I hate small screens and laptops so planned on getting the 15" Macbook Pro. Then again, I love the Apple iPad so compromised, or so I thought, by reluctantly instead getting the 13" Macbook Pro to allow me the luxury of additionaly purchasing the 12.5" new iPadPro. With Duet, I realised that I could double up on the display real estate by linking the two devices, placing all my application toolbars on one screen while focusing on my work area on the other. I now have a portable duel screen solution that fits in a slim carry bag as well as having a touch screen option to boot. The syncing is perfect with absolutely no lag so the iPad can be used as a drawing tablet for OSX applications as well. I happened to have a USB-C VGA adapter for the Macbook which includes a power port and a standard USB port, so it simply involved plugging the USB to lightning cable into that and the iPad. An extra bonus was that I could then plug my USB-C power cable into the adapter (rather than the Macbook itself) and charge both the iPad and the Macbook simultaneously.

Duet is useful for having documents ready that are needed during a Zoom/online meeting. These documents can be shown on an phone/iPad while have the computer screen dedicated to the meeting. The app is easy to use. On the occasion I had a problem I contacted the help desk and received a friendly, efficient reply almost immediately. Duet is one of those apps which you take for granted, but when you don't have access to it you miss it immediately.

After purchasing a 2020 IPad Pro I realized connection to my mid 2014 Mac which doesn’t have USB 3 ports. What to do? Cables to connect are available but hellishly expensive and to a point defeat the point - who needs more cables and adaptors cluttering your desk? Sidecar was my first stop - but doesn’t support older Macs. Quick You Tube search and Duet pops up. Tried setting it up but realized I needed to pay for wireless connectivity (very sad face). Did the math and figured, fine, do able. Ka-Ching! Set up (more sad faces) - look, I’m not a tech geek so I can concede a degree of frustration in this area - I just want to plug and play (but no plug). Cut a long story short, I emailed their support and Sergio, had me up and running within an hour! I’m still figuring out stuff and so my review is within the framework of limited experience but suffice to say Duet works. Their support works. Now I need to see how well it works for me.

I really, really wanted to like this. I’m an illustrator and figured it would be great to have the pencil functionally with my desktop drawings programs. I use a Cintiq which isn’t all that portable so this sounded like the perfect solution. Photoshop and Sketchbook respond differently to gestures than they do with Mac’s trackpad, which is hardly intuitive. The trackpad loses its regular functionality when the iPad is being used as the display tablet, so actions like scaling or moving your drawing area are incredibly frustrating. Perhaps the Cintiq would have been a good starting point for design.I’m tethered by USB but when drawing, the latency is awful. There’s also a trail that follows your line that’s super distracting. This is presumably a placeholder for the actual line before it’s rendered, but it’s impossible to see line weight until it renders a split-second too late.I’m not sure why the desktop component is a paid app. It would make far more sense to provide that bit for free and then charge for the various options. It feels a bit like a trap. By the reviews here, people see, to be satisfied with the dual display functionality though so if that’s your need, don’t let the above sway you. If you’re able to provide a refund, it would be most appreciated.