Has anyone that has installed the MacOS Monterey Beta tried this? Wondering how clear it is
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Newer Macs Can Use Another Mac as an External Display on macOS Monterey
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I’m still hoping for the new “light” apple display, but Ironically 1700EUR for 27/5k iMac may be of consideration…
Here is a video that shows how AirPlay will work for those of us who want to use an older Mac as a second display.
Spoiler, it's good news.
Spoiler, it's good news.
PSA: There are 3rd party apps that already functions as an AirPlay server for a long time. Examples include X-Mirage and AirServer. They have free trials and support rather old macOS versions (hence older mac).
AFAIK those are paid screen mirroring apps and don't offer extended display functionality. To use a Mac that is not officially supported for Monterey as a receiver, it will be required to use a patcher, like OCLP, to install Monterey Beta. The details and links are all contained in the 'show more' tab in the provided YT video. Cheers.
FYI, it does extend a mac’s desktop to the target computer — as if it’s another display or Apple TV. I used it on a 2008 iMac as the AirPlay server until it died.
Yes, I'm aware of clustering. But it is quite specialised and, as you note, application specific. With apple making everything now, it would seem beneficial to make use of other local compute resources. Perhaps even extending to your home network. Being implemented at the OS level would potentially make for a much more generalised solution that requires no or very little configuration.
Edit: another potential use for this that I can easily see would be in a family household, you might have a shared iMac in the living room somewhere. Family members with a MacBook of some kind could sit down at it and airplay to it to make use of the larger display whilst continuing to work from their MacBooks. If that could also make use of the compute resources of the iMac at the same time that would be incredibly cool.
Last edited:
I have an Imac 27 late 2009 (High Sierra) and a macbook pro 14 m1 pro (2021) with Monterey
When I press Command F2 on the imac keyboard nothing happens.
Yet I have the impression that I did everything right!
An idea ?
The cable I use is this:
When I press Command F2 on the imac keyboard nothing happens.
Yet I have the impression that I did everything right!
An idea ?
The cable I use is this:
Target display mode is only available for Macs 2019 or earlier and macOS Catalina or earlier. So no M1 Macs.
Use your iMac as a display with target display mode - Apple Support
Target display mode is a feature available with certain older Mac models.
I've been using my iMac late 2012 with a MacBook Pro 16" 2019 for a year with no problems. They're connected using a Thunderbolt 2 cable. I have a small Sierra partition on my iMac that I boot into and a USB switcher for keyboard and mouse switching.
Ugh, so I can't use my 2017 27" iMac as an external monitor, as it's not on this list?
I am going to be picking up a MacBook Air M1 on sale here, and would love to occasionally output the display to my beautiful iMac screen, it is odd that it wouldn't work.
I am going to be picking up a MacBook Air M1 on sale here, and would love to occasionally output the display to my beautiful iMac screen, it is odd that it wouldn't work.
Can anyone say how well it works on a Macbook Pro with Retina display and a iMac with Retina display? Sharpness? Lag? Other?
Unfortunately, even with a cable it is too much lag for me to be able to work on it.
Trying to use an iMac 5K (2019) as a display for my MBP 16" M1 Pro, using a USB-C cable between them. System Information states that my iMac is connected to the MBP using Thunderbolt/USB4 at 20 Gb/s.
Both are on Ventura 13.5.
Only sharp resolution I could get was 1920x1080 (Hi-DPI) so actually 3840x2160 pixels (or alternatively just that same resolution at 1x, but then everything is tiny). But the lag is too much for me.
Under the Graphics/Displays section on my MBP, I got the following details for anyone interested:
Code:
iMac:
Resolution: 3840 x 2160 (2160p/4K UHD 1 - Ultra High Definition)
UI Looks like: 1920 x 1080 @ 63.00Hz
Framebuffer Depth: 24-Bit Color (ARGB8888)
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Connection Type: AirPlay
Virtual Device: Yes