Using Continuity Camera and Continuity Sketch With Your iPhone or iPad and Your Mac

While working on your Mac, you can use your iPhone or iPad to take photos, scan documents and draw sketches. The result will end up as files on your Mac, being saved directly from the iOS device to your Mac. You can also insert these images directly into documents in some apps. You can also use this to create signatures in Preview.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at four different ways you can use your iPhone to create images while working on your Mac.
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So Continuity is a feature that allows your iPhone or iPad to work together with your Mac. So you can be working on your Mac and you need an image of some sort and you can get that through your iPhone. You iPhone has cameras and a touchscreen. You can use those to create different images in different situations. For instance if you need a photo you can use your iPhone to take that photo and it goes directly into a file on your Mac. It doesn't reside on the iPhone. You can do the same things with scans. You can scan using the camera on your iPhone and then the scan, the PDF, goes right into a file on your Mac. You can also draw things using the touchscreen on your iPhone and have the resulting file go right into a new file on your Mac or into a Signature in Preview.
So the easiest way to use Continuity Camera is to use the Task button at the top of any Finder window. Now you want to be in the place where you want to save the file that you're going to create. So get there first. Then use the Task button. You can see here I can navigate to Import From. For you it might say Just From iPhone or it might say Just from iPad. For me it's going to say both because you can see here I've got the ability to grab stuff through Continuity Camera from both my iPhone and my iPad that are nearby.
There are three different types of files that I can get from my iPhone. One is just to use the camera to take a regular photo. The other is to make a scan using the camera. The third is to actually do a sketch. So it's not going to use the camera at all but will allow me to draw on the screen of the iPhone using Markup tools.
Now I'm going to start by trying to take a photo. You can see when I do that my iPhone shifts to this screen that's basically a view from the Camera app. I can take a photo here. Once I take the photo I tap the Use Photo button and that sends it to my Mac and the iPhone returns to what it was doing and I have the image now in the Finder at that location on my Mac. So this is really useful if you have a job or hobby where you have to take pictures of objects all the time to use them in documents or just put them as part of a project on your Mac. You don't want to have that cluttering up your Photo Library and have the whole multistep process of taking the picture on your iPhone and then getting it out of the Photo Library, then deleting it from the Photo Library and everything like that. You can just take the picture and have it go right to a file here in the Finder.
You can even skip the Finder and not have it be a file at all. Here I am in Pages and I can click the Media button and you see I have the ability to import from my iPhone or iPad in the same way here except it goes directly into this Pages document. It never even exists as an independent file. 
So in addition to taking photos you can also use the cameras on your iPhone or iPad to scan a document. It can be one page document or a multipage  document. Taking a scan is much like taking a photo. The difference  is that the scanning view is going to try to find a piece of paper or something that's a rectangular sheet of some sort and it's going to take a picture of that but then correct its perspective  so it's always flat even if you're taking the picture at an angle. You can also add multiple sheets of paper to the scan before you finally hit Save and then it sends it to the Mac and the iPhone returns to what it was doing.
In addition to Cameras the other thing your iPhone or iPad  has going for it is, of course, a touchscreen. You can use a touchscreen to draw on which is really useful if you want to create a sketch. Something you can't easily do on your Mac. I mean you can draw with your trackpad or mouse. But sometimes it's much easier to draw with a touchscreen.
So using this to create a sketch works in much the same way except it's not using the camera at all. You basically get a blank canvas and you get the Markup Tools that you can use to draw in other places in iOS. So you get like a pencil, pen, highlighter. You can use a ruler. You can do all sorts of different things right there on your screen by touching and drawing on it. When you're done it takes that image to your Mac and your iPhone, once again, returns to what it was doing before. Now where this really shines is if you're using an iPad and you've got an Apple pencil. Then you can use that to draw a sketch that will go directly into a file on your Mac. 
Not only can these sketches go into files in the Finder but they can go directly into documents like Pages, Numbers, and Keynote the same way we did photos. You may have noticed that you could take a scan and do a sketch and have them go directly into documents that you're working on. In addition you can also use this to create a signature. You do this in the Preview app. Now the Preview app for awhile has had the ability to make a signature using your Mac's camera. You sign a sheet of paper and you hold it up to the camera or you can use your trackpad and sign the trackpad.
But now a third option appears and that's to use your iPhone's touchscreen to create a signature. But to create a signature this way you have to be in Preview, of course. Then you go to Add a Signature. So you go into the Markup Tools. You go to Add a Signature and you may see the ones you've already created there. But you have the ability to create a new signature and now your iPhone appears as an option. Then your iPhone changes to the screen where you could sign the screen. Then that will get added to your list of signatures in Preview and you can add it to the document you're working on and the signature remains around so you can add it to future documents as well.
Now for this to work your devices should be using the latest operating systems. In addition they have to have Bluetooth turned on, Wi-Fi turned on even though they are talking directly to each other still using Wi-Fi to accomplish that. They both need to be using the same Apple ID, of course, and two factor authentication to make it all secure. Apple has more information here at this page to what you need to use these continuity features and lists even more places where they can be used as well.
So it's great to see Apple adding more continuity features. I hope they continue to do that. One thing I would love to see is continuity video. I would love to be able to use my iPhone as a video camera and have the video go directly into my Mac as a stream. In other words use my iPhone as a webcam. That would be awesome.

Comments: 4 Responses to “Using Continuity Camera and Continuity Sketch With Your iPhone or iPad and Your Mac”

Vaman Kale

5 years ago

This was awesome. Most useful tip. Especially signing a PDF, which used to be such a pain.

Ric

Thank you for this very useful tip. However when I try to use it my phone does not show, only my ipod and ipad. My phone is iphone XR. Bluetooth is turned on and all are on 2 factor auth. I get the same result in all apps, finder, notes etc. How can I get the phone to show on the dropdown menu. Thanks

Gary Rosenzweig

Ric: Try things. Restart devices. Connect with a cable to see if it shows up after that. Etc.

Thanks Gary, the cable worked like a charm. I'm looking forward to discarding tons of paper. I enjoy seeing your tips every day and hearing you on TEH every week, and I'm working my way through your tutorials.Thanks again for your help.

Comments Closed.

Using Continuity Camera and Continuity Sketch With Your iPhone or iPad and Your Mac

Comments: 4 Responses to “Using Continuity Camera and Continuity Sketch With Your iPhone or iPad and Your Mac”

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