But you’ll need both iOS 18 and macOS 15
When Apple unveiled macOS Sequoia at its WWDC 2024 event in June, one of the most exciting features was iPhone Mirroring, which allows you to manage your iPhone directly from your Mac as long as you have macOS Sequoia and iOS 18. Apple has now improved the feature with a useful enhancement that significantly improves the overall functionality.
iPhone going to arrive
According to 9to5Mac, the most recent public betas of Apple’s macOS and iOS operating systems allow you to use ‘jiggle mode’ to operate your iPhone from your Mac. To do so, just click and hold on your iPhone’s Home Screen while utilizing iPhone Mirroring – if done correctly, your app icons will jiggle slightly (thus the name).
What is the goal of all this? Well, jiggle mode allows you to reposition your program icons and widgets, which was previously unavailable with iPhone Mirroring. You can also color your app icons, add additional widgets, modify widget sizes, and swap between bright and dark app icons.
Being able to accomplish all of this on your Mac is a fantastic development for iPhone Mirroring. After all, iPhone Mirroring is intended to allow you to control your iPhone, not simply observe it. iPhone Mirroring would feel nerfed and confined if it lacked one of the primary tools for personalizing your iOS Home Screen, such as coloring all of your icons or adding some vital widgets.
Instead of having to get up and retrieve your iPhone (which may not be nearby) merely to add a new button to your Control Center, you can now do it from the comfort of your Mac’s desk.
A helpful step forward
Adding this capability to iPhone Mirroring is a significant step forward since it decreases the time you spend switching between your devices. Nobody likes to continuously pick up their iPhone because iPhone Mirroring on their Mac is missing a feature, but this improvement should reduce the number of times you have to do so – and hint at more robust features to come.
Nonetheless, there are a few methods to operate and modify your iPhone that you cannot do on a Mac. You cannot change your iPhone’s Lock Screen or access the Notification Center or Control Center. Hopefully, those functions will be accessible in a future beta version, but there are no signs of it thus far.
The new iPhone Mirroring feature is available in the iOS 18.1 beta and macOS Sequoia 15.1 beta. Unfortunately, it is currently only available in the European Union.