Universal Control vs. Sidecar: How to Decide Which Mac Feature to Use

Apple now has two methods to get work achieved along with your Mac and iPad: Universal Control, at the moment showing in beta variations of iPadOS and macOS, and Sidecar, which was launched again in 2019. If you’re unsure about what these two options truly provide, how they can be utilized, or what the distinction is between them, we’re right here to supply some readability.

You could be forgiven for getting confused when you’re not super-clear about what makes Universal Control completely different from Sidecar or vice versa. They each make it simpler to make use of a Mac with an iPad, they each depend on utilizing the identical Apple ID on the identical wifi community, and so they each perform just about mechanically when all the things is about up.

The TL;DR model of that is that Sidecar extends your Mac’s show to your iPad, whereas Universal Control helps you to use your Mac’s keyboard and mouse (or trackpad) to manage each your Mac and your iPad. Sidecar focuses on shows, whereas Universal Control focuses on enter gadgets.

How to Use Sidecar

Sidecar helps you to use your iPad as a secondary show in your Mac pc, nearly as when you plugged an exterior monitor into it. It’ll work by way of a USB or Lightning cable, or wirelessly so long as your gadgets are signed into the identical Apple ID and on the identical wifi community.

You want a Mac operating macOS Catalina or later, and an iPad operating iPadOS 13 or later. For Macs, the function is supported again to the 2016 MacEbook Pro, the 2016 MacEbook, the 2018 MacEbook Air, the 2015 iMac, the 2018 Mac Mini, the 2019 Mac Pro, or the iMac Pro; for iPads, the oldest supported gadgets are the 2018 iPad, the 2019 iPad Mini, the 2019 iPad Air, or any iPad Pro. All newer Macs and tablets ought to work.

If you’re taking the wi-fi choice, you want wifi and Bluetooth enabled on each gadgets, and the Handoff syncing function must be enabled as effectively: It’s below General and AirPlay & Handoff within the iPad Settings, and below General within the Mac System Preferences. Then Sidecar ought to work seamlessly.

The function could be activated from the Control Center icon within the menu bar on macOS. If all the things has been arrange accurately, the iPad machine will present up as a show choice. Select it, and the Mac display screen extends to the iPad show; when you’d fairly mirror the screens as an alternative, this may be configured from Control Center too. Further choices can be found by way of Sidecar in System Preferences on the Mac.

Program home windows could be moved over to the iPad by dragging them or through the use of the transfer choice that seems when the cursor hovers over the inexperienced full display screen button. The touchscreen performance in your iPad gained’t work along with your Mac apps, although when you’ve received an Apple Pencil then this can work as regular—solely you’ll be tapping and drawing on macOS fairly than iPadOS. What’s extra, you should utilize the Sidecar icon within the iPad dock to leap between iPad apps and the secondary display screen performance.

How Universal Control Works

More lately, Apple launched Universal Control. Here it’s the keyboard and mouse (or trackpad) which can be shared, not the shows. Your iPad retains on operating iPadOS as regular, and your Mac retains on operating macOS, and you’ll be able to truly use two Macs for Universal Control if you might want to, however not two iPads.

The {hardware} necessities are literally the identical as they’re for Sidecar: The identical Macs and iPads are supported, you want the newest variations of the software program on each (on the time of writing it’s solely within the beta editions of iPadOS and macOS), and each gadgets must be signed into the identical Apple ID and on the identical community. Handoff must be enabled within the settings in your iPad and your Mac, as with Sidecar.

On your iPad, open Settings after which select General and AirPlay & Handoff to seek out the Cursor and Keyboard toggle swap—this must be on in addition to Handoff. With all of the setup achieved, you need to be capable of transfer the cursor to the sting of your Mac display screen, and after a brief delay it would seem over in your iPad. You can then management your pill utilizing the mouse (or trackpad) and keyboard connected to your Mac.

The shows aren’t prolonged as they’re with Sidecar, however the cursor can transfer between them freely. There are a couple of further tips: You can drag and drop information between sure Mac and iPad apps, for instance, and you may add a second Mac to the combo when you’ve received an entire room stuffed with Apple merchandise. The Apple Pencil isn’t supported as a cross-platform enter machine, and this solely works wirelessly with out cables.

iPadOS has supported mouse and keyboard management for some time, and Universal Control works greatest when your iPad is stood up and shut by your Mac. It’s like having a number of gadgets managed by the identical enter peripherals—and that clearly helps with sure workflows and productiveness on the whole, when you spend quite a lot of time switching between tablets and computer systems.

So there you will have it—two applied sciences which have sure similarities however which can be truly fairly completely different. Expect Apple so as to add extra performance and customization choices sooner or later as each Sidecar and Universal Control evolve, blurring the strains even additional between iPads and Macs.