How to use your iPad as a wireless second display with Windows

I’m a Windows user, even as the OS turns into microslop (I’ve resisted some of it by staying on Windows 10), most of workflow — from creative projects to an occassional game — revolves around a Windows machine equipped with an Nvidia GPU and an external monitor.

I also own an iPad. However, the bane of not having an iPhone and a Mac to go along with it is that things don’t work the way they do inside the Apple walled garden, where things just work.

MacOS Sidecar

So, what’s the #1 MacOS productivity feature that flies under the radar? It has to be Sidecar. If you’re signed in to the same Apple ID on your iPad and Mac, you can use the iPad display as a secondary screen on the internet, which means the iPad can cosplay as the computer it pretends to be.

The Search for a Windows Equivalent

A quick search of the App Store usually brings up the “usual suspects,” but they all come with baggage:

Duet Display is functional, but requires an account and a recurring subscription.
Jump Desktop: is solid, but I use Rustdesk or Anydesk for remote desktop already.
Spacedesk: is free, but for some reason it does not work for me and I didn’t stay around to find out why.

The Secret Sauce: Sunlight, Moonlight & Apollo

Some digging later, I found out Apollo (a free and open source fork of Sunshine), and its companion app, Moonlight. Apollo installs on your laptop and works by streaming a software defined virtual display adapter with a resolution and refresh rate of your choice, to a client app on Android or iOS which in our case is Moonlight.

Download and install Apollo from its GitHub page.
Download and install Moonlight from the App Store.
Ensure both your PC and iPad are on the same LAN, and pair the two using the pairing pincode from the Apollo WebUI.

The Verdict: A near-native, lag-free wireless display

The iPad now acts as a wireless, display but unlike other wireless displays this is a Liquid Retina 120Hz display with near-native performance, and no noticeable input delay if you’re on a decent internet connection.