Apple is increasing how its cross-platform Continuity options work in 2024, introducing an iPhone Mirroring possibility in macOS Sequoia and iOS 18. Because the identify suggests, iPhone Mirroring allows you to management your iPhone along with your Mac.
This information walks by means of the entire iPhone Mirroring options and explains the way it works.
iPhone Mirroring Fundamentals
After upgrading to iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia, there is a new iPhone Mirroring app within the Dock, and that is the way you begin an iPhone Mirroring session.
- Out of your Mac’s Dock, click on on the iPhone Mirroring app.
- Click on on Proceed on the pop-up informational display screen.
- Choose the iPhone that you simply need to use when you have a couple of iPhone.
- Unlock your iPhone with a passcode to permit the connection.
- Click on on Get Began.
- Use Contact ID on the Mac to authenticate (alternatively, enter your password).
Once you begin up iPhone Mirroring for the primary time, you possibly can choose to have it require authentication with each connection or to permit a connection robotically. When you select automated authentication, you’ll not must authenticate with Contact ID or a password to make use of iPhone Mirroring when your Mac is unlocked.
In any other case, you’ll need to authenticate in your Mac every time you need to use iPhone Mirroring. Be aware that an iPhone must be locked whereas an iPhone Mirroring session is in progress, so you possibly can’t use your iPhone whereas it is being mirrored to your Mac.
In case your iPhone will not be locked and also you try and provoke iPhone Mirroring out of your Mac, you’re going to get a warning that the iPhone is in use.
There isn’t any possibility for launching an iPhone Mirroring session from an iPhone — it must be carried out from a Mac. Whereas the iPhone Mirroring app icon ought to be within the Dock, if it is not there, you will get to it from the Launchpad or the Functions folder, as a result of it’s handled as an ordinary app.
iPhone Mirroring Interface
Your full iPhone interface is proven as a devoted app on the Mac, along with your wallpaper and app icons all seen and accessible. You may click on in to any of your apps and apply it to the Mac identical to you’d on the iPhone.
You may get to your House Display by clicking on the underside bar, and swap between pages with the trackpad or with a click on and drag gesture utilizing a mouse. There are menu choices for attending to the House Display and for citing the app switching interface, however most management is completed inside the iPhone Mirroring window.
iPhone Mirroring Necessities
To make use of iPhone Mirroring, you want a Mac that runs macOS Sequoia and that has an Apple silicon chip (M1 or later) or a T2 safety chip. Macs with T2 safety chips are Intel-based and embody the next machines:
These Macs have Apple silicon chips:
- 2020 and later Mac mini
- 2020 and later MacBook Air
- 2021 and later iMac
- 2021 and later MacBook Professional (14 and 16 inch)
- 2020 13-inch MacBook Professional
- 2022 and later Mac Studio
- 2023 Mac Professional
Any iPhone that runs iOS 18 works with iPhone Mirroring.
- All iPhone 15 fashions
- All iPhone 14 fashions
- All iPhone 13 fashions
- All iPhone 12 fashions
- All iPhone 11 fashions
- iPhone XS and XS Max
- iPhone XR
- iPhone SE (2nd and third gen)
Your iPhone and Mac must be signed into the identical Apple ID, and two-factor authentication have to be enabled for the iPhone Mirroring characteristic to work. Additionally, you will must activate Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and the 2 units will must be close to one another.
Throughout an iPhone Mirroring session, your Mac and your iPhone must be shut to at least one one other, primarily in the identical room.
Privateness and Safety
You must be signed into the identical Apple ID in your iPhone and your Mac for iPhone Mirroring to work. Whereas iPhone Mirroring is energetic, you do not want to have your iPhone with you, and it doesn’t must be unlocked.
Your iPhone can stay tucked away in a pocket or a bag whilst you management it out of your Mac, so nobody can entry it or see what you are doing with it.
Utilizing a Mouse and Keyboard with iPhone
Your Mac’s keyboard, trackpad, and mouse can be utilized along with your iPhone, which is beneficial if it’s essential sort one thing prolonged in an iPhone app.
Audio, Digital camera, and Microphone
When you play a video in your iPhone whereas iPhone Mirroring is enabled, the audio comes by means of your Mac. You may’t activate the Digital camera app or use the microphone, although.
iPhone Notifications on Mac
With iPhone Mirroring turned on, incoming iPhone notifications present up proper alongside your Mac notifications within the Notification Middle on the higher proper hand nook of the Mac’s show.
iPhone notifications are denoted with a small iPhone icon, however they in any other case appear to be native Mac notifications.
You may click on on a notification and open up the app in your iPhone, interacting with it immediately from the Mac.
StandBy
Whereas your iPhone is being mirrored to your Mac, it may be on a charger and in StandBy mode, displaying the time and different info.
Drag and Drop
Later this yr, Apple plans so as to add iPhone Mirroring’s finest characteristic, file transfers. It is possible for you to to switch information, pictures, and movies out of your Mac to your iPhone and vice versa utilizing drag and drop gestures.
Apple says that it’ll work identical to dragging information from one Mac app to a different.
Whereas drag and drop has but to be applied, you possibly can kind of work round this by utilizing AirDrop to maneuver pictures and information out of your iPhone to your Mac, initiating AirDrop from the iPhone with out having to unlock it.
iPhone Mirroring Limitations
iPhone Mirroring is not going to work if the Mac is utilizing AirPlay to stream music or video content material to a different system, or if Sidecar is enabled with an iPad. Continuity Digital camera can’t be enabled both, so should you’re utilizing your iPhone as a webcam in your Mac, you possibly can’t use iPhone Mirroring on the identical time.
Making an attempt to look at motion pictures and TV reveals from some apps like Hulu and Netflix doesn’t work, with the iPhone Mirroring app displaying only a clean black display screen, doubtless because of DRM restrictions.
There isn’t any choice to resize the iPhone Mirroring window, and you’ll’t manually transfer it into panorama orientation. If an app or a recreation is displayed in panorama orientation, the window will shift into panorama.
You may delete apps when utilizing iPhone Mirroring by going to the Settings app, however apps can’t be deleted from the House Display. You can also’t rearrange apps as a result of there isn’t any choice to get into the House Display (or Lock Display) modifying interface.
Management Middle and Notification Middle are additionally inaccessible.
Learn Extra
For extra on the brand new options that Apple is including in iOS 18, we’ve got a devoted iOS 18 roundup.
