iPad Sidecar and multiple displays

[Ben J.]

I've been a mac user for 30 years and iPhone for 10.
Today, I recieved my first iPad. Brand new 10,2" 32gb wifi.

Of course, I have a lot to learn, but fiddling around with Sidecar leads me to believe it's nothing for me. At least not yet.

The thing is; my home setup is like this:
iMac 2017 with a 32" BenQ monitor and a 50" TV attached, and the TV is main display (w/menu bar) and imac and BenQ are second and third, setup with "seperate spaces".
Works great for me.

When I try to incorporate the iPad, with Sidecar over wifi, as a fourth display into this, they connect, but all the orginazation and resolutions are reset and moved around so the imac becomes main display and placements are all screwed up. Luckily, once I disconnect the iPad, the setup is restored so I don't have to do it manually.

I guess Sidecar is not meant to work with this kind setup, and it's new.

Just looking for input.
I can't be the only one who's tried something like this.
Thanks.

 

[bradbomb]

I don't have access to Sidecar, but what's happening sounds like what happens whenever a new display is added to a setup. The computer will remember your layouts for given monitor setups, but whenever displays are introduced or removed, it will default to whatever setup existed for that configuration. Since your iPad is a brand new item introduced, it will default back to the original configuration of a Mac where it's display is the main display. You should just have to go back into System Preferences and create your new layout as you would like and it should remember it.

Again, I'm just hypothesizing as I'm still running Mojave and don't have macs that support Sidecar. I'm also on Mojave as I use Adobe CS6 and have no need to pay a subscription to use CC. CS6 works for my needs.

 

[Ben J.]

Hi, Bradbomb, yea that sounds very reasonable.
I'll definately be trying it soon.
Perhaps it could work after all.
Thanks.
I'll report back.

 

[Ben J.]

Well, it worked great!
I just went thru displays settings, reset all screen resolutions, organized placements again, with my iPad connected, with ipad set to never sleep, and it seems that everything is working smoothly.
I just need to see if I can diconnect/reconnect iPad Sidecar, restart the imac, but I expect it will be just fine. The clue was simply to set display preferences up from scratch, as you said!

Thank you again. This really is a great forum.

And I must say, except for a couple of bugs with iTunes/Music/TV, I really LOVE Catalina!

 

[bradbomb]

You're welcome

 

[Ben J.]

Just one little update, for anyone following this, if I turn off my iPad, after a second or two, my three mac displays scrambles back to the "default" w/menu bar on the iMac. And when I turn it on again, after a while, the mac and ipad connects and I get my preferred display settings back.

The clue is simply to select "disconnect" iPad in the Airplay in the menu bar before I turn off the iPad.

I think this is going to work just fine.

 

[the last cowboy]

Hi Ben J

I'm about to purchase a 2020 iMac and was under the impression it isn't possible to run more than two external screens, so if I added an iPad w. sidecar, it would overrule one of the external displays. Did you get it to work?, so that you have three independent external displays ? one of them being the iPad .

thanks in advance

 

[Ben J.]

I'm about to purchase a 2020 iMac and was under the impression it isn't possible to run more than two external screens, so if I added an iPad w. sidecar, it would overrule one of the external displays. Did you get it to work?, so that you have three independent external displays ? one of them being the iPad .

If you read my posts a bit more carefully you'll see that;
Yes, I had for a long time two displays connected to the 2017 imac 21", a 50" TV and a 32" monitor. So, three independent displays, each with their own spaces, no problem at all.

And after a bit of fiddling with Displays in sys prefs, I had iPad Sidecar working along with those three, as you see in my later post. So, 4 screens. I don't think there are any limitation to the number of displays, but I suspect there is some kind of limitation to the "total number of pixels" to put it that way. I had my screens at 1080 or 720 resolutions and had no problems.

I've since switched to a 2018 mac mini.

 

[the last cowboy]

Thank you so much for answering, I did read your posts, but wrote 3 instead of 4 displays in my post by mistake 😐 - my apologies for that confusion.

It was exactly the fact that you indeed were able to have 4 displays up and running which surprised me, as all oficial apple support says it’s not supported. I will have a go at it

I’m building a film composer setup, which is why the extra iPad display is handy for running macro/shortcut software.

all the best

 

[Ben J.]

Let me just repeat; I think there might be a limit if you try to run four displays with high resolution. I'm not shure.

Another thing: remember that the iPad-Sidecar can not be controlled thru the touch screen. But it will work with a Apple Pencil.

Good luck.

 

[the last cowboy]

thanks for all the help - looks like I may need to run my touchscreen off another computer hooked up via ethernet .-)

best