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Sidecar lets you use your iPad as a second display for your Mac

Sidecar lets you use your iPad as a second display for your Mac

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A new feature in macOS Catalina, called Sidecar, will let an iPad act as a second display for the Mac. The Mac can be paired with iPads wired or wirelessly, and will have Apple Pencil support when using the new feature.

Sidecar will work with any Mac app that supports stylus input, and it can work as a creative tool like a Wacom tablet. The new feature will likely spell trouble for third-party apps like Duet Display and Astropad, which have carved out a niche space providing the same service for artists.

The feature will offer a sidebar for commonly used controls, with modifier keys for shortcuts, and Touch Bar support showing up in the form of a control at the bottom of the iPad screen, even if your Macbook Pro doesn’t have one.

Apple’s listed out what apps are supported here, which include heavy-duty apps like Adobe Illustrator, Maya, and Final Cut Pro. Curiously, Adobe Photoshop, (which is coming out as a standalone iPad app sometime this year) isn’t on this list. The feature is capable of mirroring desktops, and Apple says “developers don’t need to do anything for Sidecar support — it just works,” so hopefully the Sidecar Apps section is just a selection of which apps are supported. We’ve reached out for more clarification, and we’ll also be testing out the app to see how well it works.

Sidecar will come included free with the macOS Catalina update.