Duet: Turns Your iPad Into A Zero Lag Secondary Display For Mac

iPads are such versatile and powerful devices; you can do almost anything on them, and that includes turning into your computer’s second display.

Now, until recently, Avatron Software’s Air Display has been my go-to app for this. But now there’s a new kid on the block built by ex-Apple engineers, and it’s called Duet.

You see, while apps like Air Display use WiFi to connect to your Mac — a tidier option, but one that suffers from laggy performance — Duet uses your iPad’s 30-pin or Lighting cable to connect directly to your Mac instead. To some that may be a turn-off, but the result is a lag-free, high resolution secondary display that’s an absolute pleasure to use. (It’s also incredibly simple to set up.)

Duet is perfectly capable of handling 1080p video.

I’m writing this article on the iPad’s display, and every character I type appears just as it would on my MacBook Pro. I’ve even been able to watch a full HD 1080p video on my iPad, and it handled it like a champ.

On your Mac, Duet gives you the ability to choose between power efficient or high performance settings for display resolutions, frame rates and overall performance. The nice thing is that they’ve offered just enough options to allow you to tinker, but without making it overwhelming.

Duet’s menu allows you to customise the secondary display.

Duet is compatible with any iPhones or iPads running iOS 7 and above, and all Macs running OS X 10.9 and above. It’ll cost you £10.49/$14.99 on the iOS App Store, but trust me, it’s totally worth it. You’ll have a high performing secondary display to carry around with your MacBook (if you own one), and it’ll give you a reason to put your iPad to good use too.