One of the shock hits of Apple’s WWDC 2024 was a new characteristic for desktops and laptops. In Sequoia, the new working system due this fall and now in public beta, you’ll be able to mirror your cellphone to your Mac. I’ve been testing the new characteristic for a bit, and it truly is what it seems like. You open up the cellphone mirroring app, and it presents you to… your iPhone. Rounded corners and every part. You click on on the backside bar to go house and click on and drag to go between apps, click on with your mouse, and sort with your keyboard. The solely chrome in the app seems once you hover your mouse up at the prime; there’s a button for going house and a button for opening the app switcher. You can’t even resize the window, which is at the moment way too small on my 4K monitor. It’s simply your iPhone. On your Mac. I do know what you’re pondering, and sure: this may all be higher if the Mac had a touchscreen or if it labored with your iPad. Alas. Even in our decidedly lesser actuality, I’ve been testing the new characteristic, and I’ve found a stunning variety of causes it’s helpful to give you the option to use my iPhone from my laptop computer. I’ve fired up cellphone mirroring to tweak my good thermostat, which you’ll solely do from the cellular app. I’ve used it repeatedly to AirDrop issues between my gadgets, which I can now do with out switching forwards and backwards between them. I can now reply to texts from my work laptop with out logging in to iMessage on my work laptop and management my music and podcasts with out always digging my cellphone out of my pocket. I like the Apple Journal app, and now I sort in it a lot extra from my laptop computer than on my cellphone.I believe I’ve used it most for managing notifications, although. When you begin mirroring your cellphone, you additionally begin mirroring its notifications, so every part that buzzes your iPhone additionally buzzes your Mac. I by no means realized how typically I seize my cellphone off the desk even whereas I’m sitting at my laptop, and mirroring requires much much less context switching. It has additionally made me conscious about simply what number of buzzes I get — for those who use cellphone mirroring, be ready to flip off a lot of notifications.Phone mirroring solely works if your cellphone is locked — but then connects fairly shortly. Image: David Pierce / The VergeI was in a position to get cellphone mirroring working fairly shortly utilizing my iPhone 15 Pro working the iOS 18 beta and my M1-powered Mac Mini working Sequoia. You have to enter your passcodes a couple of instances, and it’ll solely work for those who’re logged in to the identical Apple account on each gadgets, but it solely took me a couple of minutes to get going. (Some of my colleagues have had a tougher time, although, and as at all times with beta software program, it is best to tread very fastidiously.) There is one vital a part of the setup course of to point out, although: you determine early on whether or not you’ll want to enter a password each time you need to entry your cellphone. Unfettered entry to a cellphone is a huge deal, clearly, so select correctly.You can solely mirror your cellphone when it’s locked — your cellphone reveals a message that it’s being mirrored, and as quickly as you unlock it, your Mac will say “iPhone Mirroring has ended due to iPhone use.” If you’re utilizing mirroring on a MacEbook, the swiping and scrolling gestures map fairly cleanly to your trackpad. Ditto for those who’re on a desktop and utilizing a Magic Trackpad or Magic Mouse. But I use a Logitech mouse, and meaning a lot of stuff is damaged. I can’t scroll in a lot of apps, and I can’t swipe left or proper wherever. When I open TikTok, I’m caught on the first video in my feed endlessly and ever. I hope Apple will help extra gadgets or enable different gadgets to help mirroring, but I wouldn’t guess on it.Other than the enter points, most apps work such as you’d count on. Not all, although. Hit “play” on a Netflix film and the display screen will rotate to full-screen panorama and present you nothing but a black display screen. Netflix and different streaming apps clearly see your mirrored cellphone as an unsanctioned show and simply received’t enable it. I’ve additionally had hassle getting the Phone app to mirror correctly, which is odd — typically it’ll work, but different instances, it simply opens a black display screen. That is perhaps beta stuff, but I wouldn’t guess on the Netflix factor altering anytime quickly.The cellphone mirroring app has a tiny little bit of chrome but nearly no choices and nearly no buttons. Image: David Pierce / The VergeThe greatest factor lacking from cellphone mirroring proper now could be drag and drop between gadgets, which might immediately be the neatest thing about it. Apple says it’s coming later this yr, and I hope it’s straightforward to seize images, information, and every part else from my cellphone. I’d additionally like to give you the option to copy textual content or hyperlinks on my Mac and paste them onto my iPhone, which doesn’t work proper now. There are methods notifications may work higher, too: once you click on an iPhone notification, it’ll at all times open the related iPhone app, even if in case you have the corresponding app on your Mac. I had excessive hopes for cellphone mirroring as a distant monitoring setup for my iPhone digital camera, but whereas mirroring, you’ll be able to’t entry the iPhone’s digital camera or microphone in any respect. You can also’t use cellphone mirroring and Continuity Camera concurrently, which is a disgrace as a result of “I want one thing on my cellphone but my cellphone is at the moment my webcam” is a factor I encounter all the time and is the principal cause I don’t use Continuity Camera.Apple’s work with Handoff and Continuity has for years felt very cool but at all times barely unfinished; that is very much the identical. It works effectively, but there are a couple of apparent issues it might’t fairly do but.We’re still a few months away from macOS Sequoia and iOS 18 launching for actual, so there’s time for Apple to add and enhance a few of the options in cellphone mirroring. Even in a brief time, it has already turn into a frequent a part of my every day Mac routine. I’m utilizing my cellphone the identical quantity, but I’m it a lot much less. My Mac will get all my notifications now, and every time I want to do one thing on my cellphone, I simply fireplace up the cellphone mirroring app. It has felt for a whereas like Apple is attempting to smush all its working methods collectively to make all your gadgets really feel like one machine. Phone mirroring is a easy step in that course, but it’s a severely helpful one.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/16/24194370/ios-18-iphone-mirroring-mac-sequoia-preview