Apple debuted iPhone Mirroring as a first class feature in macOS Sequoia during the 2024 World Wide Develeper’s Conference (WWDC). An extention of Continuity, Apple highlighted the ability to fully interact with your iPhone virtually, while the actual device’s screen remains locked and secure.
Craig Federighi noted several use cases for how this could be a useful feature, including using a coffee app to place your coffee order, using Duolingo, or dragging files from the Mac directly inside an iPhone app. He even showed how iPhone notifications can be displayed alongside macOS notifications (further muddying lines of context, but I digress…) and when clicked on, it launches the virtual interface of your iPhone. Pretty neat!
Source: Apple
There’s one feature I’m personally excited to use iPhone Mirroring for, and it’s something that really shouldn’t have required a full virtual iPhone interface to achieve, but here we are.
Send app to another device
For years, I’ve wanted the ability to browse the App Store from one device, and send an app to another device for installation. Maybe I’m on my Mac and want to install a game to my iPad for when I’m home. Or maybe I’m on my iPad and see a fellow indie released a new killer app for iPhone. In the days of olde, I did this a ton with my PC and my Android phone. It was so handy to discover an app on the Goole Playstore in the browser, and say “Install this to my phone.” Then the next time I picked up my phone, poof! The app was already installed and ready to rock.
I’m hoping this is a feature that will still make its way to the Apple ecosystem, since launching an entire virtual device screen is a bit overkill for the feature, but I’m looking forward to the ability nonetheless!
What about you? How do you see yourself using iPhone Mirroring?