Can we please get an update video on this? How does it run in 2021?

Title: Apple sidecar: can it replace your drawing tablet? Thumbnail: Apple's sidecar is disappointing

brad, not even four minutes in: "what i dislike" oh boy...

Has sidecar improved the touch gestures and line quality? I would love to see some updated videos on how Apple is improving sidecar.

As a graphic designer who already had a macbook pro and an ipad pro, sidecar really improves my workflow. I take with me both devices and I use the ipad (10.5) not only as a second screen, but also for tweaking little things manually (with the pencil) on my designs. It's as easy as moving the photoshop window to the ipad and drawing. I had a wacom for years but didn't use it that much (couldn't get used to drawing in a different place of where I was looking at). It needs improvements, of course, but for my particular case it does the work more than perfect.

I’m curious to see if this has changed since the video came out. I’m planning to try it out and see if it’ll work for my purposes or not. Thanks so much! This was super helpful

Okay this is exactly what I was looking for. Side car good for when I need a 2nd monitor... astropad/lunadisplay still needed for anything interactive with Apple Pencil

It’s all about time, they will fix it with updates, we hope so

That's sad... Ipad + pencil would have been an amazing cintiq if it worked as it should :(

I was really hoping to replace my Wacom with Sidecar. Hopefully they will fix it soon. Thank you for the review 😊

Thanks for the great view, I haven’t tried Sidecar with any of the apps you mention but Sidecar and Clip Studio Paint is amazing. Pressure sensitivity is great, it feels like drawing on the iOS app or with a Wacom in my opinion.

I agree with your observations. I use an iPad Pro M1 12.9" regularly but I simply can't get it to play well with my M1 MBP, which is frustrating. Now i have to try/buy a Cintiq 16 because two of Apple's flagship products are incompatible.

That sucks, really wanted this to work.

Have you reviewed this again? If I am not mistaken it has improved. Specially if you use an iPad Pro and a 2gen Apple Pencil. Also the new M1 on iPad and iMac. I would really like to see a new review on this from you. Can you test it on clip studio? Thank you

Can you do a 10 months later review and see if it is improved

Any updates on this please

Brad, you are the best reviewer for artists, thanks! BTW, I'm missing some animations videos hahahha

Welp, looks like Astropad ain’t gotta worry too hard. They have more features anyway. And Catalina is full of surprises and not in a good way.

I think it generally works really well. And perhaps by now some of those shortcomings already have been improved? But the biggest issue for me is that on my 2017 MacBook Pro it comes at a HUGE performance hit. To the point where it’s not useful. I’m using it for animation software like Toonboom Harmony, and After Effects. These softwares are really hard on the graphics card and CPU already, so when the software based Sidecar monitor has to capture, compress and transfer a steady monitor stream to the iPad it’s affecting the performance of those apps, and it’s slowing things down and kicking the fan up. I went back to my Cintiq today and the difference is pretty noticeable to me. Perhaps if I got a better computer with more graphics memory and power it’d work more transparently.

Hey Brad, love your videos! Btw, any sidecar improvements in 2022 ?

This review is exactly on point. I have a 13.3” Mobile studio acting like a Cintiq all plugged into a Mac. I was kind of hoping this will negate the need for it, but nope. I found drawing with it crap. Mischief doesn’t work at all, Affinity designer and TVpaint what I it’s not really good. Somehow I found the Apple Pencil to be a little blunt for desktop apps.

I've just picked up a 2020 16gb 13" MBP. Sidecar is working very well with photoshop. Really enjoying it.

This the only comprehensive drawing review about the sidecar. Been searching for one since beta. Thanks Brad!

"Have you seen my laptop "🤣🤣🤣

I use Sidecar wirelessly full time for my work since I upgraded to Catalina. It already replaced my Huion Kamvas Pro 13. I am not sure about the performance when it is used with other software but with Clip Studio Paint's latest update, it works really well. No lag at all, just like drawing in iPad but with better performance of my iMac. I agree there are lack of full iPad feature here and there such as no gesture tapping, no pencil double tap (in CSP), and awkward rotating pinch gesture. But if what you mainly do is drawing, it does the job.

As always- amazing review! I love the way you always explain the tech side of products and how you make video really good quality, fast and animated scenes. Thank you for being here

I love my Luna display and astropad studio. Leaps and bounds better and you can customize shortcuts for each application. Everything that he says sidecar doesn’t or can’t do, astropad and Luna display does!

I have a late 2013 MacBook Pro and I installed Duet. But so far I haven't been able to get touch to work though I can drag my mouse to the iPad screen and that works somewhat. Got to contact tech support.

Can you make a video about how much sidecar has improve from its first release? Is it any better?

Hey Brad, has sidecar improved any in 2021?

I'm a designer and I have to choose whether to buy the wacom one or an ipad pro to use with sidecar. What should I buy ?

will stick with duet. the only downside is the the compression artifacting. but at the lowest res the latency is the same as on the native ipad

Any updates on this workflow? Is it any better in 2022 or just the same unreliable workflow?

Clicked so fast I time traveled to the future.

I guess what I was hoping is to use the iPad as a Cyntiq, but with the amazing response the Apple Pencil achieves. Not a second monitor per se. Also the ability to mirror the iPad? Like Procreate on the desktop? I didn't know. I guess all I really want is to be able to use the Apple Pencil on Photoshop desktop edition and every other drawing app out there. Because it's limited to the iPad Pro and the small scale of that I'm bummed. I've never felt comfortable with a cintiq for some reason.

I've been waiting YEARS for Apple to allow the iPad to act like a Wacom Cintiq. Finally almost there except my 2015 Macbook Pro that I bought brand new in 2017 doesn't support it. :\

I’ve been riding the beta waves since They first started coming out. When upgrading to the official Catalina release and also iOS 13 on my iPad Pro, honestly I’ve been pretty disappointed. It seems like most of it still does not work like it should even after all of the Beta updates

Very informative video, as usual! thank You Brad. Okay, and now for some thoughts coming from a MacBook Pro (2017-16GB-AMD) user with a 2018 iPad Pro 12.9 1TB: Most of the issues you mention were still there but were not as pronounced. The leading “dot” issue in PS CC is still there but not as bad and can be completely avoided if you start slow but that completely defeats how illustrators usually do brush strokes. On vector programs, such as Designer, there is a noticeable improvement on the brush stroke but not by much... Pressure sensitivity is also better, perhaps because of faster hardware communicating with each other- having said that, definitely still a ways to go. Three things (1) Sidecar is free, so can’t really complain. (2) Unlike Astro and Duet (both I own), 3rd party app programs can, in theory, tap directly into the sidecar’s API (engine) and become “Sidecar Friendly” that may improve a lot of things and address many of the issues you noted and (3) Sidecar is still on it’s first iteration as is Catalina and iPadOS, I hope they get to continue tweaking and that Adobe and Serif try to make their desktop Apps more “Sidecar Friendly”. As usual, excellent video, and I hope my input helps.

You should do a mid 2020 re-review of this. It seems to be a lot better through various updates

Is it better for 2022 coming ?

just starting this lesson and sidecar, i have new 2020 11 inch and macbook pro 16, drawing with the brush is instant...really about to open my web design workflow up. (looking for callabs) :)

Would love to get an update once Apple addresses the shortcomings.

how is the side car today? Is it any better? Have iPad pro and thinking to switch from PC to mac.

Non-art tip alert! I've been using my 8" Android e-ink e-book e-reader in a similar way with Windows for quite a while. Just for mostly static info, documentation, detachable toolbars and such, while I'm doing most of the work on my main display. There are apps for that, like Spacedesk or XDesktop. It can save a lot of app switching. Sometimes I save hours of battery life by switching off the main display and continuing reading on the e-ink one. It's great to have a second display ready to be used anytime you need it.

All of the problems are totally fixable. I'm using Astropad (regular, not even studio) on a 2012 Mac Mini and a 2013 MacBook Pro, and it's absolutely wonderful. So yeah, there's no reason at all that Sidecar isn't already way way better. Not to mention available on older Macs.

Hey brad! can we get an update on this and how much has it improved over the years? keep up the good work :3

I really hope all these get polished and better along the lines. Totally excited to try it!

Can you animate on the iPad when it's connected to a macbook, this there alot of lag, does it smoothly run?

Agreed totally with your analysis. This feels very "unApple". Personally I feel like Parallels Access is the best way to "touch enable" any Mac right now through using an iPad.

Love the video. If Sidecar perfect with no lag, I think Wacom will in big trouble.

Wish they'd update easycanvas to work with gestures and apple pencil at the same time.

Update using m1/m2 devices would be great

For me, Side Car has been a good idea but it's just not there yet in terms of functionality. Also, I have a 2019 8 core i9 Macbook pro with a Radeon Pro Vega 20 and with sidecar running, i see a noticeable drop in in system performance. Especially when running apps like photoshop. I assume due to the CPU working to encode the HEVC stream to send to the iPad.

Funnily enough give been using sidecar for my MacBook and it works really good

Hopefully it will get better over time as Apple see how people want to use this

Have they addressed any of this with updates? Is it time for a new video?

I'm so glad you said this! I've been trying really hard to ink an old Procreate drawing on photoshop, but it just feels too inconsistent. It almost feels as though there's this parallax effect. As though the point where my pencil touches the iPad differs from where the line begins. I'm sure that's not the case, but it just feels slightly uncomfortable, as compared to native apps like procreate or fresco. I've never used a cintique, but I have used some of Wacom's drawing pads, and while it's a little hard to get used to looking up at the screen rather than at your hand, it still did feel a lot better than sidecar. Weirdly enough, I've also been experiencing a lot of latency and hanging. Every time I turn on sidecar, the screen freezes, I have to disconnect, and reconnect. I can only assume it's because of my wifi, but the wired connection won't even connect. And every other review has been stunningly positive. Honestly, I've been looking up "Brad Colbow Sidecar review" almost everyday since Catalina came out, because I knew you'd be have an honest, holistic review, and be critical of the issues that are clearly there. I'm going to stick to procreate and use fresco with PS brushes for inking till Apple (hopefully) updates Sidecar

You really should take another look at EasyCanvas. It's superb with Windows + iPad.

Hopefully all the problems are on the software end so they can be fixed.

The issue i have, is that there are certain apps that are not on ipad pro like toon boom and so on. So the sidecar thing would have been great for me, but the lag just does not sit well with me as someone who is an animator and artist. I cant stand any form of lag!

Any KZfaqrs have a an updated sidecar / ipad test for 2021?

I was really looking forward to this new feature. I might even consider getting a macbook for this - if they'll fix the issues. rightclick + double click needs to work and the pen sensitivity issue needs to get fixed, Those things are definitely dealbreakers for me atm.

Have you tested the newest of the iPad Pro with side car? It maybe a hardware issue, most ideal testing solutions is to go to an Apple store and test run the side car on their newest hardware for comparison to your own review.

Maybe not now but it will with future updates

Any update?

I managed to get it working on the 2015 using a script from github and for me it works okay. Photoshop is the only thing I really use it for and it does the job for me, but honestly I just prefer using the ipad on its own. Using Procreate and then importing the sketch into affinity designer works way better for me than having to connect the ipad to the laptop

HOLY CRAP BRADS SIDECAR VIDEO!!!! CLICK!!!!!! Thanks for the review man. My hopes for sidecar were to high. But I will definitely use it on the go. I wonder if Photoshop for the iPad will "free" me completely from wacom...

I've been searching high and low for info on using it as a pen input. Thank you so much for clarifying that it does not work well for that. I'm still going with a wacom intuos pro

Does any one know if Sidecar has become smoother with more modern iPads / later operating systems?

Thanks for the review! I was so disappointed that I can’t use Sidecar on my 2017 MacBook air. I didn’t think to look up the specs before upgrading to Catalina. 😩 I decided I wasn’t going to change my computer just to try Sidecar. So I just bought a Luna display when they had a sale last week. Also I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that is more worth my time getting better at solving my clients requests with Procreate and Affinity on my IPad if my main concern is not being at my desk all the time.

Great video. Are there any sidecar drawing improvements with ipad2020. I’ve been debating between a macbook+ipad & wacom mobile studio for my portable setup for a while.

What able Clip studio Paint they had their last update try and address the Sidecar stuff.

can you do an update with the newest software?

Great video. But my experience with sidecar is kinda frustrating because it mostly works (and it does get crazy on Photoshop as well) but there's this slight video texture to the iPad screen, with a little bit of artifact to the edges of every object that's really distracting for me. I forced myself to use it during this day at work and, by the end of the day I changed back to Astropad Studio and it felt like night and day. Astropad Studio with the Luna adapter is quite a good duo and I really wished Sidecar would be good enough for me since paying a yearly subscription to Astropad is a bogus. I agree it might improve over time and I'm looking forward to it. When I'm only using as a 2nd screen, I mainly go for Sidecar already since it's easier to setup (and it doesn't need to use an USB-C port like Astropad Studio). But for drawing, I'm still stuck on Astropad Studio.

Seems like a case of incomplete or even bad testing.

Im actually happy i just bought the astropad setup nice to know it might still be needed..and still on 2015 mac book pro.

Use duet display (pro version). It has wireless and wired display connection for window and Mac and iOS. The pro version is basically a alternative for a Wacom cinque tablet with a iPad Pro

I tried SideCar with Blender for sculpting. There are similar problems. After all, it is a little better than with the mouse or the trackpad

I think giving it time will make it better

finally!! I've been waiting for your side car review!!! Awesome!!

not too bad for the first iteration, i suspect apple to improve and build upon sidecar like they do with everything

I’ve done some programming for drawing apps on both macOS with tablet digitizers like Wacom and iOS/iPadOS with Pencil, and there are nontrivial structural differences to how information is delivered to applications that, I think, will never make this a great experience. On macOS, the stylus data is delivered through a single input event (NSEvent, with subtypes like NSTabletProximityEvent and NSTabletPointEvent) which includes all of the properties of the stylus at that moment: pressure, orientation, tilt, device ID, pointer type/ID-the “pen” tip or the “eraser,” etc. This is because the device is connected via USB, and relies on electromagnetic resistance (Wacom, patented) or radio frequency interference (competitors, why you have to charge their pens) to obtain all of the pen attributes at once. On iOS, however, the Pencil communicates to the iPad via Bluetooth, and this introduces some delay. So the event information includes a property update index which your application registers and listens for. In short, you get an initial estimated value for pressure, azimuth, tilt, etc, and then get an update later-and not all attributes are guaranteed to be updated in the same follow-up event. iPad-native apps handle this and redraw their strokes as the updates come in, but Mac apps aren’t designed to do that. So with a technology like Sidecar, the system must buffer events and then deliver them to the apps (introducing lag), or allow events to go through immediately but have apps work on the estimates instead of the updates-resulting in the inconsistency you see here. You can also get a bunch of events delivered together (Apple calls these “coalesced” events) because the sample rate for the screen is much higher than usual (120Hz vs 60Hz) when you’re using the Pencil, and you need to make a separate call to receive all the coalesced events-again, something Mac apps won’t know to do. After I learned more about programming for Pencil, I gave up on apps like AstroPad or features like Sidecar. They will always introduce hiccups for drawing.

The Catalina, iOS 13 and iPadOS Betas were and are buggy so I see this as a work in progress over the course of 2019-2020

the M2 ipad has the pencil over feature. How come you didn’t make an update to show if it works better with an M2 Ipad?

@brad what your verdict about it in 2023?

First off: love your videos. I watched two so far and you’re a lot of fun and very informative to watch so thank you for that! Second: Have you tried it at all recently to see if the later updates smoothed out the issues you found in the video? Looking at getting a screen display for editing animations on photoshop and its either between investing in a touchscreen display, or a newer mac (I have a good ipad for it, but my 2012 mac mini wont support sidecar) just curious if you tested to see how it works now vs when it first came out!

On my mid 2017 5k iMac and 3rd gen iPad Pro 12.9, I didn't experience the severe issues you had using Photoshop. I did see some however when I whipped my hand very fast, there was some minor "gooping" near the edges. However, when I use the pencil brush for drawing or sketching, it appears flawless for me.

Thanks - very informative. I’m gonna be trying it with photoshop - I’m less of an artist - more design/retouching - so I’m hoping it will be at least adequate and Apple can improve it over time.

8:31 "it" certainly does get big

I sold my wacom tablet because I thought sidecar could do the same job, But i am in a great regret now

Earlier this year I picked an iPad Pro as my main computer and have started to do more digital art and illustration on it but still haven't decided on a good long lasting work environment. I've used cheap wacoms on old photoshops and now I'm just doing pixel art on adobe fresco because it came free and preinstalled. I'm missing a LOT of functions and even tried the photoshop app on ipad os and it's garbage, have been meaning to try procreate but i would have to relearn my functions and stuff and was wondering if picking a newer laptop for sidecar would be a good implementation (I'm also on a 2015 macbook pro) so your insight has been very valuable. Also, do you use a paper-like screen cover and would you recommend it for more serious work? I'm worried about the color accuracy and in general sacrificing this amazing display when consuming content but if it's worth it for the performance I'll for sure do it. Great video!

wow your video just came in time I was thinking of buying either iPad pro or Wacom Cintiq Pro, & was searching if iPad pro could replace a Wacom tablet of course, didn't find much results in that subject Thanks for making this video ob

can i reduce the latency with apple pencil if i connect ipad with cable?

Hey Brad. I'm pretty sure Apple will be able to fix it in their next MacOS update. I still have high hopes for it. Keep up the good work 👍🏽👏🏽

I agree. You get bad performance on general use. If you use ipad as mirror of your Mac Screen, it gets much better; but any screen size not 1:1 your iPad looks very blurry. Pencil have bad performance on any case.

I'm trying it in May of 2020 and can't get the zoom gestures to work. Also, the hide menu and dock buttons don't do anything. That's just what I've found right off the bat.

Let me ask you a question. If you connect an external monitor via Thunderbolt 3 port, I mean a real monitor, can you touch it for scrolling, selecting or for any such screen touch operations? No, right!?! It's the same thing here. The iPad is acting as a secondary monitor. Yeah... MONITOR...! The extra benefit that you get with this facility is the handy toolbars which you can touch and use your apple pencil to draw on it. That's it! If you consider it that way, then it is not bad at all. Because, without paying any extra money, you have a second monitor just by using the iPad that you already had. And yeah, in case you did not have an iPad, it is better to go for a real monitor with much bigger screen resolution and size rather than purchasing iPad for second screen. And for latency stuff, connect the iPad via USB-C cable to reduce the lag. There you have it. A free secondary monitor to declutter your Mac workspace while you concentrate on the creative stuff.

Has it improved at all in 4 years? 🙏

Thank you, i was really hurry to get sidecar’s but i see that isn’t so impressive now, but well. Love your reviews and sincerity. THANK YOU!!!

I experienced every single "issue" you had with catalina, sidecar, and photoshop as well. Waiting for the next iteration of sidecar, until then, i'll stick to the luna display with astropad.