Add feature to handle Universal Control device location in the layout

[Theodore8888]

Request for integration of Universal Control into BetterDisplay

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Universal Control only works very intermittently and randomly between my Mac Studio M2 Max and 3rd Gen iPad 12.9.

It typically works only a few minutes a day. It might come on for a few seconds/minutes after toggling the switch in Settings, only to stop working very shortly thereafter with no warning. This intermittent functioning is a known problem in the Apple community.

Could BetterDisplay take over that functionality in a next version to ensure that Universal Control works properly ?

Thank you.

[waydabber]

I'll need to dig deeper into this. The app uses an undocumented Sidecar api to manage some aspects of Sidecar connection (like detecting, connecting, disconnecting an iPad for Sidecar), but I did not yet explore Universal Control.

[Theodore8888]

Thank you very much for acknowledging my message. Much appreciated. There is an active community of unhappy Universal Control users who have been complaining for the past three years that the feature doest not work reliably. It would be really great if BetterDisplay was the solution to make UC work all the time.
Keep up the great work!

[fnadirli]

Hi, any update on Universal Control support, especially saving/restoring iPad position in display layouts? Thanks!

[waydabber]

Yes, I looked into it and sadly this is an aspect of macOS that has no API access and is generally heavily locked down, so the relevant APIs cannot be used (even if the API calls themselves can be identified) without special Apple entitlements. The reason is that it's not just a simple "iPad position" thing - the positioning is orchestrated among multiple Apple devices (iPads, Macs), requires iCloud and handoff in a way that every participant knows about all the other participants - all devices must understand relative positions to each other (if you change the layout on Mac A, this is updated to the layout on Mac B), these must be synchronized, keyboard and mouse must be relayed securely, desktop states must be coordinated (so for example a right click menu must disappear on Mac A if the user moves the mouse over to Mac B and clicks something), etc. All this moves sensitive data and is protected against any kind of tampering apparently.

[Theodore8888]

Thank you very much for looking into this! It is truly much appreciated. Keep up the great work, I couldn't live without BetterDisplay. Best wishes, Theodore