Stage Manager: All iPads Are Created Equal (kinda)
Why you should care about Apple's announcement
“The Stage Manager controversy doesn’t look to be going away anytime soon” - Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac (June 14, 2022)
“You can imagine anyone who bought an iPad Pro in 2018 or 2020, both of which are very capable devices, might be a bit mad” - Jason Aten, Inc. (June 19, 2022)
“The entire Stage Manager controversy is a huge mess” - Christine Chan, iMore (June 19, 2022)
When Apple announced that Stage Manager would only be available for M1 iPads, literally everyone was mad (including me). It felt like a giant middle finger to 2020 iPad Pro owners - a device just two years old was already missing out on one of the biggest software updates to iPads in a long time.
That’s not something we expect from Apple.
And thankfully, Apple realized that: last week they announced that Stage Manager is coming to the 2018 and 2020 iPad Pros (no external monitor support though).
Here’s why every Apple user should care:
To Non-M1 iPad Users
Other than the obvious benefit of using Stage Manager, the announcement last week makes me feel that Apple genuinely wants to support non-M1 iPads.
After WWDC, though, the atmosphere was completely different.
Stage Manager and external monitor support were some of the biggest updates to iPadOS in years. If an iPad just two years old at the time (the 2020 iPad Pro in 2022) couldn’t support it, would any non-M1 iPad ever receive major updates in the future?
While external monitor support is still unavailable, the introduction of Stage Manager makes me and other 2020 iPad Pro owners feel “safer” going into the future.
For non-M1 non-iPad Pro owners, however, there doesn’t seem to be much of a change - Apple only opened up Stage Manager to the 2018 and 2020 iPad Pros.
However, Apple’s decision to pay attention to older devices likely means that they’re also paying attention to your device.
To M1 iPad Users
While I don’t think it should be a reason to restrict access to Stage Manager, there is a performance difference between the M1 iPads and the 2018/2020 iPad Pros.
Here’s a comparison of the Geekbench scores (the M1 iPad Air has the same chip as the 2021 iPad Pro):
Single-Core
2021 iPad Pro: 1704
2020 iPad Pro: 1121
2018 iPad Pro: 1142
Multi-Core
2021 iPad Pro: 7207
2020 iPad Pro: 4663
2018 iPad Pro: 4764
Metal
2021 iPad Pro: 21111
2020 iPad Pro: 11975
2018 iPad Pro: 11778
In terms of RAM, the 2018 iPad Pro has 4 GB of RAM (the 1 TB version has 6 GB), the 2020 iPad Pro has 6 GB of RAM, and the 2021 iPad Pro has 8 GB of RAM (the 1 TB and 2 TB versions have 16 GB).
In simple terms, the M1 iPad Pro is way more powerful than previous generations.
Knowing Apple, they would only release Stage Manager to the older iPad Pros if they knew they could handle it.
And if these older devices can handle Stage Manager decently, your M1 iPad will handle it exceptionally.
To Everyone
To everyone else, this shift means Apple is willing to compromise.
That’s important because Apple has consistently been stubborn in the past:
The shift in views over Stage Manager shows me that Apple is listening. They may not be perfect (after all, I still don’t get external monitor support), but they are willing to compromise.
And that makes me feel like a valued customer (pretty good PR work from Apple’s end).
Hopefully, Apple’s change in attitude towards customers sticks for the long run.
Final Thoughts
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” - Bill Gates
Thanks for reading!
Adi