The Perfect App To Turn Your iPad Into A MacBook

The new iPad Pro is a stunningly powerful piece of hardware. Partner it with a Magic Keyboard and you’ve basically got a touchscreen laptop that’s more powerful than a MacBook Air.

But there’s one thing holding the iPad back: iPadOS. As my colleague David Phelan noted in his recent review of the new 13in iPad Pro: “Powerful though it is, in some ways it feels it’s held back by the software. Although iPadOS had changed massively, with the introduction of Stage Manager to make using multiple apps slicker, nothing compares to macOS in this regard.”

David’s spot on. iPadOS is great for the tablet tasks that you might want when you’re sitting on the sofa: browsing the web, watching Netflix, playing games. But when it boils down to getting serious work done, iPadOS is still found wanting. The file manager is weak, multi-tasking is more difficult than it should be, and the iPad lacks some business-critical apps.

The solution? Use your iPad to remote desktop into a Mac (or a Windows machine, if you prefer). As long as you’ve got a solid internet connection on both your iPad and the computer you’re connecting to, you can access it from anywhere, enjoying the full power of the desktop and all of its installed apps. And if you have the Magic Keyboard (or equivalent) with its glorious touchpad, you’re practically turning your iPad into a MacBook Air, albeit one relying on an internet connection.

There are both free and paid-for ways to remote desktop into a Mac from an iPad. Let’s explore two options: Chrome Remote Desktop and Jump Desktop.

Chrome Remote Desktop

Chrome Remote Desktop is a free option provided by Google. If you only need to remotely access your Mac or PC occasionally, it’s well worth installing.

Installation is a cinch. On the computer you want to remotely access, you must install the Chrome Remote Desktop Host. Make sure not to skip through the post-installation prompts where you need to give the software permissions to remotely control your Mac.

Once that’s installed, you simply open the Chrome browser on the iPad and visit Chrome Remote Access in the web browser to access your Mac/PC. The Mac/PC will need to be left powered on, but Chrome Remote Access can wake the computer from sleep, so it won’t waste much power.

If you want to run the remote desktop session full screen, which you probably will, you’ll need to click in the top-right corner of the window and follow the instructions to create a shortcut to the site on your iPad.

The Chrome Remote Desktop experience is OK, but not how I’d want to work for any length of time. The app doesn’t take full advantage of the iPad’s “Retina” resolution, so your Mac desktop can look fuzzy. Nor does it automatically adjust the Mac’s resolution to that of your iPad’s display, wasting much of the iPad’s limited screen space.

There’s also a fair degree of input lag, meaning there’s an irritating pause between pressing an icon on screen and the software responding. That’s livable with if you’re only using it occasionally, but far from ideal for prolonged work sessions.

In short, if you want a remote desktop that you can work with regularly, you’re going to need to pay for it. Which brings us to…

Jump Desktop

Jump Desktop is not a cheap app: it’s $14.99 from the App Store. However, unlike many remote desktop solutions it’s a one-off payment, you’re not on the hook for yet another monthly subscription. There’s also no charge for the Jump Desktop Connect software you must install on the Macs/PCs you wish to connect to, and you can connect to as many computers as you like.

It’s well worth that one-off investment, proving far superior to the Chrome Remote Desktop experience. On a good internet connection, the input lag is minimal. It’s not the same as working on, say, a MacBook Air, you will still notice the lag, but you can definitely get on with work.

It supports high-definition “Retina” resolutions in its settings, so the Mac screen looks sharp on your iPad, and the Mac desktop is automatically resized to the aspect ratio of your iPad screen, meaning no screen space is wasted. The Mac desktop can feel cramped on the 13in iPad screen, but you soon get used to working with it.

I took my iPad Pro 13in with Magic Keyboard down to a local Starbucks and used Jump Desktop to access the MacBook Pro sitting on my desk at home. Even on the relatively limited shared Wi-Fi (measured at 20Mbits/sec down and 10Mbits/sec up), the performance was great.

I could open Adobe InDesign files, for example, make changes to magazine pages and send them to colleagues, as if I were working on my Mac at home. I could open video files stored locally on the Mac and watch them from my iPad, with the sound perfectly in sync. I could even edit a podcast using Adobe Audition.

Jump Desktop has better security features than Chrome Desktop too. For example, a setting allows you to blank the screen the computer is connected to, meaning if you’re using Jump Desktop to access a computer in your office, passing colleagues won’t see what you’re doing on screen.

You can also adjust the Jump Desktop settings to lock the app after, say, five minutes of inactivity, so there’s reduced danger of someone hopping on to your iPad and accessing your computer remotely. You always need to enter the Mac’s password to initiate a remote desktop session, so there’s reduced risk of compromise if your iPad is stolen.

The other great strength of Jump Desktop is that it works just like any other iPad app. That means I can quickly switch to, say, the iPad’s Slack app to chat with a colleague about the magazine pages I’m working on, and then Cmd-Tab back to the Jump Desktop screen where I’m working full-screen in InDesign. You don’t have to do everything on the Mac desktop. In fact, it’s often more convenient not to.

Jump Desktop has massively increased the probability of me travelling with my iPad Pro alone and leaving the heavy MacBook at home. With the option to drop into my Mac whenever I need it, it’s removed one of the major drawbacks of working on the iPad.

Yes, it does leave you somewhat reliant on a reliable broadband connection and it’s of zero use in airplane cabins or subway trains, but you do still have iPadOS for offline work. And though I’ve focused on the iPad Pro here, this app will work with any iPad. That said, a keyboard and trackpad/mouse is almost essential for getting work done. It’s not easy to manipulate the Mac remotely using touch controls alone.

There’s speculation that Apple might move to support macOS on the high-end iPad Pro devices at next week’s WWDC, but with Jump Desktop you may not need it. If you want to turn your iPad into a MacBook, it’s the best solution I’ve found so far.