How to Connect an iPad with TV

How to Connect an iPad with TV.

The screens that iPads come with have always been the best in the industry when compared to other tablets and phones. However, the largest iPad model is 12.9 inches, which is a lot for a tablet, but a little small if you want to share the love with other viewers.

Luckily, there are many ways to connect your iPad (or iPhone for that matter) to a large TV. In fact, you are so spoiled for choice that it can be difficult for you to decide which one you want to use.

Use a Dongle

Apple is certainly the predecessor to #DongleLife, but while having only two USB-C ports on a MacBook might seem limiting, it makes sense to have one port on a tablet.

You can buy a dongle adapter for your iPad with an HDMI port. It is the most widely used standard for modern TVs and will allow you to connect your iPad to a TV or pretty much anything else. Just keep in mind that iPads using the Lightning port must be paired with an Apple Certified Adapter or they may not work correctly. IPad Pros that use USB-C don’t have to be very picky.

This is the easiest way to connect your iPad and provides the best picture quality and no lag. This makes it ideal for watching movies or playing games with a controller. It’s also a great option if you have a presentation and a wireless remote control to navigate through the slides.

Using AirPlay with an Apple TV

If you need to use a wireless connection, Apple’s proprietary AirPlay is your best bet. Since Apple doesn’t (yet) make TVs, you can use Apple TV as the receiving device. Assuming AirPlay is enabled on your Apple TV, all you have to do is:

Swipe down from the top-right edge of the screen to open Control Center on iPad.
Select Screen Mirroring.
Select your Apple TV from the list of available devices.
Enter the pairing code if prompted.

It’s that simple, just keep in mind that if any device is very far away from the wireless router, you may experience lag and image interruption.

Using Airplay on Third-party Devices

For a long time Apple only allowed AirPlay on its own hardware, but times have changed. Nowadays, quite a few consumer TVs have built-in AirPlay support. For example, while you won’t find this feature on Samsung’s mainstream 2018 models, there are AirPlay-enabled models in the 2020 lineup.

Assuming you’ve turned on AirPlay on your device, it works exactly the same as connecting to an Apple TV. Thus, you can use the same instructions as above.

Carry an AirPlay Receiver with You

If you’re not sure if a TV or AirPlay-enabled device will be available where you want to display your iPad screen, there is another solution. You can buy a variety of receivers that include AirPlay as one of the supported protocols.

They are usually shaped like a USB stick. Only now instead of a USB HDMI plug. Just plug it into an open HDMI port and then find it on AirPlay devices just like you do on Apple TV.

Of course, you need to switch your TV to the appropriate HDMI source! EZCast is one of the most popular and well-known examples of such a receiver.

We think this is a good product for those who travel and give presentations or are often forced to use an HDMI display that they have no choice about.

Using a Non-AirPlay Mirroring App

While AirPlays is the most powerful and reliable wireless screen mirroring technology for your iPad, it won’t help if the device you want to mirror to doesn’t support it! However, there are other standards such as Miracast and customized app solutions that can be installed through the app stores of some smart TVs.

So you can use the Miracast app, which will allow you to mirror your screen on Miracast-enabled devices, or use an app like AirBeam TV with devices that can install its app.

Casting Content with DLNA, Chromecast or Android TV Devices

If you don’t want to duplicate your iPad screen, but just want to cast your content to a larger screen, this is actually easier to do. For example, if you have a Chromecast or Android TV box, you can use apps on your iPad that support casting to those devices to show your videos, photos, or music on your TV.

While not the most elegant solution, you can always use DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) standard to transfer content to your smart TV. It is a widely supported streaming method that you can take advantage of through many DLNA server apps on iOS.

When you install one of these apps on your tablet, you can stream content from your device to any DLNA-enabled device. It’s not nearly as appealing as using something like Plex, which has a fancy interface, but it works reliably and doesn’t usually take a lot to get up and running.

After installing, opening and configuring the DLNA server app, it should appear on any Smart TV connected to the same network.

Connecting Your iPad to Things Other Than TVs

While smart TVs are very common and it’s easy to carry an AirPlay receiver around, there are even more options for screen mirroring. You can even mirror your iPad to a PC or Mac using the AirPlay software receiver.

This is an application that runs on your desktop operating system and appears on iPad as a hardware AirPlay receiver. This was a useful way to record iPad or iPhone screen in the past, but since screen recording is now a built-in iOS feature, it is no longer necessary.

However, this is useful when the only device connected to the large display is a Mac or Windows PC. These software solutions turn this computer into a makeshift receiver. The most famous example is probably AirServer Connect.

You can also use the HDMI dongle method to connect your iPad to your computer monitor. This is a more common situation since most new TVs are, after all, smart TVs. There are no computer monitors. Just keep in mind that if your monitor doesn’t have built-in speakers, you’ll either have to use a Bluetooth device for audio, or use a dongle that also has a headphone jack in addition to HDMI.

Sometime Better on the Big Screen

This should more or less cover all (reasonable) ways to connect an iPad to a TV or other widescreen display. Every year it gets easier and easier for all of our devices to communicate with each other, and if Apple ever dares to create a real TV, we bet it will offer the smoothest connection of all.

In the meantime, have fun playing Apple Arcade games on your boardroom TV at work. Which is why you Google in the first place, right?

–