No full screen with my iPad Pro on an external monitor

Forgive me for being facetious but you're not a developer are you :) To suggest that all of the software would have to be rewritten is false to put it mildly. In fact, if you Google iPhone aspect ratio, you will quickly find that iPhones don't actually have the same ratio with iPhone 8 Plus actually having the 16:9 and the iPhone X having a more elongated unusual ratio. My point is that Apple needs to stop this nonsense and fix it and stop pretending like it's OK. There was no filesystem and now there is, there was no mouse support and now there is and this external monitor thing is nonsense: make it work Apple - people pay a lot of money for your products and shouldn't be forced to compromise on such basic things. Evolve faster.

While you're technically correct, I would encourage people to at least post their displeasure here, if for no better place. I feel like the bigger this discussion becomes, the more attention it may get from Apple. With the evolution of iPad and iPad Pro, it's time that Apple addresses this artificial and annoying limitation.

Even if allowing iPad to extend it's desktop to external screen maybe a complex implementation, there are other options it can offer users in the short term. For example, instead of scaling the external monitor, it can have the option to scale the iPad display, putting the black bars there instead. Another option would be to turn off the iPad display and just use the external monitor.

And none of these have to be mutually exclusive and can be integrated as different options into the settings. Apple can do it, but for some reason they chose not to make it a priority. But now that they start presenting iPad Pro as a "Your next computer is not a computer" it time they step up their game.

Hello,

This is expected behavior. All software on iPad, including the system software, is designed to work on iPad's display which has a 4:3 aspect ratio. Most external displays that you connect to iPad use an aspect ratio of 16:9. All of iPad's software would have to be completely rewritten to support 16:9. The few exceptions are iMovie and LumaFusion as they allow for the editor's viewer window to scale to full size on an external display. Media applications such as TV also will display a video in its full resolution on an external display.

I had the same issue with the top and bottom letterboxing when I was using the Apple USB-C to HDMI adapter, when I started to use a 3rd party USB-C Dock for some reason the issue was fixed. So in my experience, only the Apple adapter has that issue.

This is what the screen mirroring behaviour is.

I am running an older version of iOS on my over 4-year old iPad Pro and it is the same result.

Mirroring the iPad to an external monitor or main computer screen does not fill the monitor screen nor fill the screen on my flat screen TV.

It is what it is.

zmclearan is quite correct. The iPad has never had the ability to rescale it’s “mirror” output to match the aspect ratio of an external display. I guess that “mirror” is a bit of a clue in this regard; what you see on your iPad screen (recognising that the aspect-ratio of iPad screens do marginally vary by model) is replicated on the external monitor.

However, video/media player Apps (both third-party and Apple) - obviously intended to play standard commercial material - do provide output that matches the majority of standard HDMI monitors. This material generally matches both the native resolution and aspect-ratio of the attached monitor.

I hope this clarification is helpful to readers of this discussion.

On my 55 inch flat screen TV, the HDMI output only outputs a smaller centered screen in the middle of my TV.

It looks about the size of a 32" or 36” inch screen TV. I never get a full screen image from many HDMI adapter outputted media apps.

This may be a function of your TV.

For “standard” 16:9 1080p media content, all iPads to which I have access produce “full screen” output over HDMI (using an Apple Lightning to HDMI adapter). Mirror output from the iPad obviously maintains the aspect ratio of the source device.

I have seen this issue on TVs principally intended for the US/NA market. A “standard” 1080 HDTV, with a native screen resolution of 1920x1080, should automatically scale an HDMI HD source 1:1 - providing full screen.

If your TV is not correctly scaling the video input to the screen (perhaps your screen is not natively 1920x1080 - typically indicated if you have black borders simultaneously on all four sides of the screen) you may find a manual “zoom” setting on your TV.

I just wanted to add that the monitor used is a Philips 243S7EJMB (full hd). This is a cheap monitor without zoom functions. Connecting the HyperDrive adapter to my Samsung tv or another borrowed Samsung monitor it seems to work. Maybe it’s more of an adapter/monitor problem. It would be nice though if the iPad would send out a proper full hd stream.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m quite disappointed that it doesn’t work properly after having bought all this stuff. I agree with you. It’s a bit strange to go for a 4:3 ratio when there are no such monitors on the market. The Samsung monitor tested above was a wide one. The screen got very stretched and looked awful. The iPad Pro has a bit of walking to do before it will replace a computer.

A 2020, high-end, $1000+ machine displaying such outdated results shouldn’t be the expected behaviour. If I’m mirroring my screen onto an external monitor, it means I’m probably planning to use said monitor for viewing, so obviously I’d want the aspect ratio to match the monitor’s so I’m not looking at this tiny rectangle in the middle of my monitor. If the aspect ratio of the iPad doesn’t match that of the monitor, just change the output aspect ratio on the iPad itself. This is, as far as I can tell, what they do when an external monitor is connected to a MacBook. I don’t care if my iPad will have black bars on the top and bottom as long as the monitor is displaying the content properly.

Well said Jopotato. Indeed, quite unacceptable from a “laptop” replacement. With the mouse/trackpad support the iPad screen could even go off and iPad become “desktop” machine. I would be also fine with black bars on the iPad indeed due to the different aspect ratio until proper solution is there. By the way at least safari should be full screen, most of today websites can adopt to different screens and ratios even with keeping the iPad full screen.

This is not true my friend!! I have a native 1080 TV (16:9) does not work. I tried other resolutions too with the same result.

Also is not important if it is 1080 or not. iPad Pro “MUST” to rescale in 720, 1080, 4K, 16:9, 4:3................... Its obligatory for me

iPads are not full laptop replacements as much as everyone with this dream want them to be.

As long as Apple keeps making MacBook Air, MacBooks/MacBook Pros, iPads/iPad Pros will not have equal parity with Apple's more expensive laptops.

iPads, even the iPad Pro is STILL a companion, portable device to a full Mac or Windows PC.

Having a keyboard case with a trackpad doesn't instantly make an iPad into a MacBook.

And even Apple's Magic Keyboard case, as nifty as it is, has some inherent flaws.

People want Apple to turn iPads into some sort of “Frankenstein”, heavier and bulkier version of a laptop with ALL the laptop OS functionalities and features, but this is not coming quick enough for this crowd of users, apparently.

With iPadOS, it seems Apple is just spoon-feeding iPad/iPad Pro owners only incremental improvements on a yearly schedule, but these “improvements” keep having their own issues, things like NOT being fully able to use ANY mouse or trackpad to do all the common navigation functions we all take for granted on a regular, standard and more robust computer. Not just using Apple's Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad 2 or the Magic Keyboard case for iPad UI navigation.

No full screen video output to external monitors.

Still issues with using externally connected drives on iPads in iPadOS, Especially so for iPads still using Apple's proprietary Lightning port/connector.

These are just some of the things we just assume just work and take for granted, but with, basically, another whole new OS that Apple has to constantly develop, all these things all of you iPad laptop fanatics want are going to take more time to include, fix and refine.

Turning iPads into a some lesser version of a MacBook was never the original design and intent for iPads and is going to take time for Apple to take the original iPad paradigm and make it work more in a more laptop computer-like fashion, for customers that want these laptop features in an iPad.