Apple has made it remarkably simple to make use of an iPhone widget in macOS Sonoma, even if in case you have simply the iOS app and never matching Mac one. It is simple, but it isn’t apparent and the outcomes are blended. This is methods to use them.
It is not fairly proper to say that Apple has made it fast to get iPhone widgets, as a result of setting this up is blink-and-you-miss-it quick. To take a widget you may have in your iPhone and add it to your Mac, you do want sure issues:
- macOS Sonoma
- iOS 17
- Mac and iPhone to be bodily close to one another
- Each units to be on the identical Wi-Fi community
- Each units to logged in to the identical Apple ID
Upon getting these, you may have iPhone widgets on the Mac — you simply have to seek out and use them.
The method of including an iPhone widget is precisely the identical as for including a daily macOS Sonoma one. You begin by right-clicking on an empty spot on the desktop, or by calling up the identical widget sidebar that is acquainted from macOS Ventura.
In both case, you click on on Edit Widgets, after which a brand new widget picker seems on the backside of the Mac’s display screen.
For those who have been including a daily Mac widget, you’d simply seek for the Mac app that gives it, or scroll and click on via the picker’s record. So as to add an iPhone-only widget — you do precisely the identical factor.
All the widgets which are out there to you in your iPhone, will now present up within the Mac’s widget picker. And you choose them in exactly the identical method as Mac widgets.
Which is in fact excellent, besides Apple could possibly be so much clearer about this. The brand new Mac widget picker does differentiate between Mac and iPhone widgets, however it’s a must to know the place to look.
Till you do, it may be complicated. If, as an example, you occur to have the identical app on Mac and on iPhone, that widget drawer will comprise two entries — with the identical title.
They fairly probably have the identical widgets in them, too. There is not a approach to distinguish between Mac and iPhone variations simply from wanting, it’s a must to click on on every.
While you do, the iPhone one will embody the phrase “From iPhone,” written in small grey letters. The Mac one says nothing in any respect.
It will be good to have the ability to present solely iPhone widgets, or to not directly see which is an iOS app with out going via each one like this.
But when you already know the widget and you already know the app you need, you may then merely drag it out from the widget picker and place it wherever you need.
Discover the 2 an identical MindNode app icons on the left. Click on on the proper one and also you get “From iPhone” within the nook
There’s a downside
Solely, there is a matter with utilizing an iPhone app’s widget on the Mac. It is that the widget continues to be going to be a front-end to the app, and you do not have that app on the Mac.
So with an audio widget comparable to Audible or BBC Sounds, as an example, you may’t management something, you may’t truly play something.
As an alternative, clicking on the apps causes them to show an error comparable to “Open Audible on iPhone to proceed.”
That is tied in to how widgets was not more than info shows, and now they are often interactive. As builders work on their apps and their widgets, hopefully the widgets will have the ability to do greater than inform you to get out your iPhone.
But it is seemingly that there’ll at all times be no less than some limitation like this. Apple needs you to have the ability to use iOS widgets on macOS Sonoma even when you do not have the corresponding Mac app, however that should restrict performance.
If the widget cannot name again to its host app on the Mac to, say, stream audio, it would not appear seemingly that it is going to be in a position contact its iPhone app for you.
App builders shall be including interactivity, however for some it is nonetheless going to be that they’re greatest on the iPhone
Interesting however restricted
So for no less than the second, the flexibility so as to add an iPhone widget to a Mac is outstanding — in very particular circumstances.
However for all of its limitations, this new capability so as to add an iPhone-only widget to a Mac is simple to do — and probably very helpful.