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I have a really random question about Stage Manager 😅 Can you plug in or Airplay the iPad Pro onto a Mac desktop (like iMac) and use Stage Manager, or is it exclusively only for external monitors?
I would be surprised if that was possible since Apple did not advertise it, but maybe Stage Manager via Airplay could be coming in iPadOS 17 or 18.
 
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I would love it if they expand on Universal control and let you use the Mac / iPad as an external display with this stage manager
- when you’re on the mac the iPad can be used as the external display (bit like sidecar now)
- when you’re on the iPad the mac can be the external display

Since both MacOS and iPadOS use the stage manager feature it should theoretically be possible
 
I would be surprised if that was possible since Apple did not advertise it, but maybe Stage Manager via Airplay could be coming in iPadOS 17 or 18.

I thought this might be the case. Thank you for the clarification! ☺️
 
It was only weeks ago that people were talking down to anyone who bought a 5th gen air because it didn't do much more than the 4th gen. How the turn tables.

Not really. Most of the discussion was Air 5 vs Pro 11 (both 2020 refurb and 2021).

After the Air 5 was released, I don’t think there were many who were still recommending to buy the Air 4 (except as another budget option vs iPad 9 with the clearance sales). Now sure, most here don’t recommend existing Air 4 users to upgrade to the Air 5.

Whether it’s worth it to upgrade right now or wait for the next gen depends on how much one needs Stage Manager and external monitor support. To be honest, I personally don’t think I’d be using either of these features much if at all.
 
It was both. Plenty of people bought an air 4 at a discount or refurb and felt the need to justify it to the world by diminishing the air 5.

I don’t think there were actually that many. Just a few who were posting in various threads again and again.
 
just tried the stage manager. first of all, the name can't be weirder. Just as someone already pointed out, this can be implemented with the current bottom bar, why does it need another vertical bar to take already limited real state. switching apps, minimizing apps are also confusing. Overall, it is an overengineered feature, it can be much simpler.
People said they wanted floating windows, now they must look at what they have wrought, they wanted a faster horse and they got one...
 
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Yes, you can manually resize windows and hide/show the the side menu along with the dock.View attachment 2014977
To me that looks to have minimal utility over the previous solution, I mean, I really, when am I actually going to want 4 apps in compact mode? I wanted slide-over to get the option to be regular size class width so that I could get access to a better UI when sliding things over for quick access.

They could have given us 3 or 4 wide split view and it would have been panned but because this has the magical property of allowing arbitrary resizing it is suddenly good... annoying
 
Basically, iPadOS 16 is like a 15.6 update for all iPads except the M1. I installed it to my 2018 iPad pro and there's literally nothing new worth mentioning. Even the new lock screen isn't coming to the iPad this year. Its one of the worst update in years.
I definitely sympathize with non-M1 iPad Pro owners, especially with the 2018 and 2020 models. They are super powerful tablets who now do not benefit from 2 big features many were asking for: multitasking and full external monitor support. I think it was a weird move by Apple. Maybe it is simply down to RAM management, but devices with far less RAM have been able to manage window support and external monitor support for years.
 
IMO Split-screen has always been bad in portrait; apps too narrow and too much vertical space. Will someone please post a photo of what the same Stage-Manager group looks like in portrait.

I do agree that at least the 2020 iPPs should have gotten display support if not StageManager.
 
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It's not a true window multitasking on the iPad but there's many useful aspects about it. And of course much better to have a real external monitor support than what we have currently.
 
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It's not a true window multitasking on the iPad but there's many useful aspects about it. And of course much better to have a real external monitor support than what we have currently.
Does window multitasking buy you much? I don't think it does, but it is nice to have something rather than nothing for external monitor support...
 
I saw all the work on this, which is probably helpful for someone on larger iPads, and I thought..

..please tell me they are putting some work into making iPadOS 16 scale better on iPad Minis!

That got totally hosed in iOS15 and has been a turn off to many Mini buyers
 
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I have to be honest I think external screen support is a bit "meh" - its really missing some kind of "snapping" feature.
I don't see too many scenario's where I really want "overlapping" windows - to be honest I'd like to be able to do what I can on Windows/Samsung DEX where I can just have 3/4 apps in a grid using all of the screen.

It seems currently like you can use one app full-screen but as soon as there's 2 they go into "Window mode" and its all but impossible to say get them to be 50/50 - maybe I'm missing something.
They could have brought split-view and slideover to the external display but people have been crying about how only floating windows is true multitasking for years now, so they gave them what they asked for rather than trying to find ways to improve the existing system (regular size class width slide-over)...
 
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People said they wanted floating windows, now they must look at what they have wrought, they wanted a faster horse and they got one...

Personally, I’m happier about the VM swap support than the windowing stuff. I’m not gonna connect my iPad to external display anyway and I already find the screen too small for split view + slide over. Display Zoom on the 12.9” sounds useful though.
 
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Personally, I’m happier about the VM swap support than the windowing stuff. I’m not gonna connect my iPad to external display anyway and I already find the screen too small for split view + slide over. Display Zoom on the 12.9” sounds useful though.
I wish the external display was getting slideover/split-view. I use splitview on my iPad Pro all the time (11”) but would use it even more if I had a 12.9” since it would get me both apps in regular size class mode rather than having to keep 1/3 + 2/3 on the 11” which I have to use now
 
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I definitely sympathize with non-M1 iPad Pro owners, especially with the 2018 and 2020 models. They are super powerful tablets who now do not benefit from 2 big features many were asking for: multitasking and full external monitor support. I think it was a weird move by Apple. Maybe it is simply down to RAM management, but devices with far less RAM have been able to manage window support and external monitor support for years.

Could be GPU as well. I noticed Metal 3 is limited to A13 and newer. GB5 Metal is around 21000 for M1 and 11000-12000 for A12X and A12Z.
 
Could be GPU as well. I noticed Metal 3 is limited to A13 and newer. GB5 Metal is around 21000 for M1 and 11000-12000 for A12X and A12Z.
That’s an interesting catch - I wonder what the GPU limitations are on the mac - can it run Stage Manager with a weaker GPU than the one in the A12X?
 
That’s an interesting catch - I wonder what the GPU limitations are on the mac - can it run Stage Manager with a weaker GPU than the one in the A12X?

Intel-based Macs, yes, I do think Stage Manager works.

I was mostly referring to extended display support. The M1 was designed with dual monitors in mind (Mac mini - 2x monitors, M1 MBA - native + 1x external). I don’t think there were any such considerations for the A12X/Z.

Adding support for the M1 is low hanging fruit. It already works on the Mac so it’s easier to port it over for M1 iPads.

I didn’t see any reviews for the DTK Mac mini (NDA, I guess). From an off-hand comment from this blog post though, I reckon implementation and stability testing on A12X/Z would require more effort.


From what I have heard from developers who have access to the DTK, most are very happy to send them back. It appears the DTK minis are at best alpha level hardware. There are reports of many hardware and software issues.
 
Intel-based Macs, yes, I do think Stage Manager works.

I was mostly referring to extended display support. The M1 was designed with dual monitors in mind (Mac mini - 2x monitors, M1 MBA - native + 1x external). I don’t think there were any such considerations for the A12X/Z.

Adding support for the M1 is low hanging fruit. It already works on the Mac so it’s easier to port it over for M1 iPads.

I didn’t see any reviews for the DTK Mac mini (NDA, I guess). From an off-hand comment from this blog post though, I reckon implementation and stability testing on A12X/Z would require more effort.
The thing is, most of the A series of SoCs in recent years can already run external displays, if the App developer supports it they are perfectly capable of driving an external display fullscreen. This makes me lean towards it being an artificial limitation.
 
Intel-based Macs, yes, I do think Stage Manager works.

I was mostly referring to extended display support. The M1 was designed with dual monitors in mind (Mac mini - 2x monitors, M1 MBA - native + 1x external). I don’t think there were any such considerations for the A12X/Z.

Adding support for the M1 is low hanging fruit. It already works on the Mac so it’s easier to port it over for M1 iPads.

I didn’t see any reviews for the DTK Mac mini (NDA, I guess). From an off-hand comment from this blog post though, I reckon implementation and stability testing on A12X/Z would require more effort.
Yes that's the funny part, Intel Macs can run Stage Manager but not A12Z... So much for the M1 unified memory theory...
 
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