With some help from Air Display and Splitview, I am now happily working at home, remotely viewing my work computer on two monitors – one of which is my iPad.

Step 1: Connecting iPad as a Monitor

Some quick googling told me that Air Display was limited to Mac computers and that my PC option was MaxiVista.  Both are $9.99.  I have this weird feeling that I already bought Air Display in an app buying frenzy earlier this year, so when I search “second monitor” in the iPad app store and see that Air Display now supports PC as well, I went ahead and installed it.

It was very easy to get going. Bought the app, installed the software on my computer, restarted and then ran the program and selected my iPad from the list of options. Bam – done.

Step 2: Remote Desktop with Dual Monitors

I googled “remote desktop with dual monitors” and found these great instructions from Splitview. I got going and then connected and realized that while my RDP session was spanning both monitors, it was treating them like a single giant screen. This is where Splitview comes in – it’s a quick install that improves the way the dual monitors perform. Again, the process was really easy – download, install, no restart required, and I’m in heaven and ready to work from home with my new $1,000 monitor (iPad).

In Summary

• Get Air Display or MaxiVista for your iPad
• Install the app’s desktop software on your computer (must be on same wireless network as the iPad)
• Connect remotely to your other/work computer
• Install Splitview (on your remote computer)
• Follow Splitview’s great instructions for RDP with dual monitors
• Done! (Make sure Air Display/MaxiVista is running on your home computer and Splitview is running on your remote computer)