I have it enabled on my 2014 MBP and it really looks poor on my iPad Pro. Image quality is usable for text but images look very bad.
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Sidecar - Has anyone got it working?
- Thread starter jas07
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That original swift-script credit belongs to this github account: https://github.com/pookjw/SidecarPatcher/
I don't know why reddit community gives credit to someone who simply copied it from there.
Anyway if you check here I also did found (some months ago) a fix providing a pre-patched file, without need of Xcode-dev-commandline-tools and risk-free from corrupting the binary framework and without the need to fix permissions (since pre-fixed) just a simply copy-paste: Sidecar patched file
Jackluke, this is what I tried. It will give me the sidecar pref pane but will say connection timed out when trying to connect. I have the iPad plugged in when doing this.
any idea? I appreciate your help!
New iPad Air, you mean iPad Air 3 ?
If it does use an usb-type-c port for data syncing, I guess you should try some USB 3.0 hub or thunderbolt adapter with an usb-type-c as input for your MBP. I write this because someone earlier wrote that had an iPad Pro and a macbook 2016 (with touchbar) that had only a usb-type-c, so converted with some adapter the iPad lightning cable (only USB type A), into an USB 3.0 hub for using with usb-type-c macbook port.
I can assure that the patch works with iPad Air 2 (only in wired-mode).
I have a 2015 mbp with no usb c
the iPad is a 2019 iPad Air (air 3) that has a lightning connector
should this work with your patch?
It should, but in this case you have a Sidecar fully supported iPad and an unsupported (but Catalina supported) Sidecar Mac. Also consider that (if I don't get wrong) the iPad Air 3 and iPad mini 5 are the very latest apple released devices, so maybe they will improve this aspect on next minor update 10.15.1 or already with the iPadOS 13.1.3 released today
I was able to get it to connect finally. Took signing in and out of icloud
hpwever, the image is very poor and doesn’t seem responsive at all. Is this expected
Many that used pencil reported that there are some milleseconds of delay, and about video streaming quality is due to your 2015 Mac that doesn't have HEVC encoder/decoder GPU features.
So everyone who had a similar issue after applying my Sidecar patched file, "time-out", just try sign-out and sign-in again into your iCloud (from System Preferences).
And be sure to use the two-factor authentication for you apple-id, the same icloud account on both the devices, and to connect under the same Wifi-Network, because even if Sidecar is working in wired-mode it needs the Wifi-network too.
My Sidecar patched file should work at least in wired-mode for any iPadOS device and any Catalina supported mac.
Hi JackLuke, i just wanted to say thank you. It worked for me with your latest patch update, wired only.
Im running Catalina 10.15 (release) on a MBP 13 2017 and uncompatible iPad Air 2.
I would love to have it working wirelessly, it only works wired for now, and that prevents me to charge the ipad.
There's an "import from iPad" feature in context menu (i.e. when i right click on desktop) that it don't know if im doing something wrong or its not working. It triggers the ipad camera or sketch draw app successfully but when i tap "done" or "use picture" nothing happens.
If you have any information please let me know.
Thank you again for your work!
Greetings from Argentina
Matias
Im running Catalina 10.15 (release) on a MBP 13 2017 and uncompatible iPad Air 2.
I would love to have it working wirelessly, it only works wired for now, and that prevents me to charge the ipad.
There's an "import from iPad" feature in context menu (i.e. when i right click on desktop) that it don't know if im doing something wrong or its not working. It triggers the ipad camera or sketch draw app successfully but when i tap "done" or "use picture" nothing happens.
If you have any information please let me know.
Thank you again for your work!
Greetings from Argentina
Matias
Finder isn't allowing me to delete or replace the SideCarCore file...I keep getting the error sound.
SIP is disabled and I ran the "sudo mount -uw" command in Terminal.
Any ideas?
This copy/paste from a Catalina Terminal in one line:
sudo mount -uw / ; killall Finder
[automerge]1571264966[/automerge]
For iPad Air 2 can't work a wireless Sidecar because it needs from both (Mac and iPad) some improved hardware wifi features the 802.11ac
Also the iPad Air 2 doesn't support the ipencil, but I guess you can use a bluetooth mouse.
About tapping the buttons on the iPad wired-Sidecar, try from Catalina "System Prefences - Display" to select the AirPlay mirroring as "Separate Display" or as "Sidecar Display", it changes the views and enables the virtualized touch-bar, or side-bar.
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I guess it should, because the Macbook Air 2015 does have the Wifi 802.11ac, but it depends also from your iPadOS device that have to support the Wifi ac too.
I ended up with a 2017 MacBook Air...Sidecar via wifi works, but with low image quality
Did that require the "hack" as well? You can try Duet if you really want to use the iPad as a second screen. I got to try it out and the image quality is great.
The low video-streaming quality is mostly due to the "2017 MacBook Air" non-HEVC GPU, since apple officially allow the HEVC encoder/decoder capability starting from "2018 MacBook Air".
Please don't blindly replace a system file with a patched one from someone else... It might be from an incompatible machine and may screw up your own. When using a patch, you should understand how the patch works before applying it.
Patching SidecarCore is very simple. If you have a hex editor you can do it in no time.
I found that non of the patches I looked at from the internet actually explains how the patch works. So I briefly wrote up the intuition behind patching SidecarCore and made a sandboxed GUI app to help with it.
You can find it here: https://github.com/ben-z/free-sidecar
Patching SidecarCore is very simple. If you have a hex editor you can do it in no time.
I found that non of the patches I looked at from the internet actually explains how the patch works. So I briefly wrote up the intuition behind patching SidecarCore and made a sandboxed GUI app to help with it.
You can find it here: https://github.com/ben-z/free-sidecar
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If you are really so expert, you can easily open my previous SidecarCore patched binary and check it where and how it has been patched, and clearly notice that it can't screw nothing, and I used a supported Catalina Mac so you are speaking of incompatible machine of what?
The aim of my pre-patched files was simply to avoid the downloading and installation of Xcode-Command-Line-Dev-Tools to others, because it's not only a simple hex-editing but the most important part is the code-signing mandatory to a framework binary in order to be parsed and loaded by the kernel.
IMHO a pre-patched file is much more handy than a patching on-the-fly of busy and constantly used frameworks/kext by the system that can cause issues during that process, or even a failure in replacing signature, SidecarCore has many system dependancies, try to delete it or wrongly code-sign and check if you can open Notes.app from Catalina for example, it will crash, so the codesigning especially must be done carefully and tested.
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And why you (as also other github developers) provided your Sidecar patcher tool only recently and not before during the early betas when people needed ?
If you check here, I guess I was among the first who patched the "iPad Air 2/mini 4" to run on early Catalina betas: Sidecar iPad Air 2 / mini 4 patched file
The only reason why I didn't explain the method is because others do not asked and to avoid that apple might stop it as they already did with this Sidecar reddit terminal script that worked only till Sidecar beta 2-3 .
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My point wasn't about how the patches would mess up the system, it was about:
1. People are posting pre-patched binaries that can be system-dependent. In my case, the string in the patch didn't even exist in my `SidecarCore` file.
2. The previous patches didn't explain how the script worked. I wanted people to understand the process instead of blindly running a script with sudo. That's why the app in my repo is sandboxed and doesn't require root access.
Again the pre-patched file is system dependent and may not work on all machines. I argue that the file has a higher probability of messing up the system than following a step-by-step tutorial.
For me, it never occurred to me that the patching was so easy to do so I've been avoiding it. I did acknowledge the original repo (SidecarPatcher, which didn't work for me) in my repo.
Good job! But I don't see any mention of the source of your patch? By looking at your posts I'm pretty confident that you didn't just come up with that on your own. And the fact that you didn't mention the source and only provided binary files was probably because you wanted to monopolize this post and have everyone look to you for advice.
That's a valid point! But does this justify not giving credits to the original script and having people wait for you to upload a new file for every release? You are giving people fish instead of teaching them how to fish. Also consider that code-signing might be different across systems. Someone may not recognize the signature that you use and that would mess up their system big time.
LOL that was just a feature flipper that apple put in for early betas when they were testing the feature. It was very likely to be removed in the official release.
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macOS unix exec binaries for any target OSX are common to all the apple machines, they come all from one only worlwide released "Core.pkg", pre-patched binaries if done properly don't harm nothing and are not system dependent.
Apple removed those easy and quick dictionary keys "defaults write" most probably because they were too publicized on forums.
On previous messages or on other threads the method is mentioned, you're getting wrong but don't want to continue and I don't want to monopolize nothing, I was just providing a simple generalized pre-patched file to those who wanted to test Sidecar.
Instead from what I can see, you joined yesterday to this forum just to write indirectly against me and to promote your github channel and your developer skills.
So your main concern is not letting Apple find out how people are able to patch the binaries? I'm sure the Apple engineers are smart enough to do a comparison between the unpatched and patched binaries and realize immediately that they just need to mask the strings to prevent tampering.
I just think that we need less of "Here's a patched binary that some rando posted on the internet. It works only on this particular version of the OS, and will break the system if you accidentally used the wrong patch," and more of "Here's how you patch on any version of the OS. You know exactly what you are changing and you don't need to worry about anyone else being malicious."
My guess is that some people on this forum are currently blindly following your instructions to replace the patched binary, without knowing what they are actually changing. I'm trying to take the knowledge that only exists in some people's heads and give it to the general audience so that they can understand what they are doing before they do it.
My motivation is simple. I used to play around with Hackintoshes and in that community, there are too many people like you who would post these extremely useful patches but fail to disclose the source of the patch and how they did it. I always get frustrated by not understanding what those patches do. I just want to change that in these communities. I just want people to understand more and spend less time fixing broken systems and doing unproductive troubleshooting on forums.