“One of big new features of the iPad 2 is the ability to stream everything you see on the iPad screen to any TV via an HDMI adapter,” Matt Dunn reports for TouchGen.
MacDailyNews Note: More info about Apple’s US$39 adapter: Apple Digital AV Adapter
“We put our iPad 2 to the test and connected it to a 50″ LG HDTV,” Dunn reports. “While I feel the videos below speak for themselves, let me just tell you that it looks fantastic in person.”
Dunn reports, “I guarantee that anyone passing by would just assume you were playing an Xbox 360 or PS3 game.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Plus, the games average around five bucks each. Have a nice day, Nintendo, Sony, and Microsloth.
I feel this is the biggest win for Apple – enabling HDTV mirroring on the iPad 2 via HDMI cable.
Suck on that Zoomies, or should I say Zombies. The only way Android will allow you to plug your Xoom into a 50″ HDTV is if you don’t mind watching Tron on your screen over & over again in jagged lines.
I’d be walking away with my tail between my legs right now if I were a fandroid – those pathetic bastards will lap up anything Google shovels down their throat in the name of openness. Yeah, openness to being pwned!
Correction. It would be impossible for fadroids to walk away with their tails between their legs with their heads up their asses.
“I’d be walking away with my tail between my legs right now if I were a fandroid”
But they won’t. They’ll STILL find some way to rationalize the whole thing. 🙂
Does anybody know if the VGA output adapter I already own works the same way?
What’s the difference in A/V resolution the cable can handle, versus what AirPlay can handle?
They both do 720p for most content. The cable mentions 1080p but then says the movies, slideshows are 720p, so which is it? Can apps spit out 1080p content or something?
I’m assuming the cable handles 5.1 surround sound but the Apple page says nothing about that.
Theoretically you could display 1080p content. The problem is Apple only has 720p movies and tv shows. If as you put it developers include 1080p content then it will be mirrored as 1080p. And for 1080p movies, just buy them somewhere else. Although from the movies that I’ve seen being mirrored, 720p looks awesome.
The video mirroring is a massive reason I’m upgrading my iP1 to and iP2 when it’s released over here in the UK.
And that’s some pretty good driving in that video!
Yep, but good job he was in a Volvo given the crash at the end.
Mice but my PS3 isn’t jealous. My PSP is though but I don’t even know where that is.
You have to understand this is Real Racing 2: an iPad 1 game that happens to run well on the iPad 2. When Real Racing 3 (and others) are released, they will be so gorgeous even your PS3 will be envious.
Not saying it will match PS3 graphics, but they WILL be awesome and comparing both devices it will make the PS3 seem look like the 2007 piece of tech it really is.
I hope the next step will be for apple to cut the cable and allow mirroring through Apple TV. I know I can do that now with Movies, however it would be helpful to be able to mirror webpages, games and other apps up on the TV from the comfort of the couch or bed.
too much lag for games but it would be nice for other things
I would think it is in the developers hands to just add AirPlay support to their Apps (games) and then allow for controls to remain on your iDevice for the app (game).
@MDN take: I hope prices stay that low. I can already see software houses that think they can charge thru the nose, as they did before, e.g., Omnigroup (their software is excellent AND Mac-like, make no mistake, but they should only charge half as much in this business model, where many more people actually pay for the stuff)
@ Brian… ditto. Would love to be able to do it all wirelessly via Apple TV.
@ RastaMouse… ditto about the good driving.
“Have a nice day, Nintendo, Sony, and Microsloth.”
Nice day? How come if hey are going to sleep, walk and breath tight.
This was certainly on my list of reasons for the upgrade to the iPad 2. One of the better games is Chopper 2. Hook the iPad 2 up to the HDTV and then use an iPhone or iPod as the controller via WiFi.
I get how this works for something like movies which are encoded at HD resolution. But how does it work for games? They are designed to run on the iPad screen, which is less than HD resolution – 1024 x 768 vs. 1280 x 720. Do you get black bars on the sides of the screen? Is the image stretched to fill the screen. In the video linked to above, neither appears to be the case.
Not sure about the movies, but Real Racing was displaying the black bars alright.
HD output – the killer function of the ipad 2.
I can see so many possibilities for this!
facetime
Still feels a bit clunky with the dongle. If a viable bluetooth controller comes out that’d be killer to play with the HDMI-out.
This is an exciting development in the console race but Apple has a few issues to work on before it can position the iOS as an alternative to the XBox 360, PS3 and Wii; right now it is just a great alternative to the PSP and DS. Somehow iOS devices have to be able to stream full-screen 3D graphics and audio to an external monitor without cables; tethering the controller to the screen with a cable is very last-gen. If iPads, iPod and iPhone are the controllers, it would be better to have their screens show custom interfaces for each game instead of a mirror image of what goes to the external monitor.
Such High quality graphics