As more interviews emerge after WWDC with Apple’s chief software engineer Craig Federigi, we continue to learn more about Apple’s arguments behind the new iPadOS Stage Manager feature being limited to the iPad with the M1 chip.
The latest interview was published by Forbes contributor David Phelan, who asked Federigi if Apple was trying to get Stage Manager to work with iPad models without the M1 chip. In response, Federico said that Apple has done some early tests of the function of other iPads, but Apple is not happy with the experience provided on these devices.
“We started some of our prototypes involving these systems and it became clear early on that we could not provide the experience we designed with them,” he said. “Of course, we would like to bring a new experience to every device we can, but we also do not want to keep the definition of a new experience and not create the best basis for the future in this experience. And we could really only do that by building the M1. “
In an interview with TechCrunch’s Matthew Panzarino earlier this week, Federigi said the M1 chip’s performance ensures that all applications used in Stage Manager are “instantly responsive” as customers expect from a touch-based interface.
In a statement last week, shared by Rene Richie, Apple said that Stage Manager “requires a large internal memory, incredibly fast storage and flexible external I / O display, all of which come from the iPad with the M1 chip.”
The M1 iPad Pro comes with up to 16 GB of RAM and a Thunderbolt port, while the previous generation iPad Pro has 6 GB of RAM and a USB-C port. The M1 iPad Pro also has up to 2 times faster storage and up to 40% faster GPU performance than the previous model. The fifth-generation iPad Air is also equipped with the M1 chip, but the sixth-generation iPad mini and ninth-generation iPad are not.
Introduced as part of iPadOS 16, Stage Manager allows users to resize iPad apps in overlapping windows for an improved multitasking experience. The feature fully supports an external display with a resolution of up to 6K, which allows users to work with up to four iPad applications and up to four external display applications simultaneously. A version of Stage Manager is also available on macOS Ventura to support front and center windows.
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