The iPad is arguably the best tablet you can buy, but it is also a fantastic accessory for the Mac-now, it can even be a plain old graphics tablet.
Astropad Slate turns your iPad and Apple Pencil into an old-school graphics tablet for your Mac, as well as turning the iPad into a trackpad (handy for iMacs and Mac Studios), or even allows you to use your handwriting as an input for your Mac. It's pretty neat, and because it's software, it works with devices you already own. But what Astropad Slate does best is to illustrate just how handy the iPad is as a Mac accessory.
"I frequently use my iPad as a secondary screen for my Mac, harnessing the power of Sidecar. This dual-screen setup proves invaluable for multitasking, allowing me to extend my workspace, reference documents, or mirror content effortlessly," Sidecar fan and technology industry professional Max Shak told Tech Times in an interview.
It Just Works
One of the best aspects of using Apple gear is that it all works together-mostly. While there are glitches, you can usually do things like copy something on your iPhone and immediately paste it onto your Mac. You can run the mouse pointer off the side of your Mac's screen, and it shows up on your iPad, taking control of it and even dragging the keyboard focus along for the ride.
A lot of this is down to a group of features that Apple collects under the name "Continuity." For instance, Continuity Camera lets you use your iPhone or iPad's camera to insert an image into a Pages document on your Mac or its microphone to record audio into Apple's Logic. Or send a PDF to your iPad to mark it up and sign it with an Apple Pencil.
Continuity has been evolving over the years, and it's obvious that much of it is spillover from the technologies needed to make the Visio Pro work seamlessly with the Mac.
So, let's look at some of the best ways the iPad can become an accessory for your Mac.
Sidecar
The most obvious is to use it as an external monitor for your Mac. This feature is especially useful if you only use a MacBook because you can pretty much double your screen area with a 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Apple's built-in Sidecar does this for you, wirelessly or via USB-C, but it has one massive limitation. Yes, you can drag a Mac app onto your iPad, but you cannot control it with touch. Not properly, anyway.
Sidecar requires an Apple Pencil to interact with the on-screen app. Fingers only work if you use two at a time to scroll lists and other scrollable elements. Or, as mentioned above, you might just prefer to use your keyboard and trackpad and scoot the pointer across onto the iPad's screen as if it were a plain old dumb second monitor.
If you want to use the iPad as an actual touch screen for Mac apps, then you can opt for a third-party option, like the excellent Duet (software only) or the Astropad Luna Display, which requires a dongle, but can also be used to make the iPad into the sole display for a desktop Mac, like the Mac mini.
And speaking of screens, how about using the iPad as a monitor for your Nintendo Switch, X-Box, camera, or other device? Apple recently added the ability for the iPad to recognize "video capture cards," which are dongles that take a video output (like HDMI) from a device and feed it into a computer app to be viewed. It works really well, allowing you to play Zelda on an iPad and even use your AirPods to listen.
"For any artist working across devices, the iPad streamlines a usually fragmented process. It serves as both portable input and high-resolution output for Mac programs. Most importantly, it allows me to fully immerse myself in creativity whenever and wherever ideas arise," said software engineer and artist Rinkesh Kukreja in an interview.
Getting back to the Astropad Slate app, the iPad also makes a killer touch device for your Mac. Astropad also makes another app, Astropad Studio, which also projects Mac graphics apps onto your iPad, turning it into a Wacom Cintiq-style tablet, only without having to buy new hardware.
Or what about Touch OSC, which is a way to use your iPad as a customizable touch controller for your music apps? You can create a control surface on your iPad, full of touch knobs and sliders, and use them to control Ableton Live, for example.
It's probably not worth buying an iPad to use as a Mac accessory, but if you already have one, you now have a whole bunch of extra great reasons to use it alongside your computer.
Charlie Sorrel has been writing about technology, and its effects on society and the planet, for almost two decades. Previously, you could find him at Wired's Gadget Lab, Fast Company's CoExist, Cult of Mac, and Mac Stories. He also writes for his own site, StraightNoFilter.com, Lifewire Tech News, and iFixit.
