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Universal Control is awesome!

SupremeMayo

SupremeMayo

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 7, 2021
129
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Glad it’s been released to the public! One thing I did notice… I’m unable to use the gestures on my 11 inch iPad Pro Keyboard to control my MacBook. Anyone else having this issue? I’m wondering if Apple disabled this specific feature. Otherwise, loving the new update!
 
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I ended up restarting both devices to get it to work on my M1 Air and iPad Pro, after turning the various settings on and off a few times. It's unclear that you even have it working, but when it does you can try to move your cursor off the screen (not sure how it decides which side of the screen), and it will pop over to the iPad.

The "beta" label seems to be accurate though. It's laggy, keyboard shortcuts don't seem to work (cmd+h for Home Screen, for example), and at the moment the iPad and Mac have opposite ideas of whether caps lock is on or not. I have to hit caps lock after switching between the two.

I've used Synergy to have various machines work together like this, and when it's working well this will be very useful!
 
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maxsquared said:
I can't get it to work.
Click to expand...
In Displays, click "Add Display" and make sure you are connected to your iPad. Also, search for "Universal Control" within system preferences and then make sure the first two boxes on the dialog box are checked.
 
BoboBobo2 said:
I ended up restarting both devices to get it to work on my M1 Air and iPad Pro, after turning the various settings on and off a few times. It's unclear that you even have it working, but when it does you can try to move your cursor off the screen (not sure how it decides which side of the screen), and it will pop over to the iPad.
Click to expand...

It is based on the arrangement in Displays within System Preferences. The default is the iPad is on the right, but you can rearrange it.
 
KPOM said:
In Displays, click "Add Display" and make sure you are connected to your iPad. Also, search for "Universal Control" within system preferences and then make sure the first two boxes on the dialog box are checked.
Click to expand...
It doesn't work, I wonder if this is because I am using an external display
 
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Scrolling on a Logitech mouse with scroll wheel is giving me mixed results depending on the app. In this case, Outlook iOS app, gives me no scrolling. Dragging over a Chrome window into iPad and scrolling works as it should. Still really great overall.
 
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moving files between my macbook and imac is seamless, and being able to drag a file from, say, the macbook, to an external connected to the imac (where i keep archived work) fixes one of my gripes about airdrop. am loving this!
 
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Blown away. At first copy and paste wouldn’t work, but after moving iPad out of range and back again it worked flawlessly. Cant believe how fast and seamless they’ve made this feel. Was expecting clunkiness.

Is there a way to get two iPads to work on one MBP if the second iPad is on a different Apple ID?
 
KPOM said:
In Displays, click "Add Display" and make sure you are connected to your iPad. Also, search for "Universal Control" within system preferences and then make sure the first two boxes on the dialog box are checked.
Click to expand...
All this seems to do is turn on SideCar for me.

I have an M1 Pro MBP with 2 4k monitors - does using external displays break Universal Control, perhaps?

Luckily I don't really need the feature but I was pretty stoked to play with it and am disappointed that I can't seem to get it to work.
 
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Pressf1 said:
Scrolling on a Logitech mouse with scroll wheel is giving me mixed results depending on the app. In this case, Outlook iOS app, gives me no scrolling. Dragging over a Chrome window into iPad and scrolling works as it should. Still really great overall.
Click to expand...
Update: Played a :25 min YouTube video on iPad screen at full screen and towards the end, video got choppy but eventually caught itself up.
 
UC is very awesome. I updated to beta 12.3 only so I could get it early and have been using it for the past couple of weeks. I use it between 2 MBPs. I have not linked it to my IPP yet since I rarely use it as part of my desktop system. It does take a few seconds once both systems are running before you can "push" the mouse cursor into the other display. I do find all the command keystrokes work but thats maybe because I am using 2 macs.
 
sdwaltz said:
All this seems to do is turn on SideCar for me.

I have an M1 Pro MBP with 2 4k monitors - does using external displays break Universal Control, perhaps?

Luckily I don't really need the feature but I was pretty stoked to play with it and am disappointed that I can't seem to get it to work.
Click to expand...
Open System Preferences, and type "Universal Control" into the search bar. A box like the attached should pop up. Be sure the first two items are checked.

Also, try moving from your external display to the iPad (rather than your internal display). You can change the arrangement within Display settings. If your external display is 4K or 5K, it appears that Display settings lets you position the iPad either next to the external display or below (but not next to) the internal display.
 

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KPOM said:
Open System Preferences, and type "Universal Control" into the search bar. A box like the attached should pop up. Be sure the first two items are checked.
Click to expand...
All are checked. I've done the basics - wifi/bluetooth/handoff are all on, along with those options being checked. Have force restarted both the iPad Pro and the Macbook Pro.
 
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sdwaltz said:
All are checked. I've done the basics - wifi/bluetooth/handoff are all on, along with those options being checked. Have force restarted both the iPad Pro and the Macbook Pro.
Click to expand...
Try moving the cursor to your external display and then panning right.
 
OK got mine working.

I had to put the iPad really close to my MacBook.

When I first tested, my MacBook is on the left side of the display and sitting on a little table under my desk, and the iPad on the right side of my screen on my desktop. Then I tried to put my MacBook on the desk so it's at the same level as the iPad, and got it working, though only lasted a couple of minutes, then afterward I got it working by sitting my iPad next to the MacBook. I put this here so if it's useful for anyone.

It is quite cool when it works though. Now I just need to decide if I should use sidecar or universal control.
 
I can't seem to get it working. I have all the boxes ticked and both devices are up to date and signed into the same iCloud account.
The Mac for what ever reason is not picking up the iPad. Not even picking it up for screen mirroring. So not sure what's going on.
Also strange I can screen mirror from iPad to Mac.
 
I like the feature even though I'm not 100% sure how I would use this feature. I'm going to use it more and more until it either clicks or I get bored with it. As I said, it's an amazing feature simply for cutting out the extra keyboard and allowing you to control two great computers without extending your display.
 
Pressf1 said:
Scrolling on a Logitech mouse with scroll wheel is giving me mixed results depending on the app. In this case, Outlook iOS app, gives me no scrolling. Dragging over a Chrome window into iPad and scrolling works as it should. Still really great overall.
Click to expand...
Yep, i can't scroll at all in anything wtih my Logitech mouse connected to my Mac mini, when i go across into iPad Pro.
 
I didn’t expect it to work on my 2012 Mac Mini running a patched Monterey, but it totally just works. It’s amazing to just be able to drag across files from my iPad Air to my Mac without having to use AirDrop. Even something like copying a link on my Mac and pasting it on my iPad just works seamlessly!
 
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SupremeMayo said:
Glad it’s been released to the public! One thing I did notice… I’m unable to use the gestures on my 11 inch Keyboard to control my MacBook. Anyone else having this issue? I’m wondering if Apple disabled this specific feature. Otherwise, loving the new update!
Click to expand...
Same here. My MK’s trackpad won’t do any gestures on my Mac. Hopefully this is something they can fix down the road.
 
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