Universal Control: Unexpected iPad Location

Hey Fred Thorne,

You've done a great job describing your setup to help us visualize what's going on and we'll be happy to help out with getting Universal Control set up the way you'd like.

You should be able to place a Mac display above an iPad, however it's unclear if the same can be said about a third-party Samsung display. However, we'd suggest using the steps outlined in the "Arrange your displays" section of the following resource for help with seeing if you can: Universal Control: Use a single keyboard and mouse between Mac and iPad

Here it says the following:

"Arrange your displays

Arrange your displays to adjust where your devices think they are positioned relative to the others. You can then move the cursor more precisely in the direction of each display.

1. On your primary Mac, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Displays. The preferences window shows an image representing each device's display. 
2. Drag the image of your iPad or other Mac into position relative to the other displays: to their left, to their right, or below them. A Mac display can also be positioned above other displays."

We hope you find this information to be helpful! Take care.

Same here! I'm trying to put my iPad at the left of my MacBook Pro, and after a second it automatically jumps and place it at the left of my external monitor (Dell).

I'm trying to place the iPad here

But then, it jumps automatically to here:

No way I can arrange it as I want. Any ideas?

Thanks

From Apple Developer Documentation

iPadOS 15.5 release notes…

Universal Control

Known Issues

• Universal Control in this release isn’t compatible with macOS 12.3 and iOS 15.4.
• Workaround: Use Universal Control between macOS 12.4 beta and iOS 15.5. (91136128)

Yeah, I have the same issue with two monitors on 16” M1 MBP. It always goes to below my vertical monitor or off to the sides. If I move the vertical monitor bottom up to the level of the other monitors it works but that is not a solution. First Picture is Where I want it placed, the second is where the iPad jumps to.

Hi Similar issue here.

I have two external monitors and my MacBook Pro arranged side-by-side. I want to position my iPad under the central monitor (HP) but MacOs snaps it back to being under my left hand monitor (Samsung). My Mac is on the right hand side. I can drag the iPad position but moments later it moves back to the left hand monitor (see attached image to where it keeps ending up).

Any ideas?

Upvote

2020 MBP 13 (two TB3) running Monterey 12.3 (21E230), 5th Gen iPad Air running iPadOS 15.4 (19E241), connected to Dell U3818DW (firmware M3B103).

Placing iPad via settings, displays. Universal control settings, all three checks enabled. iPad, General, Cursor & Keyboard (beta) enabled.

Dragging the icon for the iPad below the external display (Dell) and adjacent to the Mac - the iPad 'snaps' to a new position after being dropped off in the "right" place.

Similar issue. In my case, I have an M1Pro MBP and an LG external monitor. Physically, my LG is in front of me, iPad in front under the LG, and MBP to the right on a laptop stand. The iPad keeps snapping under the MBP if I try to position it under the LG, but it will let me do it if I close the MBP.

Ok, wow, after weeks of this I literally found a solution mere seconds after posting about it lol.

It seems like it doesn't like it if I put the MBP a little under the LG, but it's cool with everything as long as they're at least even with each other.

I'm hitting a very similar issue!

I have 27" external monitor to the right of my MacBook.

And I have an iPad that's physically ABOVE the Macbook display (on a stand)

When setting-up universal control, it's not letting me place the iPad ABOVE the Macbook display. It lets me put the iPad to the left of MacBook+external monitor, or to the right of the MacBook+external monitor... ...but NOT above the Macbook+external monitor. Am I doing something wrong?

With multiple displays, I've sometimes found it useful to designate (in Display Settings ..) whichever display you want the iPad to be next to (or below, etc for "Use as: Main display" vs. "Use as: Extended display" even if that's not the built-in display of the system with the keyboard & mouse that you use for Universal Control.

In other words, if you can't set your iPad location adjacent to a display, try designating that display as your "Main Display" in System Preferences -> Displays -> Display Settings ...

There may still be some impossible iPad locations, but this should open up a few more valid possibilities.

Re: "Is there some way to direct my iMac to identify where my iPad actually is, rather than where it appears to want me to place it?"

There doesn't appear to way for the iMac to identify where your iPad is each time you use Universal Control. So the way it works is as follows ...

The first time you used Universal Control and moved the cursor off of some side (or bottom, or top) of your iMac to the iPad, it assumed that's where -- in relation to the iMac's display -- the iPad is. And that's what's remembered (and shown in System Preferences -> Displays). The next time you try move the cursor past an edge of your iMac's display you'll only be able to move it off that same edge.

To have your iMac recognize that the iPad is off some other edge of the iMac's display, you'll need to go into System Preferences -> Displays and drag the image of the iPad to the other edge. You can demonstrate this by relocating your iPad to a different side of your iMac. The iMac won't change where it thinks your iPad is -- until you manually drag its image in Preferences -> Displays.

The iPad's image may not be draggable to where it actually is in relation to the iMac's display if you have multiple external displays connected to your iMac if doing so would displace an image of one of the external displays. Try dragging the image of that external display away first, before dragging the iPad's image to its position. If that doesn't work, re-designating which (internal or external) display is the "Main display" may give you additional placement options.

In particular, for me, I eventually realised that the monitor it kept snapping to had its lowest edge lower than the monitor where I wanted to locate the iPad.

(That suggests to me that the "edge" through which you have to move the mouse is being tracked across all monitors, rather than the one I wanted to put it under. Clearly a bug...)

[macOS 12.3.1, iPadOS 15.4.1]

Same here: MacBook OS x 12.3.1 iPad iOS 15.4.1

The ipad will stay in place when it is the only conected display, but if I have an additional small HD screen attached, the iPad will just always snap to under the Macbook screen

Thanks Ben (I assume) :)

I've been playing with it for a day or so, thought it was a bug as I was one release behind on MacOS.

But found your post here..

Worked a treat.

It doesn't have my laptop display in the right place.. but I don't use it over there anyway. Just want to use the ext monitor and iPad.

Thanks again!

I've the same issue. Here's where I place my iPad:Here's were it snaps to...

Surely there's a config file that can be edited until Apple fixes this.