Why I'm thankful for Universal Control on my Mac and iPad

Universal Control is great and has opened up new ways to use the iPad and Mac.

- JASON SNELL

When Apple announced Universal Control (fave.co/3irkVtu) as a feature of macOS Monterey and iPadOS 15, I wasn't sure what to think. It seemed like a feature nobody had asked for, but one that Apple had realized might actually be incredibly useful. I was certainly impressed by its technical ambition. But would it be something I would ever use day to day? I was skeptical.

It's been almost a year since Universal Control arrived-remember, it was announced in June 2021 but gestated for nine months before being released in March 2022-and I'm finally ready to weigh in on the feature. It's great. It is one of my favorite operating system feature additions in recent memory. And most surprising of all, I'm using it in ways I had never, ever anticipated. Here's why I'm thankful Universal Control exists.

THE IPAD DESK COMBO

I've never been a multiple-monitor person, but this summer, I started inviting my iPad onto my desk. It started when I was trying to watch some live video-knowing me, probably a NASA TV space thing or a baseball game-and wrestling with using Picture-in-Picture on my Mac. It kept covering parts of my apps, and occasionally I'd forget the video was playing in Safari and close the tab. And I realized: Why not just put my iPad on my desk and have the video playing on there?

Once I had placed it there, it just took one overly enthusiastic trackpad movement, and my pointer had broken through the side of my Mac display and appeared over on my iPad. The iPad was so rarely on my desk that I hadn't even considered that I could use Universal Control, but here it was. And using it meant I didn't need to pick my hands up from my keyboard tray to drive the apps on the iPad.