Wireless displays have always had too many compromises to be practically useful for me: Lag, image quality, consistency of connection, on and on. But new hardware from Astropad, the maker of the popular iPad app that you can use to turn your tablet into a drawing tablet, has finally convinced me that high quality, easy and reliable wireless external display tech is within reach, and actually set to be available very soon to consumers thanks to a new Kickstarter project.
Luna Display[1] is a tiny dongle, not much bigger than the average thumb nail, which plugs into either your computer’s Mini DisplayPort (Thunderbolt, too) or a USB-C or USB 3 (two models will be available) port on modern Macs. The dongle then works with an app on your iPad, connecting using your Wi-Fi network to transfer data between the two.
Why the dongle? Other apps, including Astropad itself, have extended the Mac’s display using Wi-Fi before, after all. The reason is simple: access to your Mac’s graphics card. The dongle can tap into the full hardware graphics acceleration capabilities of the Mac to which its attached, delivering benefits software hacks can’t match, including Metal GPU support. That allows for a very high quality image, with true Retinal support and reliability across visual media types – video included.
The media prototype I received doesn’t have the final fit and finish of the planned production version, but it definitely works like a charm. I’ve long been a user of an iPad as a second display, typically employing the software of Astropad competitor Duet Display and using a wired connection to achieve the results I want.
Close-up look at Retina-quality resolution using Luna Display.
What’s so amazing about Luna...