Using two displays isn’t an everyday thing, but there are times when splitting your screen between apps doesn’t just really work. It’s certain there are times you certainly need more screen real estate to amplify your productivity. I’ve always wished my iPad could function as a secondary display and i’ve been able to achieve this.
Yeah, I know I’m late to the party and that Duet Display has been around for a couple of years, but trying it earlier today totally convinced me that using dual-display is something I may be doing a lot henceforth.
Why two displays anyway?
Switching between apps really slows you down and instead of doing this, you could just glance at your secondary screen to get the information you need. For me, this is practically applicable as a writer. You need the information contained in a document to create an article, displaying this document on a secondary monitor and writing with the primary display makes perfect sense.
This is also particularly useful for gamers who need to extend their screen to see more.
Duet Display turns your iPad or iPhone to a secondary display
If you just want to mirror your MacBook display to your iPad, Duet Display handle this efficiently. I hooked up my MacBook Pro to my iPad Air 2 and the experience was smooth. With cable connection, there was no noticeable lag. This may be a drawback considering that a wireless connection would have been perfect, but the same effectiveness achieved using the Lightning cable may not be possible over WiFi.
I was also able to extend the MacBook’s display to my iPhone too though I’m not really sure that is something I would be doing going forward.
Duet Display gives you a number of options to control how the dual-display setup works. Setting it up doesn’t require much expertise, just download the app from the App Store to your iPad, then go to the official website on your computer and download the Mac app or Windows program.
Run both and connect your iPad to the MacBook or Windows laptop and you’re good to go. Duet Display isn’t free though, the iOS costs $19.99 but there’s a 50% discount right now. But the Mac and Windows software programs are free.
And by the way, a new feature was introduced yesterday with the release of the latest version. You can now experience Apple’s TouchBar on the iPad through Duet Display. You just need to update the app to v1.6.3.4 and be sure to be running macOS Sierra 10.12.2. I’m yet to experience the TouchBar as I’m still running macOS Sierra 10.12.2. I’m just in the process of downloading the latest macOS Sierra update to see how this looks like.
