iPhone Mirroring in macOS Sequioa and iOS 18 adds jiggle mode for home screen management

Key Takeaways

• The new iOS and macOS betas allow for rearranging the iPhone’s home screen with a Mac
• Jiggle mode is now accessible via iPhone Mirroring for easier scheduling
• Rearranging your home screen can still be frustrating

The latest beta of macOS Sequoia again iOS 18 added new skills to iPhone Mirroring which allow you to rearrange your iPhone home screen directly from your Mac. As first reported by 9to5Mac, it’s now possible to click and hold on any app icon or widget when using iPhone Mirroring to open it. jiggle modewhere all your icons start to move, indicating that they can be repositioned.

Before this update, it was not possible to activate the jiggle mode using iPhone Mirroring which means you could not use it Your Mac to rearrange your iPhone home screen. With this update, you can use your Mac’s trackpad or mouse to drag widgets and app icons to create a beautiful home screen layout for your iPhone. New functionality has been added to the latest betas of iOS 18, iOS 18.1, macOS 15again macOS 15.1and should be available as part of the official release of iOS 18 again macOS Sequoia this fall. That’s it unless you are in the EU where the feature will not be available at launch.

What is iPhone Mirroring?

Connect to your iPhone directly from your Mac

At WWDC 24, Apple presented some of the new features coming to macOS Sequoia . The first feature that was shown was iPhone Mirroring. This continuity feature allows you to click an icon on the Mac dock to bring up a virtual version of your iPhone on your screen.

You can interact with a virtual iPhone just like you do with your physical iPhone; you can swipe across screens and tap an app icon to launch apps, which will open directly on your Mac, allowing you to use your Mac keyboard to type messages on WhatsApp, or use your mouse or trackpad to scroll through Instagram.

You can interact with a virtual iPhone just like you do with your physical iPhone; you can swipe across screens and tap an app icon to launch apps, which will open directly on your Mac.

Your Mac will mirror your iPhone notifications, and you can click on an app notification to open that app using iPhone Mirroring. While your iPhone is on display, it will stay locked, and if you turn it on its side, it will unlock Stand mode to display useful information while using your iPhone with your Mac.

iPhone Mirroring should make it easy to manage your home screen

However, old frustrations remain

Apple has always tried to provide a user experience that is not frustrating, but one area where it has failed miserably is when it comes to moving apps and widgets on your home screen. The current trend hasn’t really changed since the early days of the iPhone; tap and hold the app icon until all the icons start to move. You can then drag icons around the screen to reposition them.

It sounds simple enough, but anyone who has tried this will know that although you can control the position of the icon you are moving, the remaining icons will reposition themselves and their lives, often jumping into positions you don’t want, or disappearing to another screen entirely.

Ultimately, rearranging your home screen can always be a frustrating experience, but being able to use your Mac with iPhone Mirroring can make it a little less frustrating.

Knowing you rearrange your home screen using your iPhone can make things easier. Using a mouse can give you more precision than you can manage when dragging things with your finger, and you get the added benefit of not covering the rest of the screen with your finger when you do so.

However, using your Mac won’t change the fact that when you move an icon, some icons will probably reposition themselves where you don’t want them to go. There’s also a handy trick when moving an icon to a different screen on your iPhone, which involves holding your finger on that icon and swiping the screen left or right. It should still happen if you’re using your Mac’s multitouch trackpad, but it’s less likely that you’ll be able to. a mouse .

In the end, rearranging your home screen will probably always be a frustrating experience, but being able to use your Mac with iPhone Mirroring might make it a little less frustrating.