Apple brings limited Stage Manager to older iPads without M1 soc
Apple is bringing the iPadOS 16 Stage Manager feature to some older iPads that don’t have an M1 soc, though these tablets don’t support an external display. In addition, support for external displays will also be temporarily removed for other models with an iPadOS 16 beta version.
In addition to iPads with an M1 chipset, variants with an A12X and A12Z soc can expect some of the Stage Manager feature, confirms Apple versus Engadget. More specifically, these are the first generation 11″ iPad Pro and newer, and the third generation 12.9″ iPad Pro and newer. These variants were released in 2018 and for now only have access to Stage Manager on a single screen via the latest developer beta. Up to four simultaneously open apps on the screen are supported.
Apple writes, “Multi-display support is only possible with the full power of M1 iPads. In contrast, customers with third- and fourth-generation iPad Pros have also expressed their desire to be able to use the Stage Manager feature. We’ve been working hard to bring the single screen feature to those systems.”
Incidentally, Apple mentions in the public release notes nothing about the introduction of Stage Manager for the affected tablets, nor about the disappearance of support for more than one screen on M1 models. According to Engadget, Beta 5 would limit the feature in question. Meanwhile, version 10 of the developer beta is already out. With a later software update, Stage Manager should be reintroduced on M1 iPads, although it is not yet known when that will happen.
It is striking that Stage Manager is on the one hand extended to older iPads, while newer models are partly limited. The release of iPadOS was delayed this summer, according to Bloomberg, which was directly caused by problems with the relevant feature.
Stage Manager is the flagship of iPadOS 16 and allows you to manually drag and resize windows. In addition, apps are automatically organized and the function also works when an external display is connected to an iPad. Four simultaneously open apps per screen are supported.