EXPLAINED… Using Sidecar on your iPad

Once you’ve identified your Mac and, if applicable, the iPad model, you’re ready to start patching. The step-by-step guide (p42) reveals how to download, run and use Free Sidecar to produce a patched version of the file, plus apply it once you’ve disabled System Integrity Protection (SIP).

Disabling SIP is obviously a security risk, which is why you should only do so temporarily. Once you’ve reached step five of the walkthrough, you need to reboot into macOS Recovery – this can be done by holding

ç+R on restarting your Mac. If you’re struggling to get it working this way, you can boot into macOS Recovery directly from the Terminal. Make sure all other apps are closed, open the Terminal and issue the following two commands:

sudo nvram “recovery-bootmode=unused” sudo reboot

Once you’ve rebooted into macOS Recovery, open the Utilities menu and select Terminal. Type the following command:

csrutil disable

You should now see that SIP has been disabled. Restart from the Apple menu, which should boot you back into macOS, then complete step six of the walkthrough. Once done, reboot to macOS Recovery one

last time, then issue the following command: csrutil enable

On rebooting into macOS proper, connect your iPad to your Mac via its USB cable. Open System Preferences where you should now find that Sidecar is an option next to Displays. Click this to open the main Sidecar screen. Click the Select Device menu, and your iPad should appear in the list. Select this and after a short pause you should see your display mirrored on the iPad.

Once you’ve connected via cable, you may also be able to use Sidecar wirelessly when both Mac and iPad are connected to the same Wi-Fi network. For a quick refresher on using Sidecar, check out the annotation on page 41.

One thing you’ll almost certainly have to put up with is the quality of the display on your iPad – expect screen flickering and pixelation, particularly on older Macs. Choosing wired over wireless should help that a little but, ultimately, you’re restricted by the hardware capabilities of your Mac. Overall, though, the display is readable, and the controls work well – particularly if you have an Apple Pencil to control your Mac’s desktop from the iPad.

Some setups may well prove more troublesome to get working than others – we found that our late-2013 MacBook Pro worked fine with an iPad mini 5, but check the Issues tab on the Free Sidecar homepage if you run into problems. Nick Peers