I recently got myself a Macbook Air and was blown away by it. This is my first Mac bought to replace my 7 year old workhorse laptop which has now been converted into my home media streaming server (courtesy Serviio).
In just a few days, I noticed how I've moved to using the Mac Air instead of my iPad as my goto computing device. That's when I realised that the killer feature of the Mac Air is its zero startup time - it was like having the convenience of the iPad and the functionality of a full fledged laptop.
That got me thinking that I need to repurpose the iPad and put it to some use, so I thought of making it a 2nd screen for the Mac Air. A little bit of searching the web led me to a number of solutions, some working over Wifi, some using the USB cable. However, all of them were paid solutions, and I wasn't in the mood for spending money on them, just after cleaning out my wallet on the Mac Air.
So a little more effort, and I got a perfectly workable solution, all for free.
Installation
- Download and install the following software on the Mac Air
- Syphon Virtual Screen - Creates a virtual display. Get it here.
- RealVNC Server - Creates a VNC server that allows remote viewing and control of the virtual display. Get it here.
- Install the following software on the iPad
- RealVNC Viewer - Allows viewing and control of the virtual display from the iPad. Get it here.
Using the virtual screen
- Start Syphon Virtual Screen from your applications. Enable it from the menu and set a screen resolution. Since I have an iPad 2, I've set mine to 1024x768
- Start VNC Server and select Options->Expert. Change the "Monitor" parameter to "1". This selects the virtual display instead of the default display
- Start VNC Viewer on the iPad and connect to the VNC server you just set up. You must be on the same network for this to work.
Notes
- In the Syphon Virtual Screen preferences, all you need enabled is "Enable virtual device at startup"
- If you would like to change the location of the virtual monitor, you can do that from "System Preferences->Displays->Arrangement". Just drag and drop it wherever it's more convenient
- Syphon Virtual Screen does seem to make the Mac laggy, so I only recommend turning it on when you actually are using the virtual monitor
- If you want to have a similar setup for Windows, use Zonescreen to create a virtual monitor instead of Syphon Virtual Screen. Get it here
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