Nervously Sweating, Astro HQ Compares Luna Display and Sidecar

Apple’s newly-announced Sidecar threatens companies like Astro HQ and Duet. Astro recently wrote a blog post comparing its Luna Display product against Sidecar.

Luna Display

Sidecar lets you use your iPad as a secondary display to your Mac. It works wired and wirelessly, and with the Apple Pencil it also lets you use the iPad as an input device for the Mac, great for graphic designers, artists, and photographers. A Sidecar app will be built into macOS Catalina.

Luna display sidecar comparison chart

In the comparison chart above, Astro lists all the reasons why Luna Display is better than Sidecar. I’ve never used Luna Display so I don’t know how well it runs. I have sympathy for companies that Apple “sherlocks” but Astro left out the fact that the dongles that its app requires to run cost US$80.

Meanwhile, Sidecar is free. Users who already have Luna Display will probably continue using it. But Sidecar will be a good option for people just starting out, and they won’t have to spend a dime on extra software.

Further Reading:

[WWDC 2019: Riding Sidecar With macOS Catalina]

[WWDC19: Apple Introduces iPadOS]

3 thoughts on “Nervously Sweating, Astro HQ Compares Luna Display and Sidecar

  • That list is mostly nonsense. They have been Sherlocked for good reason.

    I have hated AstroPad Pro and Duet Pro’s obnoxious subscription pricing (want to use Apple Pencil? that will be $25 a year please) ever since they rolled it out. There really is no excuse for it.

    Third party apps that charge a subscription fee for something that should “just work” as a part of the OS and is now actually included in said OS? Or an $80 dongle? Thanks but no thanks!

    1. 100% agree. and I’m glad that Apple did this. I also don’t think Apple just “sherlock” from either of them.

      I was one of many people that used to write to Apple about this feature before Astropad or the Pencil existed, I had a lot of great ideas. I still remember finding an email, I believe the sjobs-at-apple and telling Apple about the need to use iPads as Wacom tablets where it is integrated directly into the OS and received a reply thanking me for the good suggestion, I remember telling them about making a stylus like Wacom, hundreds of people hit the forums to say the same thing. They’ve known they had to do this at some point. Just because 1 or 2 companies took feedback off something that was highly discussed and created an app for it doesn’t mean they’re the only ones that can do it.

      Definitely, the list is nonsense and missing all the reasons to ditch it lol, none of it gives a good reason to stick with them because Apple already does all that and will get better over time. I mean this even has a virtual Touch Bar, which is pretty cool. They know their business is done. I payed about $30 on AstroPad and I believe on the iOS app as well when they first came out, and it was useless to me, so damn slow. Then they came out with the Luna Display and I was happy until I saw the subscription. After that I just gave up and stuck with my Wacom and just used Procreate on iPad.

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