A Demonstration and Overview of iPhone Mirroring

In this episode, Tyler demonstrates the basics of using iPhone Mirroring, a feature that allows you to use your iPhone from your Mac, with VoiceOver. Topics covered in this demonstration include:

• General description of the feature and its current issues and limitations
• System requirements and setup
• Navigating and dealing with various elements of the iOS user interface, such as the Home Screen, rotor actions, and context menus, using macOS
• Controlling which iPhone apps can forward notifications to your Mac

More general information about this feature can be found in the Apple Support article "iPhone Mirroring: Use your iPhone from your Mac."

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by Aiko, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.

Hey Apple visitors, Tyler here, with a demonstration and overview of iPhone mirroring. iPhone mirroring is a feature that allows you to essentially use your iPhone from your Mac.

This may be useful if you, for example, prefer a given service's mobile app over its desktop or web equivalent, or if what you're using doesn't have a desktop app or website.

In addition, as notifications from your iPhone can be forwarded to your Mac via iPhone mirroring, you may find it more convenient to receive and respond to the notification on your Mac than to switch devices if you're working on your Mac when the notification comes in.

With the initial release of Mac OS Sequoia 15.0, this feature was completely inaccessible with voiceover.

With the subsequent 15.1 update, it has become accessible to a point.

I say to a point because at the time of recording, October 2024, there are several issues that, in my opinion, make the experience less than refined from a voiceover perspective, which I'll elaborate on later in this demo.

To use iPhone mirroring with voiceover, you'll need an iPhone with iOS 18.1 or later and a Mac with Mac OS 15.1 or later.

All iPhones capable of running iOS 18 work with iPhone mirroring, as do all Macs capable of running Sequoia, with the exception of the 2019 iMac, as that model lacks the T2 security chip or Apple silicon.

To set up iPhone mirroring, just open the iPhone mirroring app on your Mac and follow the on-screen instructions.

I've already done that, so now I'm going to demonstrate the feature.

I'm going to open iPhone mirroring on my Mac.

So here I am prompted to authenticate.

By default, whenever you open the iPhone mirroring app, you are prompted to authenticate as a way to verify your identity before it gives you control of your iPhone.

If you'd rather, it didn't prompt you to authenticate each time you open the app, you can change this in iPhone mirroring settings.

Just choose settings from the menu bar or press command comma and it should be there.

But I'm going to authenticate with touch ID now.

Close button.

Okay, so here I am in the iPhone mirroring window.

Okay, so we have home screen and app switcher.

Now you can use those buttons to get to those locations, or I find it more convenient to use the view menu or keyboard shortcuts.

For home screen it's command one, app switcher is command two, spotlight is command three.

One thing to note about app switcher is at the time of recording, October 2024, the app switcher is basically unusable with voiceover.

In my experience, I found that when scrolling left and right, you know, VO left and right through the list of open apps, voiceover will say the app state.

So it will say active, active, active as I go through that list, but will not say what app is in focus, or in some cases will just play the navigation sound, but no speech.

But either way, if you want to explore it, just press command two.

But I'm going to demonstrate the home screen now, so I'll VO right.

FaceTime button, Wednesday, October photos button, camera button, TV button, maps button.

Those are just my apps.

Actions available.

So notice this is actions available.

Now if you were using iOS directly, you'd use the actions router to access those actions.

As there's no actions rotor on macOS, you use the equivalent actions menu accessed by pressing VO command space, which is what I'm going to do now.

Actions menu, nine items.

And there are some items in this menu that aren't present in the actions rotor on iOS, but if I go down.

Escape.

Scroll left by page.

Scroll right by page.

Scroll up by page.

Edit mode.

Today.

App library.

Press.

Show menu.

Show menu.

Show menu is the last action in that menu.

And that's the equivalent of the triple tap slash double tap and hold slash long press on iOS.

But I'm going to get out of this menu with escape.

Maps button.

Actions available.

Because if I want to get to the context menu, I can just press VO shift M and focus on an app, which is what I'm going to do now.

Dismiss context menu button.

So here I am in the context menu of a VO right.

App icon button.

Small widget button.

Medium sized widget button.

Large widget button.

Mark my location button.

Send my location button.

Search nearby button.

Edit home screen button.

Okay.

So those are the options in the context menu for apps.

I'm going to get out of the menu with escape.

Home button.

Now I'm back on the home screen.

One thing to note about iPhone mirroring is at least in my experience, there is a bit of a lag and I don't know if that's just a consequence of remotely controlling a device from another device on the network or if it's something voiceover related or a combination of the two.

But either way, it might take a little bit of patience when you're using iPhone mirroring because it's not instantaneous or nearly as fast as it is when using iOS directly.

But now I'm going to demonstrate opening an app and I'm going to open the settings up.

Health button.

Settings button.

Actions available.

Tyler's deep.

Search.

Search text field.

That's my name.

So if I VO left.

Heading settings.

Heading.

Top settings heading.

VO right.

Search.

Tyler's deep.

My name.

Family.

Apple Arcade free for free.

Airplane mode.

Wi-Fi.

Bluetooth.

Cellular.

Personal hotspot battery.

Button.

General button.

If I go into general.

Heading general.

VO right.

Manager overall setup and preferences for iPhone, such as software updates, device language, card play, airdrop, and more.

Text.

About button.

Software update button.

Okay.

And these are the options in the iOS general settings interface.

I'm going to go back to the settings, the main settings screen with the back button.

About manager heading general settings back button.

Heading settings.

Here I am back on the main screen.

I'm going to go home with command one.

App switcher button.

And now I'm going to demonstrate changing home screen pages.

And to make this quicker, I'm just going to jump to the bottom with VO globe right arrow.

Messages.

Now I'm at the bottom right of my dock.

VO left to the page picker.

So no phone.

Page one of two.

Slider.

Page one of two slider.

This is interesting because the fact that voiceover reports this as a slider implies that you should be able to interact with the slider and use VO up arrow to increment and VO down arrow to decrement.

Or even better, with many sliders on macOS, you don't have to interact.

Just focus on the slider and use the up and down arrows.

However, in my experience, neither of those work to change the page.

So to change the page, I find I can sometimes focus on the slider and choose the increment action from the actions menu.

And if that doesn't work, I can focus on an app and choose to scroll by a page.

So let's see what kind of luck I have this time and focus on the page.

One of two slider.

I'm going to try to increment with the actions menu.

Actions menu.

Five items.

Increment.

Increment.

Page one of two.

Slider.

Settings.

Page one of two.

Slider.

Didn't appear to work.

Let me just try again.

Actions menu.

Five.

Increment.

Increment.

Page one of two.

Slider.

Showing app library.

Settings button.

Nope.

Actions available.

But now I am focused on an app and I'm going to scroll.

So I'm going to scroll right and choose that from the actions menu.

Actions.

Scroll left.

Scroll right by page.

Scroll right by page settings button.

Seeing AI button.

Okay.

So here I am on my second page of apps and it landed me on the Seeing AI app.

One thing to note about iPhone mirroring is when you're using it, other continuity features like continuity camera will not work.

So if you want to use those, you have to quit out of iPhone mirroring.

But that's a demonstration of navigating the home screen with iPhone mirroring.

I think it's safe to say that this is less than refined, but hopefully as time goes on, Apple will make improvements to make it more consistent and pleasant for voiceover users.

There are other functions of iPhone mirroring.

For example, you can drag files, say from your Mac onto your iPhone.

Personally, I don't find I would use this much because there are other ways I can do this like iCloud, any number of third-party cloud services, AirDrop, or SMB network share.

But either way, it's there if you want to.

The way you use it with voiceover.

And I'm not going to demonstrate it in this episode because I've again, it's one of those things I've found to be a little inconsistent.

I'm not totally reliable, but my understanding of how it's supposed to work and which I've had success with sometimes is to focus on a file in the finder, route the mouse pointer with VO command F5, mouse down on it with VO command shift space, go into iPhone mirroring, open the files app, and then focus on where it says, you know, X number of items, route the mouse pointer with VO command 5, and then mouse up with VO command shift space.

Again, I'm not going to demonstrate that because in previous takes of this episode, I've tried and had very mixed results.

But either way, you can experiment and explore with that as you see fit for your use case.

Another thing you can try is notifications.

When you initially set up iPhone mirroring, you'll be asked if you want to allow notifications from your iPhone to show up on your Mac.

And if you say yes, all iPhone notifications will come to your Mac except from apps that are already installed on your Mac.

So for example, the messages app.

But if you'd rather certain iPhone apps not send notifications to your Mac, you can change this by going to system settings, notifications, and allow notifications on iPhone.

There you'll have a list of all your notifications, all the apps that you can turn off if you don't want that particular app to send notifications to your Mac.

So that's a demonstration and overview of iPhone mirroring.

Again, it's not, I don't find it super pleasant to use, but certain there are aspects of it that are convenient, like for me, at least getting notifications on my Mac and not having to pull out my iPhone is a neat sort of quality of life improvement.

But again, I hope it improves in the future.

But either way, I hope you found this helpful.

Peace.