A key selling point for many people for Apple products is the integrated ecosystem. We already have things like Airdrop and Sidecar, but I was excited when Apple introduced Universal Control mid-last year.
Universal Control allows you to use the Mac mouse and keyboard to control the iPad, plus it also allows you to copy-and-paste and drag-and-drop between them. This is all great if it works correctly.
Problems
Apple delayed the release of Universal Control until this year so they could iron out the issues. Despite the delay, though, it’s been fraught with problems for me. These are some of the issues I’ve been having with Universal Control:
- Sometimes typing on the keyboard has huge lags, making it impossible to type. I’ve only seen this once though in many weeks. I’m not sure the exact cause was Bluetooth, wifi, etc.; all seems fine on both the Mac and the iPad.
- Sometimes pasting from the Mac to the iPad doesn’t work.
- The Mac won’t connect to the iPad, no matter what I do. I tried rebooting both the iPad and Mac. I tried to disable and reenable Universal Control in settings.
Regarding the connection issue, I couldn’t get Universal Control to work again until Apple released another version of iPad OS and macOS in March 2022. I was happy it worked until it broke again today, but at least I know what I did to break it — I rearranged the displays in the Displays setting.
Again, I cannot get Universal Control to turn back on, which is annoying. I wish I knew how to fix it.
Conclusion
I am waiting for Apple to fix these issues. Universal Control is a valuable feature because I use both the Mac and iPad. I can use sidecar to extend my Mac’s display, but Universal Control allows me to use some apps on the iPad without taking my fingers off the Mac. Copy-and-paste between my Mac and iPad and transfer files via drag-and-drop is convenient.
I hope Apple fixes these issues soon!
