IPadOS 16

iPadOS 16's Stage Manager feature has been criticized by various sources for only being supported by certain iPad models with an M1 chip or M2 chip owing to strict performance requirements. In an interview with TechCrunch, Craig Federighi explained: “It’s only the M1 iPads that combined the high DRAM capacity with very high capacity, high-performance NAND that allows our virtual memory swap to be super fast”.^[11] It was later discovered that the feature is disabled for older devices by an internal setting.^[12] Due to criticism, a single-screen version of Stage Manager was added on 2018 and 2020 iPad Pros in iPadOS 16.1 beta.^[13] Apple later provided a statement to Engadget, stating that “…customers with iPad Pro 3rd and 4th generation have expressed strong interest in being able to experience Stage Manager on their iPads. In response, our teams have worked hard to find a way to deliver a single-screen version for these systems, with support for up to four live apps on the iPad screen at once”.^[14]

External display support for Stage Manager on M1 iPads was delayed until further notice by Apple due to instability, and was brought back in the iPadOS 16.2 update.^[15][16][17]

Stage Manager was also criticized for being "hard to use" and some reviewers and critics called the feature "fundamentally misguided".^[18]

The lack of iOS 16's lock screen customization features was also criticized by reviewers such as David Pierce from The Verge.^[19] iPadOS had a hidden lock screen customization app named PosterBoard which included the iOS 16’s lock screen customization features in iPadOS 16 Beta 1.^[20]

iPadOS 16 requires iPads with an A9 or A9X SoC or later, and drops support for the iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 4, which include an A8X and A8 chip, respectively. This also marks the second time Apple has dropped support for older 64-bit iPads. The iPad (5th generation) is the only supported iPad without Apple Pencil support. Alongside dropping support for the iPad Mini 4, the iPad Mini (5th generation) is the only supported iPad with the exclusive 7.9-inch display.

iPads with an A9 or A9X SoC have limited support. iPads with an A10 or A10X SoC get additional features that are unavailable on older iPads.

iPads with an A12, A13, A14, or A15 SoC has partial support.

iPads with an A12X or A12Z has almost full support.

iPads with an M-series SoC have full support.

iPads that support iPadOS 16 are as follows.

• iPad (5th generation) or later
• iPad Air (3rd generation) or later
• iPad Mini (5th generation) or later
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (1st generation)
• iPad Pro 9.7-inch
• iPad Pro 10.5-inch (2nd generation)
• iPad Pro 11-inch

The first developer beta of iPadOS 16 was released on June 6, 2022. The first public release, iPadOS 16.1, was officially released on October 24, 2022.

See Apple's official release notes, and official security update contents.