Duet display
Alan marvels at maximising the pixels on his mobile desktop
Duet Display (£11.99, duetdisplay.com) turns your iOS device into a secondary display for your Mac. You only have to install its Mac and iOS apps and then connect the two devices using a USB cable. We’ve tried it out before with a 9.7‑inch iPad, but it’s only since we got our hands on the iPad Pro that we’ve really fallen in love with it.
That particular iPad’s screen size gives you a fairly large secondary display on which to place some windows, rather than having to depend on Mission Control to juggle apps on a MacBook’s screen when you’re away from your desk. Rather than using the iPad Pro’s screen resolution to its full effect, we’ve set Duet Display to render at the non-Retina resolution of 1366x1024 pixels (half as many pixels in height and width). However, the iPad Pro’s extra inches of screen over a 9.7-inch iPad makes a difference in comfort.
Duet Display lets you interact with the Mac desktop using your fingers, and Split View is supported on the iOS side (though we encountered a display glitch). Even so, we’re delighted with it as a way to turn an iPad Pro into a practical enhancement for a MacBook.