It was one of the star features of last year. Apple proudly showcased Universal Control at WWDC 2021, along with macOS Monterey and iOS 15, showing how with it you could use one keyboard and one mouse to use your Mac and iPad without configuring almost anything. Like many other Apple things, that works.
It’s now been almost a year since Universal Control arrived, we already have other newer versions of operating systems installed on our devices, and it seems the feature has taken a step back. Did something happen?
“The best technology is the one you don’t perceive”
I personally tried Universal Control as soon as it appeared in the stable version of iOS and macOS, in May 2022. I had to activate the option on my devices, but after that everything worked like silk. I didn’t have to tell my Mac what position my iPad was in, I was able to immediately move the cursor from terminal to terminal completely seamlessly. My partner David showed it on his Twitter with a video:
Universal Control in all its glory. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/Pc6gUxlog3
— David Bernal Raspall (@david_br8) January 28, 2022
Other Internet users also expressed their astonishment on the networks:
It’s very cool, Apple’s universal control pic.twitter.com/L1O7bzqIqC
— Foncho R (@alfonsoluis) April 26, 2022
What a wonderful universal control of #Apple #Macbook Pro #ipadmini pic.twitter.com/UyW50jkbw4
— Juan Miguel Sosso (@jmsosso) April 12, 2022
In communities like Reddit six months ago, there are posts praising the novelty, with few complaints about limitations such as the inability to use it on devices managed by gaming platforms. company or people saying they prefer Sidecar.
But on a more recent level, the conversation dies down. And this can be indicative of two things: people have forgotten that Universal Control exists, or they have adapted it so well to their daily lives that it has become its ideal: a function that does its job without having to pay attention to it.
Donald Norman once said in his book ‘The Design of Everyday Things’: “Good design costs much more to distinguish than bad design, because good design suits our needs so well that it becomes invisible. ” Apple’s best features are the ones you can forget about because they go unnoticed because they fulfill their purpose and we see it as a no-brainer. It’s only when it fails that we realize how much we can miss it.
I’m not saying that all users use Universal Control on a daily basis, the most fans are those who have to resort to using several devices at the same time on a table. In my personal case, I usually leave my iPad charging next to my Mac mini, which inadvertently causes me to move the cursor towards the screen. A reminder that the feature is still there, and one I really appreciate when I need screens on all my devices to work.
