The plot thickens.
Apple has stated that iPadOS 16’s great-looking ‘Stage Manager’ multitasking feature won’t work on iPads that don’t feature its M1 chip because the functionality requires memory swap.
Memory swap allows the iPad’s internal storage to be used as virtual RAM when the tablet’s actual RAM is in use. However, it appears that the base-level iPad Air that only offers 64GB of internal storage won’t work with memory swap, likely because its internal storage just isn’t expansive enough.
In total, Apple says that Stage Manager can eat up as much as 16GB of internal storage as RAM.
Aside: TIL Virtual Memory Swap is only supported on iPad Air (M1) with 256GB of storage or higher.
Stage Manager works on iPad Air (M1) at all storage sizes, so swap is not a critical dependency. Curious little tidbit of information pic.twitter.com/FPnklFay6c
— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) June 14, 2022
On Apple’s website, the company says that memory swapping requires a minimum of 256GB of RAM and the M1 chip.
Though there’s likely a lot of truth to Apple’s claim that Stage Manager requires the power of the M1 chip to operate, the tech giant probably could have gotten the feature up and running other more recent versions of the tablet that offer ample storage and are nearly as powerful as the M1.
Stage Manager allows users to run up to eight apps at the same time in resizable windows that can be layered.
Source: Apple, @stroughtonsmith Via: 9to5Mac