Apple Sidecar: your iPad as a second screen on your Macbook

Being nomadic means having to limit your computer equipment. No more big external screen associated with the Macbook!

As a result, I was super happy when Apple announced the release of Sidecar with the Catalina macOS update in October 2019.

Sidecar is a feature that allows you touse an iPad as a secondary screen of a Macbook. It’s very simple and it works:

• Either wireless through the Wifi network
• Either with a cable lightning (Amazon link)

When I tested this feature at the time of its release, it was unfortunately not a great success.

• I was in Central America with low performance Wifi connections, so there was a latency time that did not make it pleasant to use
• There was a bug that made it unusable for wired use. I don’t know if the bug was generalized but I found on Apple forums other users with the same problem (“Unable to connect to [Name of my iPad]: A miscellaneous error occurred (32002)“)

As a result, I didn’t use the Sidecar mode much. When I could use it in Wifi, I had latency and the battery was quickly discharged. As soon as I connected the cable, it didn’t work anymore.

I tried again today, and it works perfectly, Apple had to fix the bug.

I’ll show you in video what it looks like.

And in the wish list: if Apple can make the iPad tactile when it’s in Sidecar mode, that would be great!