

Most older machines are blacklisted from taking advantage of Sidecar, but some older Macs can use the feature via a Terminal command provided by developer Steve Troughton-Smith. Sidecar is limited to many newer Macs, and it is compatible with the following machines: In this spot, you can move the sidebar to the left or the right of the screen, move the Touch Bar to the bottom or the top of the screen, or enable double tap on Apple Pencil.
#Apple secondary display mac
If you click on the AirPlay icon while your Mac is connected to your iPad, you can see some quick controls for doing things like hiding the sidebar or hiding the Touch Bar, and there's also an option to swap between using the iPad as a separate display or mirroring the Mac's current display.Īdditional Sidecar options can be found by opening up System Preferences and choosing the Sidecar section. Touch Bar controls will pop up for Apple apps and for third-party apps that have implemented support for the Touch Bar. Even if your Mac doesn't naturally have a Touch Bar, these Touch Bar controls will show up.
#Apple secondary display pro
Sidecar also adds a Touch Bar to the bottom of the iPad, which is the same as the Touch Bar on the Touch Bar-compatible MacBook Pro models. Sidecar puts a control sidebar on your iPad for doing things like hiding or showing the dock, bringing up the on-screen keyboard, closing a window, or accessing controls like Shift, Command, Option, and Control. Using a wireless connection requires your iPad to be within 10 meters of your Mac, which is actually pretty far.

Using Sidecar over a wireless connection works well, though it might not work quite as well when connection speeds are low. Using a wired connection allows your iPad to charge and it should cut down on any latency issues you might see from a poor wireless connection. For a wired connection, you'll need an appropriate cable, such as a USB-C to USB-C cable for the newest iPad Pros or a USB-C to Lightning cable for Lightning-equipped iPad models. Your Mac can be connected to your iPad over a wired or wireless connection. When using a keyboard like Apple's Smart Keyboard with an iPad, the keyboard serves as an alternative to the Mac keyboard, letting you type like you would on the Mac in any open window. It's a great way to create art, edit photos, and more with the interactivity of your Apple Pencil but the power of your Mac. You can draw right in Photoshop or other similar Mac apps, which transforms the iPad into a graphics tablet for your Mac, not unlike a Wacom graphics tablet. In apps like Photoshop and Illustrator, the Apple Pencil does even more. Think of the Apple Pencil as a mouse or trackpad when using it with Sidecar. When using Sidecar, the Apple Pencil (first or second generation depending on your iPad) serves as a mouse alternative for clicking, selecting, and other on-screen control tasks. That's because Sidecar is not meant to bring touch controls to Mac - it's just a secondary display option. Sidecar is not designed to work with touch gestures, so while you can tap some on-screen control options or scroll through some webpages, you're mostly meant to control things with either the trackpad or mouse of your Mac or with the Apple Pencil.
#Apple secondary display windows
You can drag windows from the Mac to the iPad and vice versa, and interact with both using your Mac's trackpad. Sidecar is designed as a secondary Mac display, so it works like any other secondary display you might use with your Mac.

You can also get to Sidecar by clicking and holding the green window expansion button on any Mac app, and you can access Sidecar in the Sidecar section of System Preferences. When you click the AirPlay icon at the top of the Menu bar (it's the one that looks like a screen with an arrow), if you have an iPad that's compatible with Sidecar, it will show up in the AirPlay list.įrom there, simply choose the iPad that you want to connect to and it will automatically turn on and be activated as a secondary Mac display. The easiest way to get to Sidecar is to use the AirPlay interface on the Mac. There are multiple ways to activate Sidecar, all of which can be done from Catalina. Using Sidecar requires a compatible Mac running macOS Catalina or later and a compatible iPad running iOS 13 or later. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
