What is a duet? Wikipedia states that “A duet is a musical composition for two performers in which the performers have equal importance to the piece“. In this context, let’s look at it from a technical point. In a nutshell, Duet is what Ex-Apple Engineers have created to turn your iPad into an extra display for both the Mac and PC.

Now thanks to a new spanking office design and open concept, we don’t have any monitors to pair our laptops with. Once I heard about this software called Duet, I jumped at the opportunity to use it with my Mac.

As pictured above, I have paired my iPad Air together with my Macbook Pro Retina Display. Now the software works flawlessly and the movement is smooth thanks to the lightning cable interface. I would assume that if I had an iPad Pro, I would appreciate the extra real estate display.

Macbook Pro Retina 13″ running DUET on an iPad Pro

And thanks to that wishful thinking, I tried out DUET on the iPad Pro was so much better as it had better specs and performance as well as the screen’s real estate came in handy. In some cases where I played a YouTube video on the external screen, volume would come from your laptop even though the iPad had it’s own built in speakers.

Touch Screen Controls

One thing I really like is the ability to use the touch screen interface on the iPad screen. Yes! You can easily use your finger to launch items or access certain programs on your external screen, something you can’t do with an external monitor.

Screenshot of the iPad working with a Dell PC using DUET

Does DUET work with a PC?

The short answer is, DUET works with the PC as well. So if you have a PC at work and you have your own personal iPad, you still can utilise DUET to increase your screen real estate.

One year ago they released the following trailer.

Now they continue to push their own boundaries to improve the connectivity and the smoothness between devices.

Conclusion

Overall, I think it is a nifty thing to have and it is always good to have an external screen to make you a little more productive. You don’t need any new hardware, just an iPad and a lightning cable, pay for the app and you can start being more productive.

Download Duet here as well as download the iOS version in the link below.
https://widgets.itunes.apple.com/widget.html?c=my&brc=FFFFFF&blc=FFFFFF&trc=FFFFFF&tlc=FFFFFF&d=&t=&m=software&e=software,iPadSoftware&w=250&h=300&ids=935754064&wt=discovery&partnerId=&affiliate_id=&at=1001laUI&ct=