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July 7, 2025

8 Real-World Uses for iPhone Mirroring in iOS 18 and MacOS Sequoia | usagoldmines.com

Is Apple’s new iPhone Mirroring feature within the newest variations of iOS and MacOS truly helpful? Regardless of the place your iPhone is close by — in one other room charging or buried on the backside of a bag or pocket — you may view and management it out of your Mac.

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Apart from the sheer comfort of not having to select up the cellphone, I’ve discovered a number of causes to make use of iPhone Mirroring. The truth is, I catch myself utilizing it commonly on my iPhone 16 now that iOS 18 and MacOS Sequoia have been launched. (And in the event you’re working the latest betas, you may experiment with some of the fascinating mirroring options, the power to pull and drop objects on to the cellphone and vice-versa.)

Learn extra: How to Control Your iPhone From Your Mac Using iPhone Mirroring

iOS 18 and MacOS Sequoia can be found now, bringing a bunch of different options reminiscent of animated text messages and the power to customize your iPhone’s home screen.

Watch this: iPhone Mirroring Involves Macs with MacOS Sequoia

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When your iPhone is in a bag, purse or one other room

The best use case is whenever you wish to entry one thing in your cellphone but it surely’s buried in a bag, simply out of attain otherwise you’re unable to stand up (or you’re able, however the snoozing cat or canine in your lap would not recognize the disruption). Connecting through iPhone Mirroring is way more handy.

You possibly can entry your iPhone even when it is in a bag or out of attain utilizing iPhone Mirroring on MacOS Sequoia and iOS 18.

Jeff Carlson/CNET

Nevertheless, this function would not work over lengthy distances, like in the event you by accident left your iPhone at house and it is advisable to entry it from work. iPhone Mirroring makes use of Apple’s Continuity know-how to work, which suggests the iPhone and Mac should be inside Bluetooth vary of one another.

When it is advisable to examine in on an iPhone app

Did you miss your each day Duolingo check-in and the cellphone is not helpful? In case your Mac is, iPhone Mirroring can join and be sure to hold your streak going.

Or perhaps it is advisable to end immediately’s Wordle problem however it will be too apparent whereas working that you simply’re checking your cellphone. The discreet iPhone Mirroring window will be simply lined or hidden if vital.

Sustain your Duolingo streak even when your cellphone shouldn’t be close by.

Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNET

If you wish to use an app, not an online interface

Even immediately, some in style providers work much better in apps than they do as net interfaces. Sure, we’re you, Instagram. Posting from an app typically consists of extra choices or a greater person expertise. Since iPhone Mirroring provides you virtually full entry to the iPhone’s interface, you may submit utilizing a mouse pointer as a substitute of a finger.

Apps like Instagram are extra featured than their net counterparts.

Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNET

If you wish to switch objects shortly between gadgets (coming quickly)

I create numerous screenshots for work and take much more pictures personally, which all find yourself in my Photographs library. These photographs are then synced through iCloud to my Mac — however generally it appears at a tempo precisely described as “when the cellphone will get round to it.” After I want one thing on my Mac immediately, I discover myself utilizing AirDrop between gadgets, which works however is clumsier than I might desire.

Later this 12 months, although, we can drag and drop all kinds of recordsdata — not simply photographs — between an iPhone and the Mac working the iPhone Mirroring app. That may go in each instructions, too: Drop a video or necessary PDF from a Mac Finder window onto the mirrored iPhone to switch it to the cellphone. (You possibly can play with it now on the most recent iOS 18.1 and MacOS Sequoia betas.)

Drag and drop recordsdata from the Mac to a mirrored iPhone and vice-versa.

Apple/Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNET

When you do not wish to muddle your Mac with software program junk

MacOS has a protracted legacy of supporting system extensions, startup objects and varied background processes that you simply in all probability do not understand are working more often than not. Some giant utility suites, for instance, unfold out these accent recordsdata like a dropped field of Legos. In lots of instances, the drain on assets is negligible, however these items nonetheless devour storage and processor energy.

In distinction, iOS has at all times been constructed as a silo’d system, the place every app has its personal protected storage and strictly managed routes for interacting with different apps. Particularly for apps you do not use typically however have to hold round, you could wish to set up a cell model and keep away from the app creep that occurs beneath MacOS.

iPhone Mirroring provides you a method to nonetheless use an app like this in your Mac, with out infecting MacOS with all of the related detritus that’s usually put in.

If you wish to sign up to your financial institution’s app as a substitute of doing it on the pc

Sadly, a number of of those solutions deal with the theme of “an app is healthier than a web site,” and there is typically no higher instance than banking websites.

It may be simpler, and safer, to entry your financial institution accounts or investments utilizing iPhone Mirroring to log in with the iOS app as a substitute of an online browser in your Mac. You continue to have to authenticate the iPhone app whenever you open it (since you may’t use Face ID or Contact ID on the system), however that might be a extra handy possibility.

Use safe apps which might be solely in your cellphone, such because the Financial institution of America app.

Screenshot by Jeff Carlson/CNET

If you wish to entry locked and hidden apps in your cellphone

In iOS 18, you may disguise delicate apps or require authentication (reminiscent of Face ID) to open them. If you happen to’d fairly use them in your cellphone than by way of an app or net interface in your Mac, iPhone Mirroring enables you to entry them when the cellphone is not close by.

If you do, the iPhone Mirroring app requires authentication through the Mac, as you’ll anticipate. Enter your Mac’s login password, use Contact ID or authenticate along with your related Apple Watch to open locked apps or make the Hidden folder on the cellphone seen.

Entry the Hidden app folder through iPhone Mirroring.

Screenshots by Jeff Carlson/CNET

If you’re giving a presentation and wish to present what’s on the iPhone

Granted, it is a smaller subset of use instances, but when it is advisable to reveal one thing on the iPhone throughout an internet or in-person presentation, iPhone Mirroring is a far simpler possibility than different strategies.

Apart from rigging an overhead digital camera, the prevailing methodology has been to attach the iPhone to a Mac with a cable and use QuickTime Participant to view the cellphone’s display screen. You’d then nonetheless have to function the cellphone along with your arms.

Now with iPhone Mirroring, the cellphone will be related wirelessly and manipulated utilizing your Mac’s trackpad or mouse and keyboard.

The primary limitation with this strategy is that in the event you do have to carry out one thing on the cellphone, activating it pauses the mirrored connection.

And one streaming limitation we might wish to see modified

One unheralded function between Apple gadgets is the power to stream media from an iPhone to a Mac utilizing AirPlay. Time to chill and watch a film or soak up an episode of your favourite TV present? You can begin it on the iPhone and select the Mac — with its bigger display screen — because the vacation spot.

Since iPhone Mirroring enables you to management an iPhone that is out of attain, it will be good to begin a film that performs on the Mac’s display screen. Nevertheless, digital rights administration squashes that concept within the context of iPhone Mirroring. Though you may open an app reminiscent of TV and tee up a present, the picture stays black.

Netflix exhibits up as a black display screen in the event you try to make use of it through iPhone Mirroring.

James Martin/CNET

That black display screen additionally applies in the event you use AirPlay to stream whereas iPhone Mirroring is energetic. The one approach this works is in the event you management the cellphone bodily and stream to the Mac.

iPhone Mirroring is only one new function on the iPhone and Mac with iOS 18 and MacOS Sequoia. Do not miss how to spice up your texts in Messages and easy methods to work with the updated Control Center.

 

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