iPadOS 16’s Stage Manager promises to revolutionize multitasking on the iPad. But it is only available on tablets with an M1 chip. Now Apple comes with a mediocre explanation. What is going on?
Stage Manager only on M1 iPads
iPadOS 16’s new Stage Manager feature finally makes it possible on the iPad to have multiple windows open at the same time. The app in the ‘foreground’ appears pontifically, other open apps and windows are reduced in size on the left side of the screen. It is even possible to resize the open ‘windows’ so that you see more of yes ‘desktop’.
With this, iPadOS comes for the first time with a multitasking system that reminds us of Windows and macOS. That’s emphasized by the fact that macOS Ventura gets the same Stage Manager feature.
In short, it sounds like a dream for anyone who wanted the iPad to shift more towards the Mac side. But unfortunately, Apple has decided to only bring Stage Manager to iPads with M1 chip. That’s just the latest iPad Pros (2021) and the iPad Air 5 (2022). Is that really necessary, or an artificial limitation? Digital Trends asked Apple.
This is why Stage Manager only comes to iPads with M1 chip
According to Apple, Stage Manager needs a special feature of iPadOS 16, which only some iPads support. This is the so-called Memory Swap. This allows iPads to expand their working memory via the built-in flash storage. This has been normal under macOS and Windows for years: as soon as the working memory is full, the new data is ‘swapped’ to the disk.
Memory Swap is new on the iPad, on the other hand, and we understand that Stage Manager’s more advanced multitasking requires more RAM. So clear explanation from Apple? Well no. Because based on Apple’s explanation and the list of iPads that support Stage Manager, you would conclude that only iPads with M1 chip support Memory Swap.
But, that’s not right! Because according to the website with specifications, there is also an older iPad that offers Memory Swap support. And that is the 4th generation of the iPad Air from 2020. Although with 256 GB storage, the M1 chip does not seem to be a prerequisite for its Memory Swap.
Is Apple going to change anything?
It is still possible that Apple will also make Stage Manager available for somewhat older iPads during the beta of iPadOS 16, such as the iPad Air 2020 and the iPad Pro 2020. That happened last year in macOS Monterey, for example.
There, only M1 Macs initially supported the new Live Text feature, but it was eventually expanded to more Macs. So let’s hope that Apple will add older devices this time as well when the beta runs more stable and smooth.