beneficial arrangement if you intend to use the
tablet for drawing and sketching. Yes, your Apple
Pencil remains compatible even with an iPad in
Sidecar mode.
This is clever because when you create a sketch
with the Pencil, the work is also being done on
your Mac, saving you from having to manually
transfer it to the Mac later. The iPad’s Markup
feature also lets you doodle on PDFs or mark up
documents – amendments that you can also
save on your Mac without having to manually
transfer them beforehand. The Sidebar gives you
access to commonly-used controls or shortcuts
to more obscure features on which you still
heavily rely.
Several apps, including Pixelmator Pro and
Apple’s own Final Cut Pro X, have already been
updated to support Sidecar. On the subject of
developers, many of them are also likely to be
enticed by Project Catalyst, whereby making an
iPad app compatible with the Mac “takes just
a click in a checkbox”, according to Apple. This
move will convert touch controls into keyboard-
and-mouse controls, leaving developers to
“focus on the finishing touches” like adding pull-
down menus.
EASY-TO-OVERLOOK FEATURES AND
TWEAKS IN CATALINA
It reflects how much Apple has put into
macOS Catalina that the more attention you
invest in it, the more you can get out of it. Just