iOS 15.4 and macOS Monterey 12.3<\/a>, and if you can make it work in your setup, you really ought to try it.<\/p>\nIf you haven\u2019t heard of Universal Control, it basically lets you use your Mac\u2019s keyboard and mouse or trackpad to control your iPad (or another Mac, though I haven\u2019t been able to test that). Just nudge your cursor to the side of your Mac\u2019s monitor, and it\u2019ll jump on over to the iPad like it was another monitor hooked up to your Mac. But it\u2019s not a Mac monitor \u2014 it\u2019s still an iPad. Just one that you can control with the keyboard and trackpad you were using seconds ago with your Mac.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve been able to use iPads as wired or wireless external Mac monitors for many years through official or third-party means. With Universal Control, though, you\u2019re still using iPad OS on the iPad\u2019s screen \u2014 you just don\u2019t have to take your hands off your Mac\u2019s input devices to get there. It\u2019s multitasking between multiple OSes and devices instead of just multiple apps.<\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/source><\/picture>\n
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When you first connect, your cursor \u201cpushes through\u201d from the Mac\u2019s screen to the iPad\u2019s.<\/em><\/figcaption>Screenshot by Sam Byford \/ The Verge<\/cite><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
Why would you want to do that? Fair question. I haven\u2019t been using iPadOS as much as a primary work operating system since Apple decided to start making good laptops again, but there are still things that I prefer it for over macOS. In particular, it\u2019s best for focused use cases where you only need one or two things on-screen at once. Social media and entertainment apps are usually better on the iPad than the Mac, for example, if the Mac even has a native app in the first place. I spent today mostly working on my Mac Mini with Slack and Twitter pinned to my iPad Pro screen on the side, sometimes switching to the YouTube app for research. Hey, anything to cut down on browser tabs and Electron apps.<\/p>\n
\n
Bridging the gap between operating systems<\/q><\/aside>\n<\/div>\nWhat\u2019s really impressive about Universal Control is that it bridges the gap between the two operating systems, making it more than just a neat way to get around Bluetooth re-pairing. You can drag a file from your iPad right over to your Mac desktop and vice versa. Copy and paste works perfectly. It means that any work I do on one machine can instantly be brought over to the other. You don\u2019t even need to set anything up \u2014 just put your iPad next to your Mac, try to move the cursor across the screens, and Universal Control will figure out what you\u2019re trying to do. It doesn\u2019t require Apple peripherals, either. I\u2019ve been using it with my Magic Trackpad alongside a Happy Hacking Keyboard hooked up over Mini USB, of all things.<\/p>\n\n<\/aside>\nThis must have been a huge technical and design challenge. Universal Control is actually arriving later than expected; it was announced at Apple\u2019s last Worldwide Developers Conference in June last year but hasn\u2019t been ready until now. The extra time seems to have been worth the wait, though, because it\u2019s worked almost seamlessly for me. That hasn\u2019t been the case with Sidecar, Apple\u2019s feature that turns the iPad into a conventional external Mac monitor, which has always been laggy and unreliable in my experience.<\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/source><\/picture>\n
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Here\u2019s how you can enable or disable Universal Control in System Preferences. As you can see, it\u2019s still listed as a beta feature.<\/em><\/figcaption>Screenshot by Sam Byford \/ The Verge<\/cite><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
Even after its delayed public release, Apple does still list Universal Control in System Preferences as a feature that\u2019s in beta. I haven\u2019t run into any major problems, but today, I did need to turn it on and off a couple of times to get it to connect at first. Hopefully, that\u2019s something that gets ironed out soon enough when Apple feels ready to remove the beta label.<\/p>\n
In beta state, though, Universal Control is already an example of Apple at its best. This isn\u2019t an obvious feature or one that thousands of people will have been crying out for. But it is a feature that\u2019s made possible by the fact that there are a lot of iPads and Macs out there that Apple has full control of the software for and a feature that will make a relatively small number of people very happy through its sheer wizardry. Count me among those people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Source: https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/3\/16\/22980566\/universal-control-ios-macos-mac-ipad-hands-on<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Source: It\u2019s been a good month for Mac desktop setup aficionados. Apple just released the Studio Display, its first vaguely affordable (as in not $6,000) new monitor in more than a decade. But there\u2019s another new option that I\u2019ve been testing that flips the entire idea of an external monitor on its head. Universal Control […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,8],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-1673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apple","category-technology","tag-apple"],"yoast_head":"\n
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