Hi this is Gary with MacMost Now.
On today's episode let me show you how to turn your iPad into a second screen for your
Mac.
So there are several apps that do this but I use the one called Air Display.
What you do is you install the app Air Display on you iPad and then you install some software
on your Mac that will allow it to see the iPad on the same wi fi network as another
display.
Then you can use your iPad as a second display with your Mac.
Now this is going to be slower and it is not going to be as convenient as actually having
a second display, and displays are pretty cheap.
So it is not something you would want to use at your desk in your office or at home.
But it is very handy if you just want to occasionally have a second monitor and you don't want to
buy another piece of equipment or if you travel a lot and you have your MacBook and you want
to have the luxury of having a second screen.
You're already carrying your iPad with you so why not use it as a second display.
The first thing you need is to search for Air Display in the iTunes App Store for your
device.
So you can do that right on your iPad if you want.
You can see right now it is ten dollars and of course prices always vary in a store and
you buy that and download it.
Then you want to go on your Mac to the website which is avatron.com.
You get linked to it when you get the app.
Then you go to Air Display and in there you can download the software you need for your
Mac.
There is also software for Windows as well so you can do the same thing.
So this is a free download.
You download and install these drivers.
So here I have my MacBook Air and my iPad 4th gen and they are both working on the same
wi fi network.
I've got the Air Display I've installed on the iPad and I'm going to run that to get
ready.
I've got it switched to Mac instructions.
I don't think it really matters that is just the instructions there.
Basically the app just sits there and waits for a connection and in the meantime you can
read all sorts of instructions to help you get going.
On the Mac I've got the air play system installed and I'm going to go to System Preferences.
Down at the bottom of System Preferences I now have under Other, Air Display.
So I click on that and see I've got it turned off now.
Before I turn it on I'm going to review my settings and see that I have retina display
turned off and I have everything else set the way I want so I can go back to Connect
and I can turn on Air Display and now I can select the device.
Now it could be a lot easier if you do this a lot to turn on the Menu Bar option and you
would get a lot of this right up here.
You wouldn't have to go to System Preferences to do it.
You can see that both up here and over here I've got iPad 4th generation it notices it
there.
It's my name for my iPad and that's why it comes up like that.
Now I can select it.
When you do the screens kind of refresh just like when hooking up an external monitor and
now I've got this screen over here and you can see I can drag and drop windows.
It works just like an external monitor.
As a matter of fact you can go to Show All in System Preferences in Displays it sees
it just as a regular monitor.
So System Preferences is none the wiser.
It sees there is the iPad right there.
I can even do something like mirror the displays and then it will refresh and now I've got
mirror displays there and if I don't have them mirrored I can rearrange them so say
right now I move the cursor or drag window to the right and you will see that it appears
there like that.
But if I want to say move it over to the left I could and now of course it will work like
this.
But that would be how I want it if I had my iPad on the opposite side of the MacBook.
Now let's look at using the retina display with it.
So let's go down to Air Display here and in Settings let's change it to use Retina Resolutions.
Now it is going to reset here and we will see what happens.
Of course the graphic extends across the entire iPad so you don't notice any difference at
the beginning but if I were to drag this over here you would see twice the resolution over
here.
It is hard to work with since the pixels are so small but it could be ideal if say you
wanted to view a photograph or something on this side you have all that resolution.
So now here I am running TextEdit and I can move this over here to this screen and you
can see I can first of all tap on it to move the cursor.
So you can see the cursor moves to wherever it is that I am tapping and I can also bring
up the keyboard and use the keyboard to type.
The cool thing of course it doesn't have to be on the screen here.
Let's see I can tap to drag, it is a little difficult to tap to drag but it can be done,
and I can pick up where I left off with the mouse.
I can still type here on the right so I can basically use my iPad kind of as an external
keyboard even if the stuff is on this screen.
So it does give you lots of options for doing things any way you want to do them.
Here you see I have the displays mirrored so I can actually still type with the keyboard
here on the iPad when I want and it doesn't interrupt the screen on the MacBook.
There are some really interesting possibilities in this.
For instance, if you were to mirror your display on your iPad you could hand your iPad to somebody,
say a client you are talking to.
Then you can basically drive a presentation on your MacBook and they could watch it on
the iPad instead of having to look over your shoulder.
Of course don't expect fantastic performance because you are piping the entire video stream
over wi fi.
That is many times slower than a direct connection using a dedicated video cable.
So you are not going to get the things updating.
You are not going to be able to play games or anything close to the speed of that.
But it is great for say putting a browser window over there, putting some pallets over
there if you are working say in a program like PhotoShop, things like that.
Maybe even putting Twitter and Facebook over on that so you can keep your eye on them while
you get your work done on the main screen.
I hope you found this useful.
Until next time this is Gary with MacMost Now.