Thanks to a simple accessory and a good methodology, it is possible to enjoy your Switch games on an iPad. No, the Apple tablet is not able to launch the games. But thanks to a small inexpensive accessory, you can connect the Nintendo console to an iPad. Which is very convenient for playing on the go on a screen larger than that of the Switch. We will explain everything to you.
Some Nintendo Switch titles are definitely worth playing on a TV and not just on the small screen of the hybrid console (especially the first generation). This is the case, for example, of Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom that we tested in our columns. The stunning environments. The puzzles. The creation of objects. Not to mention the melodies. All of these push you to play on a big screen. And this is just one example among many others already released. And what about the next Super Mario Wonder we can’t wait to try…
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But television is not not necessarily available when you need it. You are on a train or a plane. You are in a hotel or in a rental without a television. There are several of you at home and unfortunately you are not a priority. Hence the strength of the Nintendo Switch, which also adapts to mobile and sedentary use at the same time. But then we come back to our starting point: how to play Zelda on a bigger screen? Why not use an iPad ?
Use an iPad to view Switch games
A tablet offers the double advantage of being nomadic and of providing a larger display than that of the portable console. But, using an iPad as an external screen is not necessarily very obvious a priori. Indeed, unlike a television, it is not possible to display an external source on iPad, even using an HDMI to USB adapter. So how is this possible? The cornerstone of this procedure is a simple and relatively inexpensive accessory (about twenty euros only): an external video capture card.
Our Anglo-Saxon colleagues from MacRumors have posted a very interesting video on how to install this card. Find this document at the end of this article Note also thatyou need a USB-C compatible iPad. They are more and more numerous:
- 11-inch iPad Pro (all generations)
- 12.9-inch iPad Pro (5th generation and later)
- iPad Air (4th generation and later)
- iPad mini (6th generation and later)
How to configure the iPad to play with the Switch
This iPad must work with iPadOS 17. This version of the operating system is, at the time of writing, still in beta. But the latter is installed as easily as the beta of iOS 17 (here is a link to our tutorial to install the beta versions of its OS). Finally, you need to install a video capture app on the iPad which will display the images from your console on the tablet screen. MacRumors uses Capture Pro. If you don’t want to watch the whole video, here’s the procedure:
- Connect the video capture card to the USB-C port of the tablet
- Connect the console to the HDMI port of the acquisition card
- Open the acquisition app you installed earlier
- Turn on the Nintendo Switch. The tablet should show the Switch home screen
Note that this procedure works with all devices using an HDMI connector. This obviously includes other game consoles, the PS5 and the Xbox Series X in particular. The experience is generally good, but it is not perfect, in particular in latency. There will certainly be improvements made by application developers and frame grabber designers in the near future. But this first experience is already promising. And this tutorial will obviously still be valid.
