iPad - from tablet to PC

[Edward64]

Wife had toyed with wanting a MacBook Pro 2021 for Christmas. We looked at it and she decided to hold off for now (kinda pricey). So I had a great idea and googled on how to make our iPads work more like a PC.

1) Connect it to a 26” HDMI monitor
2) Connect it to a keyboard and mouse

The simple answer is to get a hub. But it wasn’t problem free. I’m not completely done yet but wanted to share with FOFC stuff that I’ve found in case you want to do the same. Typing on the iPad now.

I ended up getting an Anker 7-in-1 USB-C PD Media Hub from Amazon.

It has 2 regular USB ports to connect my keyboard and mouse, an HDMI to connect to monitor, a SD and microSD slot, an extra USB-C port.

[Edward64]

Challenge #1

So plugged in monitor, keyboard, mouse. Turned it on and first surprise was the fugly screen. Apparently iPad OS doesn’t “scale” to the external monitor so there are thick black borders and a lot of wasted space.

Googling tells me this is the way it is. Apple doesn’t do this. Solution is buying an app like ShiftScreen 4x. There are others apps and am still researching on which one to get. But okay, there’s a solution here for about $8.

Challenge #2

I went to play a YT video and second issue is no sound. Apparently the iPad, once connected to a hub, assumes some other sound device. I read that if a monitor had integrated speakers it may work, but mine doesn’t.

Googling again told me try a bluetooth speaker. I had one lying around, paired it with my ipad plugged into the hub. Still no sound. Found the solution, see below, search for “airplay”

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251696756?page=2

Challenge #3

The scroll on my mouse works differently than on the PC. Scrolling down on iPad goes up whereas on the PC it goes down. Haven’t googled on it yet but there’s got to be a solution.

Challenge #4

My keyboard is connected via USB to the hub. As I’m typing this now, my keyboard’s “Home” and “End” keys don’t work at all? It’s not vBulletin because it doesn’t work in Gmail either. Haven’t figured this one out yet either.

[Edward64]

The monitor and sound would have been deal breakers for me. I know I can get them working so am relatively confident I can make this work now.

However, just bitching about how there’s such a lack of plug-and-play compatibility with IPad OS.

Using and scaling to external monitor should be a no brainer. I get having to use a Bluetooth speaker but having to do the additional step of airplay is not frakking user friendly.

I remember the days of DOS and early Windows where there was compatibility issues everywhere. Not near as bad but certainly not up to snuff for a $2.5T technology company.