Some of the best iPadOS 16 features are only for the latest and most expensive iPads

The first release of iPadOS 16 for the iPad, iPadOS 16.1, arrived on Monday, October 24, and it’s a major update. In addition to iOS 16 features, including editing sent messages and passwords, many new iPad-only features are also coming to help Apple’s tablet evolve from a larger version of the iPhone to its own device.

That progress comes with some trade-offs, but the main one is that some of the new features only work on iPads that use an M1 or M2 chip rather than an A-series processor. In other words, you need one of the latest iPad Pros or the latest iPad Air to run several of the new iPadOS 16.1 features — and some of them have even stricter requirements. Here is an overview of the features that require an M1 or M2 processor or other hardware requirements.

Read more: Macs that don’t have M1 or M2 series chips also fail. Read If you don’t have an M1 or M2 Mac, you won’t get these Ventura features.

Stage manager

Stage Manager is a new multitasking user interface and the main feature of iPadOS 16.1. Apple originally said it needs an M1 iPad, but it has recently relaxed those restrictions so it can now work on iPad Pros that use A12X (2018) and A12Z (2020) chips. However, these A-series iPad Pros still can’t run Stage Manager on an external display, and it sounds like Apple has no plans to make it work in a later update.

External display support

External display support works on iPad Pros with an M1 or M2 and works at resolutions up to 6K. Apps can be accessed from the external display, drag and drop works between the display and the iPad Pro and Stage Manager is supported. However, Apple recently announced that full support for external displays will not be available when iPadOS 16.1 is released. Instead, it will be included in an iPadOS 16 update later this year.

Reference mode:

Reference Mode, a feature on M-series Macs, is the ability to display reference colors, which is necessary in high-end production environments. iPadOS 16.1 also has a new Reference mode, but requires a Liquid Retina XDR display, which is only available on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

Magnifying Glass Detection Mode and Door Detection

Magnifier in iPadOS 16.1 has an accessibility feature called Detection Mode, which provides descriptions of doors, people, and images. Door detection goes further and can read signs around a door and figure out how to open it. To use these new detection tools, you need a 4th, 5th, or 6th generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro or a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th generation 11-inch iPad Pro with an A12Z, M1, or M2 processor.

Switch virtual memory

This feature allows the M1 and M2 based iPads to allocate SSD storage space for use as RAM, up to 16 GB. However, to use this feature on an M1 iPad Air, the device must have a minimum of 256 GB of storage. The iPad Pros have no such limitation.