I recently found an app for the iPad called Air Display. Supposedly, it allows the iPad to act as a second monitor for a laptop or desktop on the same wifi network. The pitch evidently is to allow an iPad to reside next to another computer and increase screen real estate for menus, etc. My question is, if anyone has tried it, can it be set up so that I can mirror my laptop screen, which would be below, to an iPad on a flybridge as long as I have a wireless router set up—thus allowing me to run MacENC on the laptop below in the dry and out of the sun but control it from above and to save me from having to take the larger laptop back and forth? I assume I would have to still have an RF mouse/keyboard unless the app allows the iPad's touch screen to control the mouse on the laptop.
Thanks
Francis,
Your blog seems to suggest that using the iPad with iNavX and a TCP/IP protocol with MacENC on the laptop is a better solution than a VNC, understandable in that reviews for MochaSoft's VNC app are mixed at best. However, I don't understand how one can be using both programs at the same time. Or am I getting only the NMEA data via MacENC? I'd prefer to keep all my tracks, waypoints, routes, etc on just one computer—the laptop. And I don't want to lose my access to vector charts, which I understand iNavX doesn't support. Maybe I'm trying to force a screen mirroring function onto something when this is a different animal. Perhaps MacENC can chime in here.
Screen sharing is not my favorite solution either. I use that from time to time on my laptop to control my iMac and it is not ideal. What I really want is just to have the laptop display mirrored to an iPad and maintain the functionality and features of MacENC. I don't have an iPad yet but this would give me a good reason to buy one. Otherwise, I may be better off getting a second dumb monitor and just hard-connect it to the laptop as a mirrored monitor. I can then control the laptop below with an RF mouse and keyboard. But if I can make it work, and work well, on an iPad, it would give me access to the other functions and uses of the iPad and it would be a more portable solution.
Thanks!
MacENC can act as a NMEA data server. Clients such as iNavX can then receive the NMEA data. While iNavX and MacENC share similar functionality they are each separate applications which take advantage of their respective platforms. They each have their own set of charts, waypoints, routes, etc. Via X-Traverse they can exchange this data.
I can't speak for these iPad terminal apps, but it seems if one just wants to mirror a Mac screen that might be a better solution.
Thanks. That clarifies it very succinctly for me. I'll look deeper into an app that can mirror the laptop screen.