How People Create "Giant iPads" Using Large Touch Displays
The "giant iPad" goal is common in kiosks, classrooms, trade shows, and accessibility. Here's what that actually requires and why screen mirroring alone doesn't get you there.
If you're already convinced this needs more than mirroring, you can jump straight to the solution category:
Jump to: Solutions that enable external touch on iPadWhat do people mean by a "giant iPad"?
They mean a large touch display (24″–98″) that behaves like an iPad, with direct touch interaction on the big screen, without rewriting apps or modifying iPadOS.
This is common in trade-show kiosks, education, accessibility setups, interactive art and music, and retail displays.
Why doesn't simply mirroring the screen achieve this?
Screen mirroring (or external display output) only sends video.
Touch requires bidirectional input handling, gesture translation, latency management, and orientation/scaling correction. Without those, the display is just a big passive screen.
What usually goes wrong in DIY attempts?
- Touch input never reaches the iPad
- Gestures are misinterpreted
- Orientation breaks touch mapping
- Latency makes interaction unusable
These failures aren't accidental. They follow from iPadOS design choices.
A "giant iPad" is not a cable problem. It's an input translation problem.
Summary
A working "giant iPad" experience needs a way to translate external touchscreen input into a form iPadOS accepts reliably and with low latency.
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