This dongle turns your iPad into a touchscreen Mac (sort of)
Ever pick up your iPad and think about how much more you could get done on it if only it ran macOS? Now, a small red dongle turns that into a reality.
Luna Display by Astropad is a tiny dongle that connects your MacBook to an iPad wirelessly, turning the tablet into a second monitor for your laptop. However, with Apple’s long-awaited new Mac Mini now available, Luna Display tested whether its adapter would turn the new iPad Pro into a touchscreen display for the desktop Mac.
In a blog post and video posted below, Luna Display breaks down the result.
With the Luna Display dongle plugged into the Mac Mini, a user simply opens the Luna Display app on their iPad. The video output is then pushed over WiFi from the Mac Mini to the iPad. So, macOS isn’t actually running on the iPad, it’s just acting as a display.
As you can see in the video, however, the coolest feature about the Luna Display is that all of the iPad's touchscreen features still work. Luna Display is the closest you’ll get to using a touch version of macOS. Luna Display also works with a bluetooth mouse and keyboard.
Another neat feature about Luna Display is that because it's simply pushing the macOS display to the iPad through its app, one can open and close the app to toggle back and forth between iOS and macOS on the iPad.
The Luna Display dongle can be purchased from the Astropad website for $80. If you already have an iPad, this dongle could also be a good option in general for your Mac Mini, which doesn't come with a display. And the touchscreen will make all your friends with MacBooks jealous.
