Use your S Pen on your Mac

What the pen sends to your Mac Pro

Your tablet becomes one more display for your Mac, and the pen works right on it. It reaches your Mac as a pen, not a mouse, with whatever your pen reports:

• Each point carries how hard you press, so a light touch can draw a thin line in apps that read pen pressure.
• How far you lean the pen, and which way, goes along with every point.
• Holding the tip just above the glass moves the pointer without clicking.
• Press the side button while hovering to right-click where the pointer is, or hold it as you tap.
• Fast strokes keep their shape, because the app sends the in-between points Android collects between screen refreshes instead of one point per frame.
• While an active pen is touching the glass or hovering over it, a resting palm doesn't click or drag, so you can write the way you would on paper.

How much pen lag people notice

Researchers at Microsoft and the University of Alberta built a prototype pen system with an end-to-end delay as low as 1 millisecond, at a time when commercial pens took 65 to 120 milliseconds. In a companion study they found something surprising: people are more forgiving of lag while inking than in other pen tasks. Earlier work had people noticing delays of 2 to 7 milliseconds, but while writing the threshold was around 50.

They also found that people don't judge ink lag by how far the line trails the nib. They judge it against something they can see, such as their own hand or the pen itself. Your eye times the ink by the hand that's making it.

Is writing by hand better for learning?

A well-known 2014 study by Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer found that students who typed lecture notes on laptops tended to copy the talk word for word, and did worse on conceptual questions than students who wrote by hand. A 2019 replication by Kayla Morehead, John Dunlosky and Katherine Rawson, using the same materials, found only small differences that weren't consistently significant.

So the takeaway is narrower than the headlines: the studies point to putting ideas in your own words instead of transcribing, whatever you write with. If a pen helps you do that, the tablet beside your Mac keeps those notes next to your work. Study with your tablet as a second screen for your Mac has more on notes for class.

Which pens and apps work

Wing Display reads the pen through Android's standard stylus input, so any active pen Android reports as a stylus takes the same path, including the ones Samsung, Xiaomi, Lenovo and OnePlus make for their tablets. Pressure, tilt and hover come through when your pen reports them; a rubber-tipped stylus works like a finger.

On the Mac, apps that read pressure from a drawing tablet can use it, and apps that only know a mouse get clicks and drags. The 14 free days of Pro for first-time subscribers are the way to try your own apps. On a recent Galaxy Tab, see using a Galaxy Tab S9 to S12 with your Mac.

Set it up

1. Install both apps

   Download Wing Display for Mac, which is free, allow Screen Recording and click Start in the menu bar. Then install the Android tablet app. Which tablets work lists what it needs.

2. Connect

   Open the app on the same Wi-Fi, tap Connect, and click Allow on your Mac.

3. Turn on Pro

   Subscribe in the tablet app, then allow Accessibility for Wing Display when your Mac asks. Set up your tablet as a second Mac screen has every permission.

What it costs

The pen is part of Pro, with touch and the USB cable connection: $2.99 a month or $24.99 a year in US dollars, bought in the tablet app through Google Play, with 14 days free for first-time subscribers. The wireless second screen is in the free plan. Compare the plans.

Questions