iPad Extended Desktop not working

I submitted feedback on this. Hope it's fixed for the new iPad Pro!

New iPAD OS update (16.4.1) and the problem still remains. It seems there is not enough people affected with the lack of extended monitor capability for Apple to solve this bug. I really don’t understand that a minor change in the OS means that you lost a capability of the iPad without any warning notice anywhere.

domingo265 wrote:

New iPAD OS update (16.4.1) and the problem still remains. It seems there is not enough people affected with the lack of extended monitor capability for Apple to solve this bug. I really don’t understand that a minor change in the OS means that you lost a capability of the iPad without any warning notice anywhere.

👍

Unfortunately, I have an LG 32' (with 4K resolution) monitor and also on it the arrengment option disappeared after updating to 16.4. Before, it worked normally. The monitor has an option to change the mode from 4:3 to 16:9, but that doesn't change anything:(

But the most interesting thing is that on my other old display, note - an 8 years old Apple one!, it also does not work....

Apple has a put a dam in my workflow with this bug. I had a great set up going with my 12.9’ inch iPad Pro. Extended display support was a big part of that. I’m hoping Apple is looking into it. It was very useful when working. I’m holding out for iPods os 17. I posted on here before but still nothing a many updates later.

dpdp-it wrote:

I have a case even more weird with my beamer that is capable of 1920x1080 but of course can switch to other resolutions too. While working perfect with iPadOS 16.3 it now has really weird behaviour - connecting to the iPad the extended desktop with stage manager starts, BUT IN 1600x1200 RESOLUTION as if it was mirroring. Opening e.g. Prime Video "changes" the resolution (beamer picture pauses, new source sync) to AGAIN 1600x1200! And if starting to play a movie in most cases but not always resolution changes to 1920x1080 (beamer picture pauses, new source sync).

I see this behaviour with a HDMI scaler box and iPadOS 16.6. The scaler can accept input resolutions up to 1920x1200, but iPad chooses to use 1280x1024 and thus only allows mirroring, not extending the desktop.

Then when playing media content, the iPad output resolution switches to 1920x1200. When again displaying the mirrored home screen, the resolution switches back to 1280x1024.

I agree with the others that it looks like a bug in iPadOS that it prefers the lower 4:3 resolutions over higher 16:9 resolutions for the external screen. Perhaps it tries to choose a display mode with an aspect ratio that would be native to the iPad home screen. Then it prevents selecting the mirroring off because the 4:3 resolution is less than the minimum resolution for the extended desktop.

How is this still a thing? Apple, can you please fix my $1000+ bugged device? I’m having the same issue that everyone on this thread is having. You’re about to release iPad OS 17 and this bug still isn’t squashed. What a joke.

While waiting for Apple to fix this bug, I was able to temporarily solve the issue by using an EDID emulator connected to the HDMI between the iPad and the monitor. The EDID profile in the emulator should be recorded from a display that is compatible and supports the required screen resolution. Some emulators allow selecting or programming the display mode without having to learn it from another monitor.

My use case is to use a HDMI scaler to get the external screen support on a lower resolution screen (1440x900). Although the scaler box supports higher resolutions iPad chose to use 1280x1024. With the EDID emulator I was able to make iPad use 1920x1200 instead. The external screen without mirroring is not available for resolutions less than Full HD.

Thank you for this! Annoying that we have to do this work around while we’ve been waiting for almost a year for the bug to be fixed..

Im not too familiar with EDID emulators. Mind linking the one you used? And was it plug and play for you or was there some more involved setup? Thanks!

I tested two EDID emulators and both of those worked: ATEN VC080 and ATEN VC081A. With both I first connected to a display that supported my target resolution 1920x1200 and worked properly with iPad. The EDID emulator then learned the EDID profile from that monitor. Then connecting to the monitor that used to have issues iPad selected the correct resolution because the EDID profile was now coming from the emulator instead of the monitor itself.

Please note that different USB-C adapters seem to behave in a different way. With the Apple USB-C Digital AV adapter the EDID emulator did not help, and iPad still chose to use the wrong resolution 1280x1024. Another brand (Linq 6 in 1 USB-C multiport hub) worked fine.

At least for my use case the EDID emulator does the trick, and I'm able to connect to the monitor that I want and get the proper resolution.

ATEN VC080 is more versatile and stores up to three profiles and allows even manually editing the profiles to add or remove resolutions. Editing requires connecting with a RS-232 interface to the emulator. VC081A is more simple and only learns one profile at a time. That should do for the simple use cases.

I also have this issue. For some reason, one of my display suddenly start mirroring my display instead of extending and another display would still extend my display. Then i reset my network settings and its works. My M1 iPad Pro 11inches is currently on iOS 17.2

I’m not sure if this is true, but was told that they were afraid of iPad sales cannibalizing MacBook, especially air, sales; so apple is reconsidering supporting this extended display feature on iPad.

any news if this is fixed.

I've tried 4 different monitors, 2 with USB-C connection.

4K monitor from LG

and some HD monitors with the support of the Apple dongle to HDMI, but all I get is the mirroring option.

I have an iPad Pro 11" M2 and use it with an Optoma EH-401 Full HD beamer. While apps like Prime Video and Netflix (now) use the display as a full-screen extension, the Stage Manager does not - anymore. It worked for a while and then suddenly stopped. I can‘t actually tell if it was because of the update to iOS 17.4.1 or ealier. The behavior was already unreliable (Prime was suddenly mirroring for a while), so I switched the Stage Manager on and off.