Apple’s Universal Control feature for controlling your iPads and Macs is not coming alongside macOS Monterey 12.1 and iPadOS 15.2 after all, despite earlier promises.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Universal Control is nowhere to be found in macOS Monterey 12.1 and iPadOS 15.2
- Apple originally projected to launch Universal Control alongside iPadOS 15.0
- It got delayed, with Apple saying Universal Control would arrive in the fall
When will Apple’s Universal Control feature launch?
Universal Control is arguably one of Apple’s coolest new features, and definitely the best new feature of macOS Monterey. Apple originally meant to launch Universal Control alongside macOS Monterey 12.0 and iPadOS 12.0. But those updates came and went without Universal Control, with Apple saying it would take a bit more time to work out the kinks and release Universal Control by the end of 2021.
As MacRumors observes, there’s no mention of Universal Control in the release notes for macOS Monterey 12.1 or iPadOS 15.2, More importantly, Universal Control has not been introduced in any of the betas and it remains unavailable in today’s release candidate versions of Monterey 12.1 or iPadOS 15.2.
Apple in October 2021 publicly said that Universal Control is being readied for a launch sometime in the fall. It didn’t happen and now with just a few weeks left until 2021 wraps up, it would appear that Universal Control won’t arrive before 2022 after all.
What is Universal Control and how does it work
Universal Control is arguably the best new feature in macOS Monterey.
It’s part of the feature set Apple advertises under the umbrella term “Continuity” and is perhaps the most ambitious Continuity feature to this date.
At its core, Universal Control allows you to seamlessly control your Mac or iPad with a keyboard, mouse or trackpad. Not to be confused with the existing Sidecar feature, Universal Control makes it a cinch to control multiple iPads and Macs with a single input device like your Magic Keyboard.
You just move the mouse pointer to either screen edge and push it a little bit over the edge, which makes it appear on the adjoining screen. You can drag and drop content between the screens of your devices and even share clipboards across devices.
In Apple’s example demonstrated at WWDC21, you start with a MacBook Pro right in the middle, with an iPad Pro on the right and an iMac on the left. From there, you can actually use the MacBook Pro’s built-in keyboard on each of those devices. And, just moving the cursor of the mouse over to one of those screens will see the mouse working on one of the other devices, too.