When Apple announced Universal Control as part of macOS Monterey and iPadOS 15, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. It seemed like a feature no one had asked for, but one that Apple had realized could actually be incredibly useful. I was certainly impressed by the technical ambition. But would it be something I would ever use every day? I was skeptical.
It’s been about eight months since Universal Control arrived – remember it was announced in June 2021, but took nine months to release in March this year – and I’m finally ready to commit to Universal Control.
It is awesome. It’s one of my favorite additions to the operating system in recent memory. And most surprising of all, I’m using it in ways I never expected. This is why I’m thankful that Universal Control exists.
The iPad desk combo
I’ve never been a multi-monitor person, but this summer I started inviting my iPad to my desk. It started when I was trying to watch some live video — knowing me, probably a NASA TV space thing or a baseball game — and struggled to use Picture-in-Picture on my Mac. It kept covering parts of my apps and every so often I forgot it was playing in Safari and closed the tab. And I realized, why don’t I just put my iPad on my desk and let the video play there?
Apple
Once I put it there, it only took one over-enthusiastic movement of the trackpad and my pointer had broken through the side of my Mac screen and appeared on my iPad. The iPad was so rarely on my desk that I hadn’t even considered using Universal Control, but here it was. And it meant I didn’t have to take my hands off my keyboard tray to operate the apps on the iPad.
Now I realize macOS has had Sidecar for a few years now, a feature that lets you turn your iPad into a second screen for your Mac. But Universal Control, at least for how I work, is so much better. Most of the uses I have for the iPad are related to apps that run natively on the iPad. Why turn on Sidecar and drag a Safari window onto the screen when I can just use Universal Control to open Safari and visit that web page directly on my iPad?
I soon realized that I could put my calendar, Twitter, Slack, or Discord on that iPad and use it as an extra screen – and it was useful because the iPad still behaved like it did when I was using it alone. It didn’t feel weird or artificial like using Sidecar.
Unexpected delight
Universal Control is an impressive set of technologies. It shares a keyboard and trackpad across multiple devices, yes, but it also shares clipboards and even drag and drop between devices. Behind the scenes, Apple takes advantage of all the continuity features it’s added to its operating systems over the years, including AirDrop and Shared Clipboard. And, of course, this feature would never work if Apple hadn’t added pointer support in early 2020.
But knowing all that didn’t prepare me for the moment of unexpected delight I recently experienced. In recent months, I’ve been updating my book on Apple’s Photos app, which forces me to constantly compare Photos on the Mac with Photos on iOS and iPadOS. The whole process of comparing the two different versions of Photos has been made easier by the fact that I’m essentially using two computers on my desk – a Mac, an iPad, both powered by the same keyboard and trackpad.
Then came the magical moment. I took a screenshot on the iPad and the floating screenshot rectangle appeared on the iPad screen. You can tap this floating rectangle to instantly open the screenshot editor so you can make changes, delete, save, or copy to the clipboard. Or you can swipe away the floating rectangle and the image will just be saved to your photo library.
I had a thought. Would I? Did Apple also think of this? I needed that image on my Mac so I could process it and insert it into the book. Well, it couldn’t hurt to try. I moved my finger on my trackpad, the pointer came to the iPad, and I clicked and dragged that floating rectangle back to my Mac and dropped it on the desktop.
And reader, it just worked. Exactly as I estimated.
Drag and drop from an iPad to Mac? Yup.
Willis Lai/IDG
Macs can be friends
This summer I also had to get started with macOS Ventura without breaking all my software that required macOS Monterey. It’s been a problem for me for decades since I started reviewing macOS 20 years ago.
This summer I just put a MacBook Air on my desk next to my Studio Display and let Universal Control bridge the gap. Universal Control made it feel much more like I was using a single computer with two different operating systems. Not having to lift my hands and clumsily type on the MacBook Air when I wanted to use it seemed like a small thing, but it ended up making a huge difference to my workflow.
A surprising use of Universal Control
Finally, this week I discovered a surprising use of Universal Control that I never expected. I complained to a friend of mine about how I was having trouble properly testing external display support on the current iPadOS beta because it was so hard to disconnect my display, keyboard, and trackpad from my Mac and reconnect them to my iPad. to confirm. (I wanted to keep the same desk setup, but change it so that my iPad Pro drove the screen instead of my Mac Studio.)
My friend suggested I might give Universal Control a try. After all, wasn’t Mac Studio still running? Why detach the keyboard and trackpad altogether?
So I unplugged the cable from my Mac Studio to my Studio Display and plugged in the iPad Pro instead. So far, so good. Then I put my hand on my trackpad – still attached to my Mac – and imagined moving the pointer to the far right edge of the Mac screen and tucking it into the iPad.
Yep, it worked. And for the next few hours I used my iPad with an external display, all powered by a keyboard and trackpad still connected to a Mac, connected through Universal Control.
I have no idea if Apple ever intended its feature to be used this way, but I have to give it to Universal Control. It does its job, and the more I use it, the more it suits how I work. These days I have an iPad next to my desk, and while it’s not always on, I use it a lot more than I expected, all thanks to Universal Control.
