Universal Control Feature For Mac and iPad Delayed Until Spring 2022

Universal Control, a feature unveiled at Apple's WWDC event earlier this year, won't be available until spring 2022. Originally planned for a fall release, the feature aims to let users control multiple Macs and iPads with a single mouse and keyboard or trackpad. 9to5Mac reports: Now Apple has changed the launch date for Universal Control from sometime before the winter solstice to "available this spring" as updated on its website. Apple first showed off Universal Control during an on-stage demo at WWDC 21 and it ended up proving to be too ambitious to ship this year. Here's how it describes the feature: "A single keyboard and mouse or trackpad now work seamlessly between your Mac and iPad -- they'll even connect to more than one Mac or iPad. Move your cursor from your Mac to your iPad, type on your Mac and watch the words show up on your iPad, or even drag and drop content from one Mac to another." The good news is that Apple SharePlay is now available on Mac. According to Engadget, SharePlay "allows up to 32 people to enjoy the same TV shows, movies, music and livestreams and more in sync with each other on FaceTime calls." This feature was slated to arrive in the fall just like Universal Control.

Synergy

[virtualdxs]

Isn't this just a proprietary, non-cross-platform implementation of Synergy?

Re:

[Curtman]

1996 called, it wants it's technology back [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[leptons]

I have no doubt the fanbois will be trumpeting this as Apple's latest major accomplishment to crush all other platforms.

Re:Synergy

[dexotaku]

I actually opened the thread just to say the same thing. Have used Synergy periodically for about 15 years and the last time I did was to "unite" a PC with a Mac. I see that now the 1.x stuff is on sourceforge and still free assuming it still works on current platforms. The 2.x series is $29 from a commerical company.

Re: Synergy

[AcidFnTonic]

It's free too your just paying for their compile of it. I'm a C++ developer and I built my own a few years back to think of it now it's a decade.

Re:

[leptons]

We're using 1.x on Macs and PCs, every day, all day - no real need to use the 2.x version.

One key feature of Synergy is that it lets us share multiple mouse/trackpads to control one computer. We have a media computer and everyone has synergy installed, so we can all control it with our mouse/keyboard. It's pretty awesome functionality on top of what it's already good at. Have to wonder if Apple even thought of that use case.

Windows alternative

[VirtuallyUnlimited]

Not trying to make negative comments, just offering this up:
If someone is looking for a free version of this for windows check out Mouse Without Borders from Microsoft Garage.

this is old news on pc.

[SlashDotCanSuckMy777]

3 trillion dollar company btw.

Great.

[UncleTogie]

"A single keyboard and mouse or trackpad now work seamlessly between your Mac and iPad -- they'll even connect to more than one Mac or iPad. Move your cursor from your Mac to your iPad, type on your Mac and watch the words show up on your iPad, or even drag and drop content from one Mac to another."

"Click Farms love this one secret trick!"

Universal Control in the real world

[swell]

I have this plan in which I control all the steering wheels in the morning rush hour. The gal in the VW needs to move right one lane; the guy in the Chevy should get off the freeway. I should be able to get to my destination in a reasonable time.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

I'd rather have a software agent that detects when someone is drifting into my lane and makes them swerve sharply the other way and go into a fucking ditch, double if it's a trucker.

Barrier unifies Mac, Windows and Linux

[Scalpos]

Barrier is forked from Symless's Synergy 1.9 codebase. Too bad there's no Android client https://github.com/debauchee/b... [github.com]

Mouse without borders

[Crashmarik]

Does this on the PC side. It's available as a download from microsoft. Makes a great remote control for my home automation system.

Apple needs to slow down...

[antdude]

... Fix its old issues before working on new features. Their softwares are so buggy.

Also VirtualHere

[sabbede]

Just to add another existing, partially-free, program to the growing list of ones that already exist to do this same exact thing. With the added bonus of working on Windows and Linux as well as Macs.