Apple, in a statement to Rene Ritchie:

Stage Manager is a fully integrated experience that provides all-new windowing experience that is incredibly fast and responsive and allow users to run 8 apps simultaneously across iPad and an external display with up to 6K resolution. Delivering this experience with the immediacy users expect from iPad’s touch-first experience requires large internal memory, incredibly fast storage, and flexible external display I/O, all of which are delivered by iPads with the M1 chip.

A lot of folks with 2018 iPad Pros and 2020 iPad Airs are pretty upset about this move, especially given the fact that the Apple silicon DTK ran on an A12Z My guess is that the company just wasn’t happy with the performance of Stage Manager on those older iPads.

2022-06-13 Update: Craig Federighi has chimed in on this, in an interview with Matthew Panzarino:

“Building to M1 was critical as well,” says Federighi. “From the start, the iPad has always maintained this extremely high standard for responsiveness and interactivity. That directness of interaction in that every app can respond to every touch instantaneously, as if you are touching the real thing underneath the screen. And I think it’s hard sometimes for people to appreciate the technical constraints involved in achieving that.

“And as you add multiple apps into play, and large amounts of screen real estate, you have to make sure that any one of those apps can respond instantaneously to touch in a way that you don’t have that expectation with a desktop app. Indirect manipulation gives you some slack there, so it’s a different set of constraints.”

He also mentions that older iPads don’t have the horsepower to push external displays in the way Apple wants. The whole thing is worth a read.

David Smith, writing about WWDC 2022:

This year, more than any I can remember, WWDC was the tangible manifestation of Apple’s genuine care for developers, and their desire to facilitate us to do our best work.

Mark Gurman, writing at Bloomberg:

The 15-inch model under development is a wider version of the 13.6-inch MacBook Air that Apple announced this week. That design, unveiled at the developers event Monday, is thinner than recent models, relies on the M2 chip and abandons the previous wedge-shaped frame. It’s considered to be the biggest overhaul to the MacBook Air since it was introduced by Steve Jobs in 2008.

Apple has also begun work on a new 12-inch laptop and is considering launching it at the end of 2023 or in early 2024. If Apple moves forward with the release, it would represent the company’s smallest laptop since it discontinued the 12-inch MacBook in 2019.

I think both of these machines would make a lot of sense, especially the larger Air. A lot of folks like bigger screens, but won’t — or can’t — shell out for a MacBook Pro. David Sparks and I have been talking about a 15-inch MacBook Air for a quite a while on Mac Power Users, and I think it would be a hit.

Just imagine this line-up:

• 12-inch MacBook
• 13-inch MacBook Air
• 14-inch MacBook Pro
• 15-inch MacBook Air
• 16-inch MacBook Pro

I kinda dig it.

The new MacBook Air with M2 looks like it’s going to be a great machine. I was really impressed by it during my hands-on time at the Steve Jobs Theater on Monday.

The other M2 machine is a bit of a head-scratcher though:

That’s actually a press photo from the 2016 MacBook Pro’s introduction, but you probably didn’t even notice, as the new M2 machine continues to use the same design, including the Touch Bar and the lack of MagSafe.

That in and of itself is a tragedy, but what this machine does to the overall notebook lineup is even worse. This comparison page on Apple’s website shows how much the M1 Air, M2 Air and M2 MacBook Pro overlap, all with very similar price points.

I understand why the M1 MacBook Air is sticking around at $999. That’s a critical price point for Apple, but having the M2 Air and M2 Pro just $100 apart doesn’t make much sense to me, especially given that the Air is a better machine for the vast majority of people.

This graphic by MKBHD does a great job comparing the two M2 models, after speccing them both to cost the same $1,499:

Some have said that the 13-inch MacBook Pro has stuck around to hold the $1,299 price point, or to give people who want a “Pro” machine an option that doesn’t come with the $1,999 starting price point the 14-inch MacBook Pro has. It’s also (apparently) popular with corporations who buy in bulk. There are reasons it’s Apple’s second-best selling computer.

I understand those reasons and I know that Tim Cook’s Apple loves using older hardware to keep prices down, but I think this machine does more harm than good when it comes to product clarity in the MacBook line.

At least the Touch Bar enthusiasts still get a win.

I’m writing this sitting on a couch in an apartment in San Jose that I rented for the week with everyone’s favorite Widgetmaker, David Smith. He’s hard at work doing … developer things … as I catch up on sessions, blog posts and more.

I was fortunate enough to get an invite to attend the Keynote on Monday, joining about 1,000 developers and a bunch of press people at Apple Park.

I’ve been traveling for WWDC since 2013, but this was my second time to be at the Keynote itself. 2019 — the last in-person WWDC keynote — was my first to attend in person.

As I’ve absorbed the news Apple announced and played with betas of iPadOS and iOS 16 as well as macOS Ventura, I’ve also gotten to spend time with friends who I haven’t seen in three years. Sitting here now, I can’t help but notice the thread running through all of it:

It’s all about the ecosystem.

For Apple, that means pushing new features to the iPhone, iPad and Mac at the same time … for the most part. Hopefully, the days of the iPhone leading the way with cool new features for the other platforms to pick up a year or two later are behind us.

This gets everyone a little closer to Apple’s ideal world of users seamlessly — and often — moving between their devices, picking up an iPhone or opening a MacBook Air just as their needs change, moment to moment.

For Mac enthusiasts, it brings great relief. Not that long ago, many in the Mac community feared their beloved platform was being slowly forgotten about within Apple, left to wither as the iPhone and iPad bloomed in the light of the company’s attention.

While I do think Apple took its eye off the ball when it came to the Mac for a little while, I think fear of its demise was overblown. Apple has certainly shown its love for the Mac in terms of Apple silicon, but also in macOS releases that keep it lock-step with the iPhone and iPad.

The other side of the software coin is all the people that make it possible. From developers, to members of the media, to folks at Apple, everyone I spoke to this week remarked at how nice it was to see folks again.

For many of us, WWDC22 marked the first time we’ve traveled for work in a long time, and while there certainly are still risks with COVID, I feel like Apple did a good job at reducing those risks while having so many people together in one place.

I hope that Apple uses this format for WWDC moving forward. It seems to strike a good balance between reaching its nearly 40 million developers while still giving in-person access to a small group. Things like virtual labs should continue, while the new Developer Center let Apple do more in-person, year-round. I really think WWDC will come out of the pandemic better than it was before, and that’s pretty exciting.

This year, Apple moved the bar with its OS system requirements in some big ways…

macOS Ventura brings with it a new, shorter list of supported machines that no longer includes any Mac notebooks made before 2017, the 2013 Mac Pro, and iMacs from 2015:

• iMac: 2017 and later
• Mac Pro: 2019 and later
• iMac Pro: 2017
• Mac Studio: 2022
• MacBook Air: 2018 and later
• Mac mini: 2018 and later
• MacBook Pro: 2017 and later
• MacBook: 2017 and later

(Not all features are available for Intel Macs.)

Meanwhile, iOS 16 will run on the iPhone SE 2 and 3, and iPhone 8 and higher. This cuts off the original iPhone SE and the 6S and 7 lines, which were supported by iOS 15.

Additionally, no iPod touch will run iOS 16.

On the iPadOS front, these devices will run 16:

• iPad Pro (all models)
• iPad Air (3rd generation and later)
• iPad (5th generation and later)
• iPad mini (5th generation and later)

This list trims a handful of older iPads and iPad minis that can run iPadOS 15.

watchOS 9 is perhaps the most and least surprising, as it drops support for the Apple Watch Series 3. Which is still for sale, somehow.