iDisplay Lets You Turn Your Android Device Into Regular Monitor Real Estate

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You ever have one of those times when you’re working on your regular desktop monitor, and you find yourself needing, in the words of General Zevo from Robin Williams’ Toys, just a tiny bit more space? Well, if you have, you’ve probably looked wistfully at your cell phone or tablet and wished you could just add that onto your monitor. Wish no more, because it’s finally happened thanks to the folks at Shape Services and their iDisplay app.

Basically, iDisplay allows you to take your Android device, download an app, and then use that same Android device as a supplementary monitor extender. You can move things like progress bars, instant messenger windows, and widgets over to that supplementary display so as not to interfere with the main screen, which you can then fill with whole page documents or video windows or the like.

And what’s really interesting about this is that you can take your Android device with you away from your desktop, so you can, for example, watch a progress bar while you’re outside getting the regular mail, or take a recipe with you from your computer to the kitchen without having to hit the print button. You can even just use it as a small mirror of the main display, as opposed to a full screen extender.

The particularly interesting part here is that, while the iDisplay works equally well on PC or Mac systems, it’s currently only available on Android devices. Kind of a kick in the teeth that an Android device will do on Mac systems what an iOS app has yet to achieve. Though you’ll only have to pay $1.99 for the app, which isn’t terribly expensive at all and should make a nice supplement for those who like to be a bit more mobile than their desktop might permit.