The iPad as a peripheral or secondary display

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Even before Apple unveiled the iPad, I was curious if their tablet-device would be able to function as a small secondary display to desktop Macs. I’ve long liked the idea Mimo’s miniature displays: a ten-inch secondary display isn’t enough screen real estate to add to productivity, but they are great places to corral widgets, contact lists and the like. I would never buy one specifically for that functionality, though, which is what made the notion of the iPad doubling as one so appealing.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the iPad will functionally work as a secondary desktop display out of the box, but David Klein over at The Apple Blog still thinks that the iPad could function as a peripheral, widget-based display through App Store offerings.

My perfect peripheral display app would come with a few basic widgets like a clock, calendar, stocks, weather, and access to photos on the iPad. The app could then offer upgrades (perhaps $2.99 each) for access to services like Flickr, Picasa, Twitter, Facebook, CNN (and other news sites), etc. The app could be free with the requirement that one of the widgets shows advertisements. A quick paid upgrade (perhaps $9.99) would remove the ads and offer a spot for another widget.

Klein’s vision of the iPad as a peripheral display is much different than mine — he wants an informative, intuitively laid-out widget dashboard, where as I want the iPad to be able to pair with a Mac and operate as a virtual display — but I don’t think these approaches are mutually exclusive. Klein’s is undeniably a more practical approach for an app developer to take, but I’m holding out hope that Apple itself will eventually allow the iPad to pair as a secondary display with a desktop Mac in some future update.

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