iPad Productivity
This Is What Can Go Wrong When You Connect an iPad and a Samsung M7 Monitor (Cautionary Tale)
It was a roller-coaster ride that got emotional but had a happy ending
It’s hard to express in words how happy I was when Apple finally added full external monitor support to iPad — well, iPads with M series processors. In fact, I was so pleased that I decided to upgrade from my ASUS 4K monitor to something with a better panel.
Long story short, I settled on a Samsung M7. The contrast ratio of 3000:1 won it for the Samsung. I’m grateful for my eyesight, but it needs excellent contrast for me to be able to read comfortably.
To my delight, it arrived a few days early. There was no hanging around; it was out of the box and sitting on my desk within minutes. That’s when the problems started.
Connection problems
There were power cables for multiple regions, but the one for the UK didn’t fit the socket on the back of the M7. It was slightly too large.
It didn’t seem to matter how hard I pushed, it wasn’t going in. I (very) briefly considered cutting the plastic to size, but decided I wasn’t insane. Never mind, I have plenty of power cables with euro plugs.
Okay, so the monitor had juice.
Time for the next disappointment. There were no monitor cables included with the M7. I had hoped for a USB-C cable, but would have settled for an HDMI. Sadly, the cupboard was bare.
Luckily, I had a box full of USB-C cables too, so I found a short one (to keep the desk tidy), and connected iPad and monitor. Nothing. That probably meant that the USB-C cable wasn’t a Thunderbolt variant.
Never mind. I could use an HDMI cable with a dongle. That’s how I had connected the iPad to the ASUS. Still nothing. Crp.
What does a geek do in a crisis? It’s time for Professor Google, so I did a search for Macs and Samsung M7s. (I didn’t search for iPad because iPad monitor support is recent, and I doubted if many people had tried it before.)
Oh my word, there was a Reddit group for people with Samsung M7 issues. Note to self. Before buying anything you care about, see if it has a Reddit group.
‘There were all sorts of sad stories on there, some involving spending hours uselessly on the phone to Samsung Support. What had I done? It was a good job that I kept the packaging.
The picture dawns
On a whim, I tried connecting my smaller iPad to the monitor, and it just worked! I switched on Stage Manager, and there were the group thumbnails.
So, why had that not worked on my big iPad? I swapped the dongle back, and it just worked. The picture was beautiful. There was stuff on the screen I’d never been able to read before. Epiphany!
If I were the sort who did happy dances, I would have done one. I’m not, so I settled into enjoying a screen that I could read easily.
No, I didn’t try to find out why it hadn’t worked the first time on the M7. Are you kidding me? I just wanted to enjoy using that beautiful screen.
And I lived happily ever after. Well, no.
Back to Reddit
It was peaches and ice cream for 3 days, but on the morning of the 4th day, it all went south fast. I woke just after 5am and read my paper. Made myself first breakfast and settled down in front of the iPad and M7 to write. I had plans.
I swiped up on the iPad screen and waited for that beautiful display to work its magic. Nothing. In fact, nothing from anything. The iPad’s battery was flat.
Okay, I could fix that. The mains power to the iPad was off, and perhaps the cold had drained the battery. It’s been chilly in the UK. A nagging voice was, however, beginning to whine that that had never happened before.
I gave the iPad about 5 minutes to get some juice and tried again. Still nothing. A panicking voice replaced the nagging voice. (Sigh) It had all been so beautiful and joyful.
My background is in software, so obviously I was going to reboot everything. That didn’t help either. I went back to the Reddit group, and reread everything that hadn’t helped the first time.
Okay, what about trying it with the other iPad? That had magically solved the problem the first time, but it didn’t this time.
Frustratingly, the Samsung knew that there was a device there, but it thought it wasn’t turned on. Just for the heck of it, I rebooted the iPad, but unsurprisingly, nothing changed.
Then I looked at the iPad sound system. (Swipe down the Control Centre and look at where the iPad is sending sound to.) It didn’t see a dongle.
When an iPad is connected to a monitor via a dongle, it always sends sound there. It wasn’t doing that, so it must be the dongle.
Closure and the return to being delighted
I found a spare dongle, and it worked; except, the picture was ugly. The colours were too bright and rather washed out. It was disturbing to look at because I knew how good the M7 could be.
I remembered that I had bought that dongle to connect SSDs to my iPad, so I had never intended to use it for video. Either a proper USB-C Thunderbolt cable or a dongle that could handle Thunderbolt should solve the problem.
I ordered both from Amazon, and a day later I replaced the dongle. With trepidation, I switched on the M7, and the beautiful picture was back.
How about the cable? Yes, that worked too. In fact, the monitor jumped into an even higher resolution. I could still read the text, but I preferred what I had before. A tweak in display settings restored the resolution to the default.
I settled on using the Thunderbolt USB-C cable. I’ve had more than one dongle burn out on me, so the cable offers the more sustainable solution.
Final thoughts
Choosing a monitor for your iPad or Mac is trickier than you’d think. I have written about the complexities of cables.
Until you try it for real, however, it’s hard to spot the wrinkles, so here are a few takeaways:
- Suppliers on Amazon sometimes use the same copy for multiple (similar) products.
- Promises about video cables are made, but not always kept.
- If you buy a dongle or cable, check the small print.
Of course, if I’d just bought Apple’s Studio display, it probably would have just worked. However, the Studio display is about £1,500, and the M7 was £347. I know the Studio is a 5K display, but that price gap…
I’d probably have paid an extra couple of hundred to get an Apple display, but not four times the price. Apple seems to be getting carried away with the idea that it can charge anything. Given our troubled economic times, I wonder how much longer that will last.