitasking to recent gen iPad Pros (at least). Apple chose not to do this for money-making reasons, they decided that a value-add to pre-M1 hardware would not increase their income. Apple studiously ignored useful multitasking, let along external display support for years, suddenly the minimum standard is the ability to run 8 apps at once and up to an 8k display? BS! Enough shilling for the 3 trillion-dollar company.
Correction: $2 Trilion dollar company (and change) as of 6/13/22.
This 100%. I know what my a12z is capable of and I can honestly say even my a10x previous ipad would be capable of handling it as well. I easily handle 4 apps on screen including pip all the time and have no slow down or crashing. Simply adding virtual memory swap on the software level would have eased any problems. I love apple – but this decision is just stupid. Especially when companies like T-Mobile make you pay more upfront “because it’s a tablet”. Fucking BS.
At first I was disappointed that this wouldn’t be available on my iPad Air 4 but then I realised I don’t really do that much multitasking anyway and I still have the old system to use, so meh.
I too was initially disappointed. But then realised I’ve never wanted to plug my iPad Pro into a monitor or have such a convoluted multitasking system. Boring old Split screen works fine for me…