Now you can turn your old Mac into a second screen with Luna Display

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Luna Display on Mac
Luna Display on Mac (Image credit: Astropad)

What you need to know

  • Luna Display can now turn Macs into second screens for other Macs.
  • You can still use iPads, too.
  • If you already have the Luma Display hardware, you're good to go.

When Apple announced Sidecar as part of the macOS Catalina update, Luna Display was the first thing that popped into my mind. But despite appearing similar on the surface, Luna Display and Sidecar are actually quite different beasts. Sidecar can't use a Mac as a second screen, for example. And now, Luna Display absolutely can.

Luna Display first burst onto the scene in the fall of 2018 and the ability to turn an iPad into a second Mac screen was amazing. This latest news takes things to their logical conclusion, making any compatible Mac into a screen just waiting to be used.

Since then, we've continued to ask ourselves, "Is there more that we could be doing with Luna Display?" The answer was sitting right under our noses in the form of all the idle Macs we had laying around our development space. What if we could turn people's e-waste into extra screen space!

Luna Display Mac animation

(Image credit: Luna Display)

One of the most obvious uses here is for anyone who has a Mac mini and wants to run it without any physical monitor attached. Now you can use Luna Display and have your MacBook Pro act as its screen. But things go beyond that, too.

Let's say you have a portable Mac. Now you can use it as an extra monitor at work or at home. But you'll still have the MacBook Pro for those times you're in neither location.

For example, if you have an iMac at your office, and a laptop that moves with you between work and home, pair your laptop with your iMac when in the office to make use of both devices. Or if you're just working from home, pair your laptop to your iMac or Mac Mini and harness the power of those super computers from your comfy sofa. Get yourself a snack in the kitchen without having to miss a beat when your co-worker sends you a funny dog GIF! The possibilities are endless!

Trackpads and other input devices all work in the way you would expect, and so long as your Mac is running macOS 10.8 or newer you shouldn't have any issues. And the whoe shebang works via both Wi-Fi and wired connections.

If you don't already have the Luna Display hardware you can pick one up directly from Luna Display. It sells for $69.99 normally but you can save 25% by ordering through Friday, October 18, 2019. The companion software is free and can be downloaded direct from Lunay Display's website, too.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.