I upgraded to a M2 iPad Pro (11") this winter and am enjoying the heck out of it. With the ability to have an external monitor alongside the mouse and keyboard, I’m way more into this than I should be. I’m pretty darn close to trading in my MBP for a Mac Mini and not having a lap top anymore at all. There are a few things that are still hard to do on the iPad, but for the most part, WOW.
That said, I still have this iPad Air 2. It’s decent, but was getting slow and the battery is nearly shot. But… I’m trying to find a purpose for it until it dies. Beyond just watching crap on it.
I have an iPad Air, (no “2”), replaced by a 2018 Pro. And I too was wondering what to do with it. Now I use it as my “bunch of buttons” device. I use an app called Touch Portal.
So if you don’t already have a Stream Deck and are curious as to what all the fuss is about, you could try Touch Portal for free (or US $14 to upgrade to “Pro”).
As the Air is always on my desk, it is always connected to power, so the battery being less than optimal is not an issue.
I kept mine around to fill in for a few possible uses… Home control, Music, etc. But more often than not I’ve just got it displaying a slideshow of a Photos album. That’s been great. I can update the album every so often and just enjoy a lot of photos rotating through. Set to silent, it just repeats in a loop.
There is a plugin for Keyboard Maestro, but I’ve not used it.
Shortcuts are not directly supported, but AppleScript and Shell (Bash) scripts are so a Shortcut can be called that way. You can also send key presses, and thus trigger things via keyboard shortcuts.
I have buttons setup to turn on and off a smart outlet, the button runs an AppleScript that calls a Shortcut.
I have a button that sends multiple keypress sequences to trigger a Bunch file.
I tired the Stream Deck Mobile app and was not impressed. If I recall correctly I had to run it on my iPhone, as the iPad Air was not supported. And I didn’t like that it was a subscription, and at US $25/yr almost twice the one time cost of Touch Portal, at US $14. And as I wasn’t using the iPad Air for anything it was not a problem to dedicate it to being a “bunch of buttons” device, whereas with my iPhone I was using it for other things, so it was not a dedicated always available device.
I also looked at MetaGrid, but at US $30 with no trial, and for the older version, I never gave it a try.
There are other iOS controller apps, some previously discussed in these forums. But I found that Touch Portal works for me, and lets me use a device that would otherwise be gathering dust in a closet.
Thanks. I may give it a try. I have a first gen iPad Pro that’s not being used for anything. I’ll post here after I give it a trial. Thanks for posting.
This is a great idea! I have a StreamDeck, but maybe I could keep it at work and use it in that way while at the office… I actually miss my streamdeck (which is a personal item that I leave at home) when I’m at the office!
I turned an iPad2 (no Air) and a Mini4 into “Read-Only-Devices”, where I deleted everything but iBooks and Kindle, and my Reader App, and be able to use it for distraction free reading.
Denny, did you just use Photos or did you need another app. If so, which one? I have an old Ipad that works great, much like me, but it’s older, could I use that one? I think it is running 9. something (9.3.5). I have two fairly recent ones too that are up-to-date.
May not fit your use case, but I use an iPad Mini 2 to play music through my vintage Hifi via a Bluetooth receiver. Works really well for my Apple Music library and XM radio app.
Wall mount it, esp if you have POE wired in your walls - use it as a photo slideshow, security camera viewer, music controller if you have Sonos or AirPlay speakers, etc
I have 2 Air 2s and an iPad 5th gen all wall mounted in separate rooms