The Infinite Desktop

Remember when we had dedicated Tektronix scopes?  Re-live the magic.

Well, maybe not yet but with Air Display by Avatron it's a step in that direction.  This iPhone and iPad app let's you extend your desktop over WiFi and as you can see, this is just the app that a lot of video editors have been waiting for.    It can really suck to edit on a laptop (even a 17") when you're used to editing on a couple of huge desktop monitors.  You feel cramped and crowded like you're trying to look out the window of the #23 bus during rush hour.  I'm glad I drive everywhere and I'm glad I bought this app - even though it's not quite ready for intensive pro media apps.  Sure, it's got quirky issues that you would expect from most version 1 releases but the promise may have a lot of people overlooking it's technical shortcomings.  Then again for $10 it's understandable to want to wait for the bug fixes.

The pros.   
 - More space for your canvas, toolbars, palettes, menus, etc...
 - Orientation in either landscape or portrait mode.
 - Touch-enabled
 - Wireless

Now my selfish laptop can have the After Effects canvas all to itself.

The Cons.

 - Huge battery drain.

-  Reduced image quality

-  Frame dropping

-  Reduced response time

Ok, so they won't be editing Avatar 2 on this but I could see editors of all stripes finding a reason to include this into their workflow.  In the very least it can give you another reason to justify buying a tablet.  And I can only hope when the more powerful iPad 2 arrives this spring coupled with the touch friendly OS X Lion this summer, we'll see a updated version of Air Display that will have us walking in the clouds.

Check out the more detailed review on Smoking Apples.