Author: Joe Rossignol
Following the WWDC keynote last week, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi spoke with TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino about the new Stage Manager feature across the iPad and Mac. Notably, he elaborated on Stage Manager being limited to M1 iPads.
On the iPad, Stage Manager allows users to resize apps into overlapping windows for an improved multitasking experience. Stage Manager also fully supports an external display with up to 6K resolution, allowing users to work with up to four apps on the iPad and up to four apps on the external display simultaneously.
In a statement shared with Rene Ritchie last week, Apple asserted that Stage Manager "requires large internal memory, incredibly fast storage, and flexible external display I/O, all of which are delivered by iPads with the M1 chip." Federighi elaborated on that rationale in his chat with Panzarino, telling him that the power of the M1 chip ensures that all apps being used in Stage Manager are "instantaneously responsive."
Federighi provided additional context about why Stage Manager is limited to the latest iPad Pro and iPad Air models with the M1 chip.
"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," said Federighi. "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," such as the previous-generation iPad Pro.
For example, the latest iPad Pro with an M1 chip is available with up to 16GB of RAM, compared to 6GB in the previous model with an A12Z chip. Apple also advertises the M1 iPad Pro as having 2x faster storage than the previous-generation model.
"We really designed Stage Manager to take full advantage [of the M1 chip]," said Federighi. "If you look at the way the apps tilt and shadow and how they animate in and out. To do that at super high frame rates, across very large displays and multiple displays, requires the peak of graphics performance that no one else can deliver."
"When you put all this together, we can't deliver the full Stage Manager experience on any lesser system," added Federighi. "I mean, we would love to make it available everywhere we can. But this is what it requires. This is the experience we're going to carry into the future. We didn't want to constrain our design to something lesser, we're setting the benchmark for the future."
iPadOS 16 as a whole is compatible with all iPad Pro models, the third-generation iPad Air and newer, the fifth-generation iPad and newer, and the fifth-generation iPad mini and newer. The update is currently in beta for developers, with Apple planning to release a public beta in July. iPadOS 16 should be released to all users around September.
Related Roundup: iPad Pro
Buyer's Guide: 11" iPad Pro (Don't Buy), 12.9" iPad Pro (Caution)
Related Forum: iPad
This article, "Apple's Craig Federighi Further Explains Why Stage Manager is Limited to M1 iPads" first appeared on MacRumors.com
Discuss this article in our forums
Continue reading...
Following the WWDC keynote last week, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi spoke with TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino about the new Stage Manager feature across the iPad and Mac. Notably, he elaborated on Stage Manager being limited to M1 iPads.
On the iPad, Stage Manager allows users to resize apps into overlapping windows for an improved multitasking experience. Stage Manager also fully supports an external display with up to 6K resolution, allowing users to work with up to four apps on the iPad and up to four apps on the external display simultaneously.
In a statement shared with Rene Ritchie last week, Apple asserted that Stage Manager "requires large internal memory, incredibly fast storage, and flexible external display I/O, all of which are delivered by iPads with the M1 chip." Federighi elaborated on that rationale in his chat with Panzarino, telling him that the power of the M1 chip ensures that all apps being used in Stage Manager are "instantaneously responsive."
Federighi provided additional context about why Stage Manager is limited to the latest iPad Pro and iPad Air models with the M1 chip.
"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," said Federighi. "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," such as the previous-generation iPad Pro.
For example, the latest iPad Pro with an M1 chip is available with up to 16GB of RAM, compared to 6GB in the previous model with an A12Z chip. Apple also advertises the M1 iPad Pro as having 2x faster storage than the previous-generation model.
"We really designed Stage Manager to take full advantage [of the M1 chip]," said Federighi. "If you look at the way the apps tilt and shadow and how they animate in and out. To do that at super high frame rates, across very large displays and multiple displays, requires the peak of graphics performance that no one else can deliver."
"When you put all this together, we can't deliver the full Stage Manager experience on any lesser system," added Federighi. "I mean, we would love to make it available everywhere we can. But this is what it requires. This is the experience we're going to carry into the future. We didn't want to constrain our design to something lesser, we're setting the benchmark for the future."
iPadOS 16 as a whole is compatible with all iPad Pro models, the third-generation iPad Air and newer, the fifth-generation iPad and newer, and the fifth-generation iPad mini and newer. The update is currently in beta for developers, with Apple planning to release a public beta in July. iPadOS 16 should be released to all users around September.
Related Roundup: iPad Pro
Buyer's Guide: 11" iPad Pro (Don't Buy), 12.9" iPad Pro (Caution)
Related Forum: iPad
This article, "Apple's Craig Federighi Further Explains Why Stage Manager is Limited to M1 iPads" first appeared on MacRumors.com
Discuss this article in our forums
Continue reading...