iPhone Mirroring is Very Good

The addition of iPhone Mirroring in macOS Sequoia is my favorite addition to the Apple ecosystem in years.¹

Here’s how Apple describes the feature:

With iPhone Mirroring, you can wirelessly interact with your iPhone and its apps and notifications from your Mac. Your iPhone stays locked, so no one else can access it or use it to see what you’re doing.

In short, this feature turns your iPhone into a window on your Mac, and it’s fantastic.

My Uses

When I talked about this on social media earlier today, several folks asked me about my use cases.

I — like everyone else — have some iPhone-only apps² in my life that either aren’t available on my Mac, or run pretty poorly. Having them available from the machine I’m already working on is sweet.

My main use is running TestFlight builds of Widgetsmith, Pedometer++, and David’s other apps as we work on new features, documentation, marketing, etc. I can — and do — build the apps and run them in Xcode’s simulator when needed, but having them humming along on my locked and charging iPhone is a game changer.

The Fine Print

There are some limitations to this feature, as Apple explains:

Some iPhone features such as the camera and microphone aren’t compatible with iPhone Mirroring. In addition, only one Continuity feature can be used at a time (such as Continuity Camera or iPhone Mirroring).

I understand the first one, but the second one is often cited by people complaining about this feature. I’d love to see Apple expand Continuity’s abilities here.

The system requirements mention that the iPhone needs to be “locked and near your Mac.” Apple’s a little unclear what that means, but in my testing, as long as my iPhone is in the same room, iPhone Mirroring works. While this might be an annoying limitation for some folks who want to quickly use their iPhone as it charges in another room, many Continuity features require close proximity.

For security reasons, your iPhone will alert you to when it is — or has been — used from a Mac. A notification that reads “This iPhone is being used from (Mac name)” appears on the lock screen, and when you unlock the phone, you’ll get a second notification that the phone was used remotely.

The last thing I’ll mention is that while it’s easy to get to the Home Screen and App Switcher, Apple didn’t expose an easy way to get to Control Center while mirroring. I hope they fix that before the next full version of macOS.

The Future

It would be great if this type of feature could show up in more places across the Apple ecosystem. Controlling an iPad from a Mac would be useful for many, and having iPhone Mirroring in visionOS would be useful for… well… however many people are using a Vision Pro these days.