Probably the biggest change announced by Apple with iPadOS 16 earlier this year is Stage Manager, an all-new multitasking system that adds resizable overlapping windows to the iPad. This feature also works on an external display, the first time iPads could do anything other than mirror their screen to a monitor. Unfortunately, the feature was limited to iPads with the M1 chip – which includes the 11- and 12.9-inch iPad Pro released in May 2021 as well as the M1-powered iPad Air that Apple released earlier this year. All other older iPads have been left out.
That changes with the latest iPadOS 16 developer beta, which has just been released. Now Apple makes Stage Manager work with a number of older devices: it will work on the 11-inch iPad Pro (first generation and later) and 12.9-inch iPad Pro (third generation and later). Specifically, it will be available on 2018 and 2020 models which use the A12X and A12Z chips rather than the M1 only. However, there is one notable feature missing for older iPad Pro models – Stage Manager will only work on the iPad’s built-in screen. You will not be able to extend your display to an external monitor.
Apple also reports that the iPadOS 16 beta 5 developer is removing external display support for Stage Manager on the iPad M1s, which has been present since the first iPadOS 16 beta was released a few years ago. month. It will be reintroduced in an upcoming software update later this year. Given that a portion of the iPad community has spoken out about problems with Stage Manager, especially when using it with an external display, it makes sense that Apple would take a little longer to continue working on it. .
I finally went ahead and *disabled* Stage Manager on my iPad Pro. For the moment.
Even though I like to use 3-4 apps at a time, the implementation is not there yet. Crash every few minutes; difficult to use several windows for the same application; The user interface is buggy everywhere.
I hope Apple delays this.
— Federico Viticci (@viticci) August 18, 2022
Obviously, we’ll have to try Stage Manager on an older iPad Pro before we can say how well it works, but the A12X and A12Z chips are still very powerful, so the experience should hopefully be no different than the iPad Pro. an iPad M1. It’s a shame that support for external monitors isn’t included, but that should still be good news for people who’ve purchased Apple’s most expensive iPads in the past few years.
Apple has provided Engadget with the following statement regarding this update:
We introduced Stage Manager as a whole new way to multitask with resizable overlapping windows on both the iPad screen and a separate external display, with the ability to run up to to eight live apps on screen at once. Providing this multi-screen support is only possible with the full power of M1-based iPads. Customers with 3rd and 4th generation iPad Pros have expressed strong interest in being able to experience Stage Manager on their iPads. In response, our teams worked hard to find a way to provide a single-screen version for these systems, with simultaneous support for up to four live apps on the iPad screen.
External display support for Stage Manager on M1 iPads will be available in a software update later this year.
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