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Using the iPad Pro as a Portable Monitor for My Nintendo Switch with Orion, a Capture Card, and a Battery Pack

Tears of the Kingdom on my iPad Pro.

Tears of the Kingdom on my iPad Pro.

Those who have been reading MacStories for a while know that I have a peculiar obsession for portable setups free of the constraints typically involved with working at a desk or playing games in front of a TV.

It’s not that I don’t want to have a desk or dislike my 65” OLED TV: it’s that I don’t want those contexts to be my only options when it comes to getting work done or playing videogames. This is why I’ve spent the better part of my career fine-tuning my iPad-first lifestyle and why I’m so excited at the prospect of a giant screen that can always be with me. Modularity, portability, and freedom from a desk or TV are the driving factors in everything I use or buy these days.

For these reasons, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I embraced the ability to use the iPad Pro as a portable monitor for videogame consoles thanks to UVC support. As I covered in my iPadOS 17 review, this feature was primarily conceived to let iPad users connect external webcams to their computers, but that hasn’t stopped developers from re-using the same underlying technology to create apps that allow you to display a video feed from any accessory connected via USB.

It’s a very intriguing proposition: the 12.9” iPad Pro has a gorgeous mini-LED display; what if you could use that to give yourself a little extra screen real estate when playing Super Mario Bros. Wonder or Tears of the Kingdom without having to pack a separate portable monitor with you?

In my review, I mentioned the Genki Studio app, which I used to play games with my Nintendo Switch and ROG Ally and output their video feeds to the iPad Pro’s display. Today, I want to explain how I took my setup a step further by enhancing the picture quality of the Nintendo Switch when viewed on the iPad Pro and, most importantly, how I created a fully-portable setup that allows me to play Switch games on the iPad Pro anywhere I am.

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Shot on iPhone: Behind The Scenes of the Scary Fast Apple Event→

Jess Weatherbed writing for The Verge:

Behind-the-scenes footage of Apple’s Monday evening Scary Fast eventreveals how it was filmed using an iPhone 15 Pro Max… with the aid of a full suite of professional recording equipment and studio lighting. Still images and a video reveal that (unsurprisingly) a great deal of fancy equipment — from drones, gimbals, dollies, industrial set lighting, and other recording accessories — is still required to make iPhone footage look this good.

The equipment supporting the iPhone 15 Pro Max used to film Apple’s Scary Fast event is extensive and clearly made for a final product that you couldn’t shoot on your own with just an iPhone. However, it’s still impressive to see such a small device at the center of such an elaborate and well-produced event. Originally leaked in a tweet, here’s the official version of the video:

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The Creativity Enabled by the iPhone 15 Pro’s New Cameras and Action Button

Every year, one of the most anticipated iPhone hardware announcements is changes to its camera. This year, the iPhone Pro Max’s new telephoto lens was the center of attention. However, there were other notable tweaks to the camera hardware and software across the iPhone lineup, too. Plus, we got a hardware bonus in the form of the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max’s Action button, which can perform some interesting tricks. Now, with the new iPhones in the hands of people around the world, we’re starting to see what that hardware can do in practice, and I’ve got three examples I’d like to share.

Source: Lux.

Source: Lux.

The first is an update to the camera app Halide that does something incredibly clever. Built into version 2.13 of the app is a shortcut that can be tied to the Action button to open Halide with a single press. That’s something you can do with any app using an Open App action, but Halide goes a step further by offering in-app functionality if you tie the button to its app. In the app’s settings, you can choose to tie the Action button to any of the following options:

  • Do nothing
  • Lenses
  • Exposure Mode
  • Focus Mode
  • RAW
  • Resolution
  • Capture

After using the Action button to open the app, pressing the button again will perform whichever action you picked in its settings. For example, if you chose Lenses, the first press of the Action button from outside the app will open Halide, and subsequent presses will cycle through each of the available camera lenses. I love this use of the Action button and hope other developers do the same, adding contextual actions to more apps.

A 5x telephoto shot by Sebastiaan de With.

A 5x telephoto shot by Sebastiaan de With.

Speaking of Halide, Sebastiaan de With, one of its creators, published a review of the iPhone 15 Pro Max camera today, concluding that:

With iPhone 15 Pro Max’s default 24 megapixel resolution, added ‘lenses’ under the main camera lens, automatic depth capture for portraits, and that 5× lens, this release might not blow away on a spec sheet, but is massive for everyone who uses an iPhone to take photos.

There’s a lot of ground to cover between the hardware and processing changes happening behind the scenes. Plus, de With is an excellent photographer whose shots do a fantastic job illustrating what is possible with the iPhone 15 Pro Max. So be sure to check out the full review.

Finally, the iPhone’s camera takes amazing video, too. This year saw the introduction of Log encoding for Pro Res 4K footage. That opens up a wider range of editing control using apps like Final Cut Pro, which Joey Helms used to create this amazing video of Chicago:

I’ve had my iPhone 15 Pro Max for just four days, and already, I’m enjoying taking photos as I walk around my neighborhood and playing with features like adding Portrait mode after the fact to images like the one below.

Before (left) and after (right) applying Portrait mode.

Before (left) and after (right) applying Portrait mode.

The result is a lot more creative freedom that’s more accessible than ever, not only because your iPhone is usually in your pocket but because the tools Apple has created for taking great photos and videos are so easy to use.

iPhone 15, USB-C, and External Displays→

Apple published an extensive support document about the USB-C connector on the new iPhone 15 lineup (we should be receiving our new iPhones later this week at MacStories, so stay tuned for our coverage), and a few details about compatibility with external displays caught my attention.

For starters, yes – Apple implemented DisplayPort connections over USB-C just like on the iPad Pro. The iPhone, however, is limited to a lower resolution:

iPhone uses the DisplayPort protocol to support connections to USB-C displays at up to 4K resolution and 60Hz.

Note that the latest iPad Pros support connections up to 6K, allowing you to connect an iPad Pro to a Pro Display XDR if you hate your wallet. You can try this with an iPhone 15 too, but display resolution is going to be limited to 4K. The Studio Display will be supported too, obviously.

Another tidbit from Apple’s support document:

You can connect your iPhone to an HDMI display or TV with a USB-C to HDMI adapter or cable. Adapters and cables that support HDMI 2.0 can output video from your iPhone at 4K resolution and 60Hz.

The Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter is compatible with iPhone. This adapter can output video from iPhone at up to 4K resolution and 60Hz, including content in HDR10 or Dolby Vision if your display or TV supports HDR.

If my theory is correct, we should soon be able to connect an iPhone to an HDMI capture card (such as the ones I covered in my iPadOS 17 review) via Apple’s adapter and an HDMI cable, connect the capture card to an iPad, and use a compatible app to see the iPhone’s display on your iPad. That could be used for screencasts, playing videos from an iPhone on the iPad’s display, or, better yet, play a videogame from the iPhone in a Stage Manager window on the iPad.

The iPhone itself doesn’t support Stage Manager, so, unlike Samsung phones, it can’t be turned into a desktop workstation when plugged into an external monitor (I hope this happens down the road though). However, I do believe we’re going to start seeing some interesting experiments with iPhones being used as handheld gaming consoles with external monitors. Whether you’ll be using a capture card to turn an iPad into an external monitor for an iPhone using apps like Orion1 or Genki Studio2 or connect it to a portable OLED display, I think this newfound hardware modularity is going to be fascinating to observe.

  1. I tested the new app by the makers of Halide today shortly before it came out, and while I found its onboarding and UI delightful and the app worked well at standard resolutions, its built-in upscaling mode didn’t work for me. I tried displaying Nintendo Switch games on my iPad Pro using Orion and 4K upscaling, but the feature made games unplayable due to 3-4 seconds of added latency. I hope the Orion developers can work on a fix for this since software-based upscaling that doesn’t require a separate dongle could be a fantastic reason to use an iPad as a monitor. ↩︎
  2. This is the app that I covered as Capture Pro in my iPadOS 17 review. As it turns out, the developer teamed up with the folks at Genki (makers of the excellent Covert Dock Mini that I use with my Switch) and released the app under the name Genki Studio on the App Store this week. The functionality of the app is unchanged, and I still recommend it. ↩︎
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MKBHD on Apple’s Processing Techniques for iPhone Photos→

In his latest video, MKBHD eloquently summarized and explained something that I’ve personally felt for the past few years: pictures taken on modern iPhones often look sort-of washed out and samey, like much of the contrast and highlights from real life were lost somewhere along the way during HDR processing, Deep Fusion, or whatever Apple is calling their photography engine these days. From the video (which I’m embedding below), in the part where Marques notes how the iPhone completely ignored a light source that was pointing at one side of his face:

Look at how they completely removed the shadow from half of my face. I am clearly being lit from a source that’s to the side of me, and that’s part of reality. But in the iPhone’s reality you cannot tell, at least from my face, where the light is coming from. Every once in a while you get weird stuff like this, and it all comes back to the fact that it’s software making choices.

That’s precisely the issue here. The iPhone’s camera hardware is outstanding, but how iOS interprets and remixes the data it gets fed from the camera often leads to results that I find…boring and uninspired unless I manually touch them up with edits and effects. I like how Brendon Bigley put it:

Over time though, it’s become more and more evident that the software side of iOS has been mangling what should be great images taken with a great sensor and superbly crafted lenses. To be clear: The RAW files produced by this system in apps like Halide are stunning. But there’s something lost in translation when it comes to the stock Camera app and the ways in which it handles images from every day use.

Don’t miss the comparison shots between the Pixel 7 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro in MKBHD’s video. As an experiment for the next few weeks, I’m going to try what Brendon suggested and use the Rich Contrast photographic style on my iPhone 14 Pro Max.

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Sebastiaan de With’s iPhone 14 Pro Max Camera Review→

Photo: [Sebatiaan de With](https://lux.camera/iphone-14-pro-camera-review-a-small-step-a-huge-leap/)

Photo: Sebatiaan de With

Sebastiaan de With, part of the team behind the excellent camera app Halide, has published his annual iPhone camera review, this year putting the iPhone 14 Pro Max through its paces in and around San Francisco, Bhutan, and Tokyo. de With’s review is packed with details about every lens and Apple’s computational photography pipeline, taking readers behind the scenes in ways that Apple simply doesn’t.

Regarding the front-facing camera de With says:

In our testing, the iPhone 14 Pro achieved far sharper shots with vastly — and we mean vastly — superior dynamic range and detail.

The ultra wide camera was substantially improved too:

…with iPhone 14 Pro’s ultra-wide camera comes a much larger sensor, a new lens design and higher ISO sensitivity. While the aperture took a small step back, the larger sensor handily offsets this.

However, it’s the 48MP main lens that impressed de With the most:

While arguably, a quad-bayer sensor should not give true 48-megapixel sensor resolution as one might get from, say, a comparable ‘proper’ digital camera, the results out of the iPhone 14 Pro gave me chills. I have simply never gotten image quality like this out of a phone. There’s more here than just resolution; the way the new 48 megapixel sensor renders the image is unique and simply tremendously different than what I’ve seen before.

Overall, the advances made to Apple’s Pro-line cameras are impressive this year. With new shooting modes and changes across all of the cameras, I’m looking forward to spending more time experimenting with what the iPhone 14 can now do.

Be sure to check out the full review for de With’s stunning photography and details on the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s other lenses, as well as what’s improved and what hasn’t when it comes to Apple’s Photonic Engine processing pipeline.

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iOS 16 Lock Screen Widgets: The MacStories Roundup

As the release of iOS 16 approached, I felt a strong sense of déjà vu. TestFlight betas with Lock Screen widgets came pouring in. It felt like 2020’s debut of Home Screen widgets all over again. This time, though, those betas have been all about Lock Screen widgets.

As Federico covered in his iOS 16 review, Apple’s approach to Lock Screen widget support in its own apps is different than its approach to Home Screen widgets was. There are far fewer Lock Screen widgets available for system apps than there were when Home Screen widgets were launched with iOS 14. Part of the difference is undoubtedly because Lock Screen widgets are smaller and monochrome, but there remain gaps that aren’t so easily explained away. Fortunately for us, third-party developers have stepped into the breach with a long list of innovative widgets.

With so many choices and only three to five Lock Screen widget slots to fill, it’s hard to know where to start, so I’ve compiled a list of my top recommendations from the over 40 I’ve tried so far. Of course, this list doesn’t include the apps I already covered last week, but it goes without saying that Widgetsmith, Lock Screen One, LockFlow, and CARROT Weather would be also be included in this list if I hadn’t already written about them.

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2022 Apple Design Award Winners Revealed

Last week, Apple announced the finalists for the 2022 Apple Design Awards: 36 apps and games in six categories: Inclusivity, Delight and Fun, Interaction, Social Impact, Visuals and Graphics, and Innovation.

Today, the company announced two winners (one app and one game) in each category for a total of twelve 2022 Apple Design Award winners.

Congratulations to all of this year’s winners and finalists:

Inclusivity

Delight and Fun

Interaction

Social Impact

Visuals and Graphics

Innovation

We’ll have more 2022 Apple Design Award coverage soon, so stay tuned.

You can follow all of our WWDC coverage through our WWDC 2022 hub or subscribe to the dedicated WWDC 2022 RSS feed.

2022 Apple Design Award Finalists Announced

Like last year, Apple has announced the finalists in the running for its annual Apple Design Awards. The awards ceremony revealing the winners will be held during WWDC at 5:00 PM Pacific on June 6th.

The finalists have been divided into six categories that include six finalists each:

Inclusivity

Delight and Fun

Interaction

Social Impact

Visuals and Graphics

Innovation

The selections include a broad selection of games and apps, including some apps from smaller developers like Halide Mark II, Transit, and Slopes, as well as titles from bigger publishers.

This is the second year in a row that Apple has announced the finalists in advance, which I like a lot. Winning an ADA is a big achievement for any developer, but it’s also nice to know who the finalists are because it, too, is quite an honor among the many apps that could have been chosen.