I had a 2015 15" MBP that I put on eBay a few months ago and it got snapped up so fast, my head was spinning. I got $950 out of it, the base model. Five year old technology. I was shocked.
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Astropad and Luna Display Updated With M1 Mac Support
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I'm using one right now. The Apple logo doesn't light up. I pulled up "About This Mac" just to make sure. "MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2016)"
Mostly I agree with you, except for the part about never needing a dongle. I've got several devices that need dongles. But A-to-C dongles are cheap and some are quite small. And I've long since gotten to the point where I refuse to buy anything that doesn't have USB-C. So now my frustration is no longer knowing what the hell type of USB I'm looking at, just from the name. USB type 3 or is it 3.2? Seemed like the naming committee went out of its way to choose the stupidest naming conventions.
You can use either Sidecar (or any Airplay-compatible display) or Luna in addition to an external display.
For me it is. Considering any creative using it is probably billing their time, it pays for itself through time saved/ease of work pretty quickly. $80 is less than four hours of work for any low-mid level creative. If you're not getting paid for your creative time, it's probably not worth your money. If you are, you probably have several services/plugins/etc you budget for that make you more money than they cost.
That said, I look forward to future sidecar functionality improvements and the day I can drop another service.
Oh god yeah the naming has been an absolute cluster. How can you get something so wrong?
I have the odd random thing in an adapter (basically all the time) and I have my Thunderbolt 2 interface in my iMac Pro via a TB3 to TB2 adapter (though they have a TB3 version now anyway).
I just can't believe that USB-C is still considered a premium connection option on devices and you've still got cheap devices coming out with those HORRIBLE USB-A mini connections on them.
I sort of wish USB-A had never happened, its a terrible connector in all it's sizes, if only we'd started with C back in the mid 2000's we'd be in a much better position now.
What’s valuable about it is the features that aren’t in Sidecar, otherwise anyone could just use that. Especially the customizable buttons and gesture support. It’s overpriced for sure, but unfortunately there’s no competition that’s this refined and useful. The closest is Duet Display Pro, which has worse latency, a clunkier UX, and less customization. Oh and that also has a subscription.
The market is definitely primed for someone to come in with a one-time $30 solution or so. Duet tried for a while and had to resort to subscription. It’s definitely frustrating.
I’d love something like Tablet Pro but on iOS, where you could use Sidecar, then just pay $30 for replacing the sidebar.
Thank you! This makes me suspect there is not a significant improvement (with their device's latency) when compared to a 2020 MBP 16".
I wonder how much faster is the M1 MacBook Air vs. my 2011 MacMini. Can they please post that?
Astropad today announced that its Luna Display and Astropad software have been updated with support for Apple's new M1 Macs.
Luna Display is an adapter that allows a Mac or an iPad to be used as a secondary display for a main Mac, while Astropad is software that lets an iPad be used as a secondary display or drawing tablet for a Mac.
The software updates allow Astropad and Luna Display to run faster on M1 Macs with lower encoding times.
Astropad's newest software update includes native support for the M1 Macs, and it is available in Astropad Studio 3.6, Astropad Standard 3.6, and Luna Display 4.4.
The software can be downloaded from the Astropad website, but those who already run those apps should see the updates automatically.
Article Link: Astropad and Luna Display Updated With M1 Mac Support
/s
If you have a sidecar supported Mac and iPad, there is not much point. Luna or it's cheaper alternative "Duet App" is good for older Macs and iPads those doesn't support Sidecar. I'm using Duet with an old iPad mini, performance is very good, but not Sidecar good.
Yes you can, I've seen people doing it on Reddit.
You can also Airplay to a TV or Apple TV. Or use a Displaylink adapter(which is CPU hogger)
Only limitation is, you can only have 1 native video output.
I got a mid 2014 15” 512 GB SSD GT750M GPU, 16GB of RAM, quite high endish CPU and all for the time in very good conditions. Even have the SuperDVD thing and a few TB2 to something adapters... want it?
Granted, not new, but just $1K.
Tell that to the INDUSTRY.
Thunderbolt was awesome. No one adopted it except niche players.
Even the most recent PCs have only, maybe, one thunderbolt 3 port.
And unfortunately the industry players respond to market Opportunity which is largely (by vast vast margins) dictated by the needs of PC users.
When USB A begins to be retired from there then you’ll see mass adoption of alternatives. For now, many many peripherals simply depend on old ass ridiculously tedious USB A.
I have a 2014 macpro 2017 butterfly macpro and a 2020 air. I prefer the butterfly. I love the low travel.
illustrator here. While Sidecar is a good tool to expand screen real estate, its not well suited for artists because of the lack of the following, which Astropad offers: Adjustable pressure and tilt settings, touch capability and quick gestures( sidecar does not allow for touch input, just pencil), fully customisable sidebar, more consistent performance ( with the Luna dongle).
Sidecar does NOT offer what Astropad does. While Sidecar is good, it’s not suitable for artists who uses the iPad as a graphic tablet in conjunction with Mac desktop apps.
If you do art as a job and make money out of it, €80 is nothing.
It definitely becomes something once you add a Dropbox subscription, Adobe sub, other content creation app sub, Autodesk sub, a sub to Notion or a task manager, password manager sub, etc etc.
At least from my experience, I could get by upgrading once every couple versions, and then when amortized, software was noticeably less expensive. The added value now is monthly subs can increase development velocity, but that’s only actually valuable if you use most of the new features being developed. For everyone else, we don’t, just a few of them. But we pay for all of it, and a lot of times that’s also because we’re making up lost revenue for a free tier.
At least from my experience, I could get by upgrading once every couple versions, and then when amortized, software was noticeably less expensive. The added value now is monthly subs can increase development velocity, but that’s only actually valuable if you use most of the new features being developed. For everyone else, we don’t, just a few of them. But we pay for all of it, and a lot of times that’s also because we’re making up lost revenue for a free tier.
All good points, but having some friends who develop for iOS I can tell you the costs to maintain an app relevant and updated are quite high if you don’t sell a lot of licenses. In the case of Astropad, which covers a fairly niche user base, I can believe the price have to be so high to allow AstroHQ to stay open.
Can you show me a replacement for these type of cables? I can't seem to find one. Doesn't has to be double lightning...
Greetings
David
What do you mean? Like two in one cables? Can't say i've ever used one but i'm sure they are out there if it passes standard. In this case looks like one lightning and one micro-usb. Personally i'd probably rather just have individual cables.
I know it's been some time since this article, but I still have issues with Sidecar losing Apple Pencil connection every five minutes, forcing me to disconnect & reconnect to my Mac, which is a real PITA.
I hope Astropad does better.