Astropad's Luna Display accessory that's able to turn an old iPad or Mac into a secondary display for a primary Mac was today updated with a new feature that's designed to allow Mac-to-Mac mode to work over Ethernet and Thunderbolt.
The Luna Display is an alternative to Apple's Sidecar, allowing an iPad to be used as a display for a Mac. Unlike Sidecar, it works with other Macs, so you can use one Mac as a display for another Mac, something that's always been useful with machines like the iMac.
With a new 4.5 software update that's available today, the Luna Display can work with two Macs connected by Ethernet or Thunderbolt, which improves the Mac-to-Mac mode experience for users who have poor WiFi connectivity or would prefer to work with a wired connection. Prior to today's update, Mac-to-Mac mode was limited to the Luna Display's wireless connection.
The new software update brings other features including a battery indicator for a secondary device, secondary Mac keyboard enhancements, improved Retina support on M1 Macs, and for iPads, better compatibility with the 2020 iPad Air.
According to Astropad, Mac-to-Mac mode is an ideal alternative to Target Display Mode, a feature that Apple used to offer for older iMacs. Target Display Mode allowed an iMac to be connected to another Mac, with the iMac then serving as a display, but that functionality does not work with modern Macs.
The Luna Display allows an iMac to be used as a display for another Mac, but technically, it works with any two Mac combinations, so you can pair up two MacBooks, a Mac mini and a MacBook, or anything else.
The Luna Display is priced at $100 and can be purchased from the Astropad website.
Top Rated Comments
Hiding in the depths of the help docs was confirmation:
That page ('https://help.astropad.com/article/226-retina-m2m') was last updated Feb 3rd. I wonder if this latest release, with TB3 support can do iMac 5k resolution, and they just haven't updated the page? TB3 is enough bandwidth for that at least.