Mirroring Your iPad Wirelessly Without an Apple TV

[Sam Gliksman]

When iOS 5 was released many of us were thrilled with its ability to allow projection (mirroring) of your iPad to a projector using Airplay and Apple TV. Of course, this required that you spend $100 on an Apple TV and install it in your classroom. No longer.

 

A wonderful new app called Reflection has just been released. Reflection allows you to mirror your iPad directly on to your MacBook screen. Just install the $15 app from the Reflection website and it makes your MacBook an Airplay compatible device. As long as you have iOS 5 on your iPad you can now mirror your screen directly to your MacBook. 

 

Run the Reflection app on your MacBook and then switch to your iPad. Double click the Home button, sliding to the left and selecting your MacBook from the list of Airplay enabled devices. If you have an Apple TV that will also display on the list.

 

 

Once you select your MacBook, you can now display your iPad on the laptop screen (as seen below ... and please don't remind me how many emails I still need to open...). 

 

 

Reflection is a wonderful solution for any situation where you need to project your iPad screen and don't have an Apple TV. It's wonderful for creating tutorials - just display your iPad on your MacBook screen and use Quicktime to record the screencast. I do a lot of webinars and it's a wonderful way to display your iPad to people in remote locations.

 

When to use Reflection rather than an Apple TV:

• Can be used to project your iPad in any room. No Apple TV is required.
• Requires that have a MacBook connected to your projector.
• When you need to display your iPad to a remote location. Use any screen sharing software on your MacBook and display your iPad on the MacBook screen.
• When you want to take a video of something displayed on your iPad eg. creating a tutorial showing how to use an app. Display the iPad on your MacBook and use Quicktime to record the screencast.

 

 

Sam Gliksman

[e-mail]

Twitter: @samgliksman

 

[Carrie D.]

Anyone figure out how to get Airserver on the iPad itself? I downloaded it to my PC, but can't find it in the APP store.
No instructions on how to do it. Tried Airserver's support e-mail. Bounced. Help!

[Sam Gliksman]

You don't need to put AirServer on the iPad Carrie. You install it on your computer and your iPad will then pick up your computer as an AirPlay compatible device - just as it would pick up an Apple TV.

Carrie D. said:

Anyone figure out how to get Airserver on the iPad itself? I downloaded it to my PC, but can't find it in the APP store.
No instructions on how to do it. Tried Airserver's support e-mail. Bounced. Help!

[Carrie D.]

Thanks Sam. I would swear that Airserver icon wasn't there on my iPad before. Maybe it was...argh! I got it working now, thank you.

Can't seem to get YouTube videos to work. Do you think thats because of the prerelease version for pc? Do you know if it works for the Mac?

Anyway thanks for the lead on that. I think it will work very well for me and can't wait to try it in the classroom.

[Sam Gliksman]

I haven't tried the PC version, but the Mac version has mirrored everything flawlessly.

Carrie D. said:

Thanks Sam. I would swear that Airserver icon wasn't there on my iPad before. Maybe it was...argh! I got it working now, thank you.

Can't seem to get YouTube videos to work. Do you think thats because of the prerelease version for pc? Do you know if it works for the Mac?

Anyway thanks for the lead on that. I think it will work very well for me and can't wait to try it in the classroom.

[Amanda]

I've tried it out on a Promethean Board and while you can only interact with the iPad itself, you can bring up a Desktop Overlay or an Ink Layer and write on top of it and have those annotations show up on top of the image of the iPad on your SmartBoard 

Sam Gliksman said:

You can only interact on the iPad itself.

lucascittadino said:

I'm tring to find a way to project apps on the smartboard and have students interact with it on the board.  Jailbreaking the iPad is not an option.

Sam Gliksman said:

No. It just mirrors your iPad ... but why would you want to control an iPad with a laptop?

[Eddy]

This only allows you to mirror to a MacBook. The whole point of Apple tv is so that you can mirror it to a HDTV! Also, there's a point to mirror not only what is on your ipad screen to the hdtv/computer monitor, but also vice versa. That is, if you want to see a movie on your ipad that is being played on your computer screen. Mirroring works both ways.

There are now remote desktop apps like Splashtop 2 that can do the job pretty well without any lag. However, if you want to be able to seamlessly watch movies, tv shows, listen to music, or view photos on your hdtv from a NAS, then apple tv is the way to go. Other devices like Roku, Google TV, Box, WD Live, etc. cannot do mirroring.

[Sam Gliksman]

Actually, I think they have newer releases that now mirror to PCs as well. The point isn't to replace the use of HDTV and Apple TV Eddy. We've advocated their use in other blog posts but the reality is that many teachers simply don't have access to that sort of equipment. Mirroring apps are a great solution to project and/or record your iPad for those that don't have an Apple TV.

[Eddy]

Yes, in that case, it is an excellent alternative for teachers. However, if I was a teacher, would like to be able to project to a bigger screen.

[Amanda]

One of the great classroom uses about this kind of mirror app is that you don't need a HDTV or a big screen at all. If you have a projector with your Promethean board, smart board or just a projector, you can connect your computer to your project and then show both your computer screen or iOS devices and toggle back and forth! 

[Carrie D.]

Actually it works rather well on a PC.  I tried it at home.

My hope is to eventually mirror it to my classroom computer, which is then hooked to a projector and therefore project what's on my iPad to the whole class.

The barrier I am running into right now is the wireless and the desktop have to be on the same network for it to work.  At home, they are both on the same network.  However the college has different networks for security reasons (I'm guessing this is the case at most colleges).

I have my IT department trying to come up with a work-around for this.  If anyone knows of one, please let me know. 

Thank you!