Use Your iPhone as a Microphone for Your Mac

[tennisproha]

You can disconnect to remove this
iPhone from the Mac microphone list.

So taping the disconnect button on iphone removes the iphone’s mic from the mac’s system settings completely?

 

[masteroflondon]

did all that, googled, removed Camo, rebooted all again, still no joy. Thing I haven't tried yet is plug phone in via usb c cable and trust device.

I find it doesn’t work if your have another user logged in, in the background, for fast user switching. Log them out, it works fine. Log them back in and switch back to your user, and it might work once, then not anymore. That applies to the whole webcam continuity thing as well.

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

Could come in handy taking a call from the toilet without having to carry your Mac

Holding iMac up to your ear while on the toilet. New use case unlocked. Could you hurry, my arm’s getting tired here.

 

[lotones]

Cool. Wish that was possible with Windows iPhone as mic for laptop with Windows.

Are you sure you're in the right forum? 😅

This wouldn’t even be needed if Apple just added a basic microphone to the Mac Studio. They should have just put whatever mic they use in the iMac in the Mac Studio. It’s super annoying that the Mac Studio literally has no built-in mic.

This makes no logical sense. Mics are usually attached to monitors, or computers that have monitors attached. The Mac Mini and Mac Studio don't have attached monitors, so no microphone. And it would probably sound like crap from all the reflected sound from being on your desk. Also, a lot of people place their Mac mini/Studio under a shelf, or out of sight, so again a mic would be useless.

 

[svish]

Very useful feature. Have used it once. These features of iOS/macOS makes all the devices function well together.

 

[badtzmaru]

It’s a shame that Apple never advertise them

They only market the fake features these days!

 

[victorvictoria]

I use my MBP in clamshell mode most of the time, this is a handy feature for teams meetings (since the mic on the MBP is disabled when it's closed)

There's an app for that. More than one, in fact. Or you could just attach a keyboard or mouse and the mac wouldn't go to sleep.

 

[victorvictoria]

And what is the purpose of this feature?

 

[checker2010]

And what is the purpose of this feature?

iPhones generally have better cameras than most Mac’s.

 

[SamVilde]

:/ Does it (phone-as-mic) work when continuity camera doesn't work?

I have a 2023 Mini at work hooked up to a trash monitor with no camera or microphone.
I was thrilled with the possibility of using continuity camera as my camera but it works 1% of the time? I've read the needs to be $%^&* plugged into the Mini for it to work? I'm not going to buy a 3 foot long cable just to test that stupid idea. But it would still be helpful if the mic could work, just so I can say "sorry, no camera" when I'm in a meeting.

 

[fatal1980]

I will say this is actually nifty and I’ve been using it. It feels weird having to go into system settings to enable it , feels cumbersome.

If you hit option + speaker icon on the top menubar i believe you can switch it there more quickly.

 

[tonmischa]

The article fails to mention several important points:
- You have to have WiFi and Bluetooth enabled.
- The phone has to be in landscape position, be steady, and screen off to be recognized.
- if you EVER tapped "Disconnect" on the phone, it will be removed from the Mac's System Settings, you have to connect it via USB-Cable to have it show up in the System Settings again.

Use your iPhone as a webcam on Mac

You can use your iPhone as your Mac webcam or microphone.

support.apple.com

 

[rotlex]

The article fails to mention several important points:
- You have to have WiFi and Bluetooth enabled.
- The phone has to be in landscape position, be steady, and screen off to be recognized.
- if you EVER tapped "Disconnect" on the phone, it will be removed from the Mac's System Settings, you have to connect it via USB-Cable to have it show up in the System Settings again.

Use your iPhone as a webcam on Mac

You can use your iPhone as your Mac webcam or microphone.

support.apple.com

So I was playing around with this today. Couldn't get it to work. Followed all of the steps above but did NOT previously plug the phone into my Mini via USB. Once I did that, it seems to be working perfectly even through reboots of the phone or Mac. (And of course without being plugged in).

Cool feature, if it keeps working, and now removes my need to buy a web cam. I rarely use one anyway but there is the odd occasion that I do.

 

[searls]

I'm more interested in finding a way to get it to STOP auto switching to continuity. Rebooted the phone and Mac, no dice. Logic Pro has just decided that every few minutes it really wants to use my iPhone mic no matter what I do

 

[Schwarzmaler20]

Doesn't work here. iPhone 14, latest IOS and macOS, same Wireless Network, Bluetooth enabled. Even landscape mode.

 

[victorvictoria]

iPhones generally have better cameras than most Mac’s.

But it's about a microphone, not a camera.

 

[aaronhead14]

Are you sure you're in the right forum? 😅


This makes no logical sense. Mics are usually attached to monitors, or computers that have monitors attached. The Mac Mini and Mac Studio don't have attached monitors, so no microphone. And it would probably sound like crap from all the reflected sound from being on your desk. Also, a lot of people place their Mac mini/Studio under a shelf, or out of sight, so again a mic would be useless.

The vast majority of Studio owners just have it on their desk.

It makes FAR more sense for it to have a basic mic than to not have one at all.

 

[GtrDude]

And you still can’t do a basic click-through on inactive apps without hitting keyboard keys first.