In the past,target display modelet you repurpose an iMac as an external display for another Mac.
That feature withered and only works on older devices, but Apple has resurrected the concept with AirPlay Display.
The feature is both amazingly useful and a bit frustrating.
Devon Janse van Rensburg / Unsplash
AirPlay Display
AirPlay Display is like magic.
At the bottom left of the window is a drop-down menu to ‘Add Display.’
Clicking that shows a list of available Macs and iPads.
you’re able to even arrange the display layout and change the resolution.
Once up and running, the target Mac just acts like a regular external display.
If you do it over Wi-Fi, there’s a slight delay.
If you might’t live with that, you might use a USB-C cable.
What Can You Do With It?
So, you now have two displays.
What can you do with them?
The short answer is: Anything you like.
Its just another display connected to your Mac.
But how about some useful examples?
One handy use is to shift communication apps off to your iPads screen.
Anything you may glance at is a perfect candidate: Twitter, iMessage, or a newsreader app.
Another use is to mirror your MacBooks display to the bigger iMac.
Why not just use the iMac instead?
Thats a good question!
The best answer may be that its somebody elses iMac.
Unfortunately, this brings us to AirPlay Displays biggest frustration.
One wonders why this requirement couldnt be bypassed for a connection with a wire.
One is to use an iPad as a second display for a MacBook.
Its a pretty compelling use case.
The other is to effectively give yourself a touch-screen Mac.
I tried this, and it works incredibly well, even over Wi-Fi.
Its not perfect, but AirPlay Display is pretty great.
