The new iPad mini (A20 Pro) is a big upgrade over its predecessor. While the OLED display is the headline feature, the more important improvement to me is the addition of extended display support. This is the first time the feature has come to an iPad without an M-series chip, and it increases the versatility of Apple’s pocket-sized tablet.

Using an iPad with a display isn’t something most people know about, so here’s a guide to using the new iPad mini with an external display.

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What Does “Extended Display” Mean?

This is the term Apple uses when an iPad treats a second, external display as a separate screen, instead of just mirroring the contents of the iPad’s screen. The iPad will fill the entire display at the monitor’s native aspect ratio (no black bars).

Requirements

• iPad mini (A20 Pro)
• iPadOS 27.2 or newer
• A display with a resolution up to 4K. The mini can drive a display at 60Hz. If you plug the iPad mini into a higher-resolution display, like the 5K Apple Studio Display, the mini displays a somewhat blurry 4K image.
  • If the monitor doesn’t come with a USB-C cable, you’ll need a DisplayPort or HDMI adapter. The one I’m using with my iPad mini is a Cable Matters USB-C to DisplayPort hub.
  • I also recommend choosing an adapter that can provide power, since driving a display will run down your iPad’s battery even faster.
• A keyboard and mouse or trackpad. Apple’s Magic Trackpad and Magic Mouse are great options here.

Configure Your Display

Once your iPad is connected, a few new options appear in the Settings app.

1. Go to Settings → Display & Brightness.
2. Tap the name of your monitor, listed next to the built-in display, to see its options. For my display, that’s really just choosing HDR or SDR.
3. Go back and find the Arrangement section. Just like on macOS, you can logically position the iPad relative to the display.
4. Drag the iPad with your finger or Apple Pencil to match where it sits on your desk. If it’s below your monitor, for example, you’ll move the mouse up and down between displays instead of left and right.

You’ll also find a Mirror Display toggle on this screen that turns off extended display support and takes you back to the old behavior of mirroring the iPad’s screen.

Resizing Your Windows

By default, an app opens full screen the first time you launch it on your display. That makes some sense on the mini’s small screen, but it’s a little silly on a 32-inch monitor.

Thankfully, apps on iPadOS are generally fully resizable. Grab the drag handle in the bottom right corner of the window and resize it to something more reasonable.

iPadOS remembers each window’s size and position per display, so you can close an app, reopen it, and it’ll be right where you left it. You shouldn’t have to do this more than once per app.

Moving Windows Between Screens

You can freely drag windows between your monitor and the iPad, but there’s a faster way, especially on a bigger monitor:

1. Click and hold the window controls, the red, yellow, and green buttons on the window.
2. Select Move to iPad or Move to Display at the bottom of the menu.

The window jumps straight to the other screen, so you don’t have to drag it across all that space.

Window Management

Even with its larger 8.5-inch display, you’re probably not going to do a ton of multi-window work on the mini itself. On a monitor, you have a lot more room to spread out, and you get all of the iPadOS multitasking features.

Using the window controls

1. Click and hold the window controls on your first app.
2. Choose a tiling option, such as a left-side split.
3. Repeat on your other apps to fill out the layout. You can go all the way up to a four-window split.

Using the menu bar

The menu bar surfaces functionality and keyboard shortcuts for the app that’s currently in focus. It also exposes a set of keyboard shortcuts you can use to tile a window without using a mouse or trackpad.

1. Open an app.
2. Go to the Window menu in the menu bar.
3. Scroll down to Move & Resize to see the keyboard shortcuts for tiling a window.

Using Slide Over

If you’re a Slide Over user, good news: it works on your display too.

1. Open the app you want to use.
2. Click and hold the window controls.
3. Select Enter Slide Over.
4. Resize the Slide Over window if you’d like.

What’s nice is that Slide Over exists per display when the iPad is connected to a monitor, so you can have one app in Slide Over on your monitor and a different one on the iPad.

Control Center

With iPadOS 27, Control Center becomes accessible from your connected display. However, for whatever reason, it only works if there are no windows open on the display. You can use the Command-H keyboard shortcut to hide your windows.

Common Keyboard Shortcuts Worth Knowing

• Command-Tab brings up the app switcher.
• Command-Space brings up Spotlight and the new Siri interface.
• Command-H hides an app.
• Command-Q closes an app.

Downsides

I use a display with my iPad Pro almost every day. And while I can be really productive this way, I would say this feature is, at best, just “okay.” Some days it works great, and others, it’s frustratingly buggy, sometimes requiring a restart of the iPad.

So far, my experience with the iPad mini has been positive, but I wanted to call out some issues and annoyances I’ve seen on my iPad Pro so you know what to watch for.

• iPadOS does not support screen recording the connected display.
• Every now and again, moving a window between displays will crash the iPad.
• Some apps don’t work well when a display is connected. For example, YouTube Studio completely blacks out my iPad display and goes full screen on the monitor. Apple’s own Phone app can leave an unclosable window on the display when you end a call.

Conclusion

In spite of my complaints about the bugginess of this feature in general, it’s still a huge deal that the iPad mini finally supports it. It’s incredibly enticing to have this small, almost pocket-sized tablet that I can now dock to a monitor and use as a proper computer. If more people start using this feature, or it extends to the iPhone, I hope Apple will start prioritizing bug fixes and stability for it.