Luna Display scan, like turning an iPad Pro into an external monitor on your Mac

Last November the guys at Astro HQ surprised us with something they didn’t even think would be possible. Your Luna Display accessory turned your iPad into the main monitor of the new Mac mini. The perfect combo, a Mac mini for home and iPad Pro as a mobility computer that when you are at home becomes the monitor of the Mac mini. Was this viable? I had to check it out.

I didn’t think about it much and decided to check for myself how good the idea of using an iPad Pro as an external monitor for the Mac was good. A simple USB stick connected to your Mac made your iPad act as a monitor on your Mac, bringing macOS to an Apple touchscreen.

What you need to use Luna Display

Luna Display is a small accessory that allows you to connect the iPad and the Mac to each other to act as a second monitor, it is therefore a kind of «wireless cable». For everything to work properly you need the following:

• A Mac from which to transmit the signal. Works with any Mac that has macOS El Capitan or higher.
• An iPad to send the signal to. Works with any iPad running iOS 9.1 or higher.
• The Luna Display app for Mac. Available for free on the official website.
• The Luna Display app for iPad. Available for free in the App Store.
• The Luna Display stick. Available with Mini Display Port or USB-C connection. You can check on the official website which is compatible with your Mac.
• A Wi-Fi network that features both your Mac and iPad.
• The better the network signal, the better the connection between the two devices.

With all these items available, you can start using Luna Display. Here the idea is not «to have an iPad as a monitor», there are bigger monitors that do not require so much to work. The idea is to get more out of the iPad, in addition to the features we already give it, also using it as a companion monitor to the Mac.

So, if you decide to purchase a Luna Display, you only need to install the corresponding apps, plug the stick into your Mac, and run the apps. In a matter of seconds, you’ll see your Mac’s desktop on your iPad. From the Mac itself, you can choose whether to use it as a mirror screen or as a secondary screen, even indicate where it is located (to the right or left of the Mac).

Additionally, Luna Display allows us to indicate if it is being used in a space with multiple Macs/users to always choose the correct one. But if we use it on a local network where there is only one Luna Display, we won’t have to worry about this. And finally, yes, the iPad can be the main monitor if the Mac on which we are running Luna Display does not have another screen, that is, if it is a Mac mini.

What it’s like to use Luna Display

The operation of Luna Display does not have much mystery, it is identical to an external monitor. When the app is running on iPad, your Mac will have a second screen to which you can move windows, run full-screen apps or extend the information to have «more screen». While the app is running the iPad will not turn off the screen and will work simply as one more monitor.

Luna Display performance

The experience using Luna Display for a couple of weeks has certainly been satisfying in terms of fluency, one of the most feared aspects. In this sense it depends on several factors and will be different for each user: the performance of the Mac and the iPad on which it runs, the quality of the Wi-Fi, the images that are sent…

If you’ve tried other apps that stream your Mac image to iPad over Wi-Fi, forget it, it’s not the same at all. Normally for this type of connection a Wi-Fi signal is used via AirPlay or by sending the image indirectly through an external server. Luna Display uses its own technology called LIQUID Technology. What’s the difference? It integrates better to get the most out of a wireless connection and the hardware it connects to.

With LIQUID Technology and because your Mac actually transmits information over a physical port, Luna Display can make use of several extra features of the Mac. For example, it offers much lower latency or uses GPU acceleration to distribute work. The result? In my case a smoother experience than with other apps I’ve tried these days. It’s really like you have a monitor when you’re using wired to your Mac.

A monitor with keyboard and touch input

Using your iPad as your Mac’s external monitor is OK, but why just use your screen? Unlike a traditional monitor, the iPad has a touch screen and you can also connect an external keyboard. Luna Display takes advantage of this to make you look as close to a macOS on your iPad as possible. From the iPad itself, you can interact directly with your Mac’s operating system without having to rely on your Mac’s keyboard, mouse, or trackpad.

When you tap on the screen, the pointer scrolls where you have pressed, when you press again, clicks on it. While it is true that the operation is somewhat rare, because a pointer is not intended to work on a touch screen, it is a viable option. As for the keyboard there is not much mystery, if you find ourselves in a text field, you can automatically start typing with the external keyboard connected to the iPad as if it were with the mac keyboard.

In other words, you can take your iPad to the couch for example and work from there on your Mac. It’s not as much as doing it from The Mac itself (because of the absence of a trackpad or mouse), but it is a feasible option if at specific times we need to move from the desktop and we can’t take the Mac with us (well because it’s not portable , good for any other reason).

A monitor for your Mac with the benefits of an iPad

So what are the conclusions of using Luna Display? The idea with which I stay at the end is that if I want to get more out of the iPad by having the Mac, it’s a perfect accessory. On occasion the 27 inches of the iMac fall short, I have never considered buying an external monitor just for that, but the iPad meets perfectly in these situations. It’s not about choosing the iPad+Luna Display combination over an external monitor, but choosing Luna Display if you already have an iPad.

For these last few weeks I have been messing daily with Luna Display, the stick already has a permanent position on my Mac, and I have had no problems at the moment. In addition, seeing a pointer on iPad or Finder on Apple’s tablet is the dream of many. There’s a trick, though.

Luna Display can be purchased from the official website. It is priced at 79.99 USD regardless of whether we choose the option with USB-C or Mini DisplayPort. Apart from the stick itself, we should not pay for anything else because both the iPad app and the Mac app are free.