Astropad's New 'Slate' App Lets You Control Your Mac With Your iPad and Apple Pencil - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Astropad's New 'Slate' App Lets You Control Your Mac With Your iPad and Apple Pencil

After several months of beta testing, Astropad is today officially launching its Astropad Slate app for the iPad. Slate turns an ‌iPad‌ into a large trackpad for a Mac, complete with Apple Pencil control.

astropad slate
With Slate, you can use an ‌iPad‌ and ‌Apple Pencil‌ to perform several useful tasks. The ‌Apple Pencil‌ serves as a cursor for controlling the desktop mouse, and a tap on the screen is used as a click.

When you write on the ‌iPad‌, it is translated into typed text on the Mac, and there are two-finger gestures for actions like scrolling and zoom. If you have a newer ‌iPad‌ that supports ‌Apple Pencil‌ hover, you can use the hover gestures. For older iPads, Astropad added a simulated hover option.

In Mac apps that support drawing, sketching, and other creative work, you can use the ‌iPad‌ as a drawing tablet. It essentially serves as a no-screen interface for drawing, with the focus on the Mac.


You'll need an ‌iPad‌ that runs iPadOS 15 or later and a Mac that runs macOS 11 or later to use Astropad Slate. The devices can be connected over Wi-Fi, Peer-to-Peer networking, or an appropriate USB cable.

The Astropad Slate app is priced at $19.99 and can be purchased from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Popular Stories

astropad workbench

Astropad Workbench Lets You Remotely Control Your Mac and AI Agents From iPhone and iPad

Wednesday April 8, 2026 10:20 am PDT by
Astropad, the company behind the popular Astropad Studio software for turning the iPad into a drawing tablet, today launched a new app called Astropad Workbench. Astropad Workbench is a remote desktop app designed for the Mac, and more specifically, built for use with AI. With Astropad Workbench, you can control your AI agents remotely, which makes it useful for people who have set up a Mac...
macOS 27 on MacBook Pro

macOS 27 Will Mark the End of an Era

Saturday April 18, 2026 6:45 am PDT by
During its Platforms State of the Union segment at WWDC 2025, Apple revealed that macOS 26 Tahoe is the final major macOS version for Intel-based Macs. The upcoming macOS 27 release will be compatible with Apple silicon Macs only, meaning that you will need a Mac with an M-series chip or a MacBook Neo with an A18 Pro chip in order to install the software update. macOS 27 should be available...
macworld iphone 18 pro colors

iPhone 18 Pro's Four Rumored Colors Revealed, Including 'Dark Cherry'

Friday April 17, 2026 3:50 am PDT by
A source said to be familiar with Apple's supply chain today revealed the color options Apple is planning for the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and the upcoming foldable iPhone. Image via Macworld. The information comes from Macworld, which says the signature new color for this year's Pro models will be Dark Cherry, a deep wine-like red. While other sources had previously reported on a...

Top Rated Comments

tweaknmod Avatar
28 months ago
Imagine working hard on something then finally releasing it - and an accompanying media release - only to see the comments full of people mocking your product, even though they are in no way the target audience, would never be interested in such a product, and don’t understand it - yet they feel the need to tell the world how useless they think it is.

It’s a niche product. If this isn’t for you, and you “don’t get it”, ask about it respectfully or just move on with your life, maybe?

The widespread acceptance of disrespectful comments by people who don’t realize/care that people who worked on this stuff read them will never stop frustrating me. And I refuse to stop calling it out when I see it.

To the team who launched this - and I know they’re monitoring these forums, cause I do that for a living: Congrats on the launch! Good luck 👍
Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Jhonjhon236 Avatar
28 months ago

So … a Wacom tablet?
Pretty much, but great if you have an iPad but not a Wacom.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
turbineseaplane Avatar
28 months ago
So … a Wacom tablet?
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
28 months ago

Why not just a touchscreen Mac? Odd solution to, well I'm not sure.
I'm not an artist, but it seems like this would be much more convenient than drawing on my laptop screen.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
28 months ago

True!

I just wonder if the person this is truly targeted at wouldn’t prefer a dedicated device targeted at this usage, like a Wacom

Seems like a good update either way
An iPad app that works as well as a Wacom tablet would be even better than having just the tablet, because you could obviously use the iPad for so many other things. I'd swap my Wacom tablet for an iPad if the responsiveness was the same.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
28 months ago

Pretty much, but great if you have an iPad but not a Wacom.
What's the use case here?? "I have a tablet which is great for drawing, but I hate direct visual feedback and would instead prefer to use that tablet which is great for drawing as a slave device to a big monitor."

If that, why not just mirror the tablet's screen to a monitor?
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)