Pavel Jelic If you use your Mac or MacBook for heavy work, you probably also have a second monitor connected to it. Thanks to the second monitor, clarity and, of course, the overall size of your desktop will increase, which is very important for more demanding work. But did you know that you can also connect an iPad to your Mac or MacBook as a second (or even third, or even fourth) monitor? If you have an old iPad lying around at home, or if you only use the iPad when you're not on your Mac, you can turn it into a device that expands your desktop even more.
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Until recently, specifically until the introduction of macOS 10.15 Catalina, you had to use a third-party application to connect the iPad desktop to a Mac or MacBook, along with small adapters that you connected to the devices. As part of macOS 10.15 Catalina, however, we got a new feature called Sidecar. What this function does is that it can easily turn your iPad into a sidecar for your Mac or MacBook, i.e. another display that can definitely be useful for demanding work. In the first versions of macOS Catalina, the Sidecar feature was full of bugs and there were also stability issues. But now it's been over half a year since macOS Catalina has been available, and Sidecar has come a long way in that time. Now I can confirm from my own experience that this is a practically flawless feature that can be useful for any of you,
How to activate the Sidecar function
In order to be able to activate Sidecar, you have to meet the only condition, and that is that both your devices, i.e. Mac or MacBook together with iPad, are on the same Wi-Fi network. The very functionality of Sidecar also depends on the quality and stability of your connection, which must be taken into account. If you have slow Wi-Fi, you can connect the iPad together with a Mac or MacBook using a cable. Once you have both devices connected, all you have to do is tap the icon in the upper right corner of macOS Airplay Here you just have to choose from the menu the name of your iPad and wait until the device connects. It should then appear immediately on the iPad Mac desktop extension. In case you want Mac content on iPad to mirror so open the box in the top bar again AirPlay and select from the menu option for mirroring. In case you want Sidecar, i.e. your iPad as an external display disconnect, so select the box again AirPlay and select option to disconnect.
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Sidecar settings in macOS
There are also various settings available within macOS that allow you to customize Sidecar even more. You can find them by tapping on in the upper left corner icon, and then select an option from the menu System Preferences… Once you do so, select the option in the new window that appears Sidecar. You can already set it here view and position of the sidebar, together with an option for displaying and setting the position of the Touch Bar. There is also an option for enable double tapping on Apple Pencil.
Although a good article, there is no mention of supported devices, which is quite important for functionality
This is more nonsense than the other. Do you have an old iPad lying around at home? Yes, yes, I happen to have an old iPad 2 and 4 lying around. Oh, they don't fit.
Nevermind. My iPad Pro will hopefully support it. I have a Mac mini 2014 and a Macbok Pro 2015. Ah, not supported.
At the same time, I have them all on the same Wi-Fi network, so I fulfill the only condition.ą
Put the article away.