An Apple feature that I’ve seen people loving online more than I expected is iPhone Mirroring on the macOS Sequoia. The feature simply lets you use your iPhone in a window on your Mac — full stop. Your notifications are even translated into native Mac notifications to help keep you up to date with what’s happening on your phone.
I have yet to try the feature, but beyond app developer testing and TikTok addicts craving a pure experience, I didn’t see anything I’d use in my daily workflow. However, the response I’ve seen on Twitter and Threads is making me rethink my position. People seem really excited to have their phones more easily accessible from their laptops and others are looking forward to the potential implications this could have when done on an iPad or Vision Pro.
iPhone Mirroring on Mac is truly an amazing feature. It works well and is extremely simple, even in the beta stage.
Sound from the iPhone now plays through the Mac’s speakers, and notifications from the iPhone also work smoothly. pic.twitter.com/7McE8Jt76d
— Beta Profiles (@BetaProfiles) June 25, 2024
There is also some really cool tech built in that allows you to drag and drop files right from the iPhone window on your Mac to your desktop or other apps. However, it’s worth noting that so far in the beta this feature doesn’t work. All you can do for now is mirror your phone and interact with it. During a briefing post WWDC I was also able to see the feature in action and Apple told me that you can also resize the window to make your iPhone content even larger than it would be on your phone.
If you want to test this feature now you need to have an iPhone running iOS 18 Beta 2 and a Mac with the T2 security chip, which are the most modern ones. You also need to have the phone and Mac relatively near each other and they need to have Bluetooth and Wifi turned on, according to a report on MacRumors. That being said, while the beta has been stable for me, I wouldn’t recommend installing them on your main device. The public Betas are also going to come fast enough and they should be much more stable and feature-complete compared to the Developer betas.
Other recent updates in iOS 18 beta 2 include updates to the Maps and App Store icons to make them fit in better with Tints and Dark icons. Alongside that, it enables a new SharePlay feature on iOS and iPadOS that allows you to take over a friend’s screen to help them with some tech support.
You can read all the macOS Sequoia Beta 2 release notes on Apple’s Website. You can read all the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 update notes here.
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