YAM Display (YAM is short for “Yet Another Monitor”) is software that enables a Mac, iPad or iPhone to become an external monitor to a host Mac. It provides more features than Sidecar, but fewer features than Better Monitor. (It also costs far less than Better Monitor).
If all you need is an iPhone or iPad as an external display, Sidecar will do the job perfectly. (Here’s my Sidecar review.) If you need an all-singing, all-dancing do-everything monitor control, consider Better Display (Here’s my Better Display review.)
But, if you simply want to use a second Mac as a monitor, create a teleprompter on an iPad, or drag files between a Mac and iPad, YAM Display is an excellent choice.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Key features of YAM Display for the external display:
The software needs to be installed on the Mac whose screens you want to mirror (called the “host Mac”), plus any other Macs, iPads, or iPhones you want to use as external monitors. Both devices need to be connected via a USB cable. YAM needs to be running on both Mac and external monitor for a connection to be made.
Setup is simple, while actual operation requires only a single click.
If you need an easy way to configure an iPad for a prompter, or need more features than Sidecar provides, YAM Display is an excellent choice. The host app is available from the YAM Display website, while the free client app is in the Mac/iPad App Store.
Developer: Yamstu Inc.
Product: YAM Display
Website: https://www.yamdisplay.com/about/
Price: The software for the host Mac is free to download from the Yam Display website. The client software for iPad or iPhone is $7.99 (with a free trial) and the client software for a second Mac is $7.99 (with a 7-day free trial, one-time purchase). Both are one-time purchases without requiring a subscription.
NOTE: The app and developer do not collect any user data from this app.
SETUP
Download YAM Display for the host Mac from the YAMDisplay website. Download the free client software for a Mac, iPad or iPhone from the appropriate Apple store. (Search for “YAM Display – Free”.) Installation is the same as any other application.
Connect the two devices via USB.
NOTE: I did not test YAM Air, a separate app which allows two devices to connect wirelessly. YAM Air needs to be installed on both devices, and both need to access the same WiFi network. Air Mode does not work on YAM Display.
Start the application on the iPad. The screen above appears. (See the red arrow? I’ll come back to that shortly.)
Start the application on the host Mac. The YAM Display icon appears in the menu bar (top red arrow). Notice it says “Wait for connection.” To connect an external monitor, tap the Plus icon on the client screen (red arrow in the iPad screen shot).
NOTE: The application simply says “Click the Plus icon on the iPad” to connect the host Mac with an external device. Yeah, I know that Plus key is big and obvious, but it took me ten minutes of searching to realize I needed to tap it.
Once the two devices are connected – it only takes a few seconds – the message at the top of the host Mac menu indicates the connection (red arrow), with the blue icon indicating someone else (YAM Display) is also viewing your Mac monitor.
Select whether you want to use the second monitor (remember, this could be a Mac, iPad or iPhone) as an external display, or mirror one of your Mac monitors. (I have two monitors connected to my system, so I get to pick.)
Almost instantly, whichever option you select is shown on the external display. Mirroring matches the aspect ratio of the Mac monitor. Extending matches the aspect ratio (horizontal or vertical) of the external device.
NOTE: In this menu, you can also select the display frame rate (30 / 60 fps) and monitor resolution.
To enable teleprompter mode, go to the YAM Display menu in the menu bar at the top of the Mac, then Preferences > Teleprompter mode.
NOTE: After connection, there is about a 1/4 second delay between the two displays. For almost all activities, this delay is not significant.
DISCONNECT
To disconnect the two monitors either quit the application on the Mac, or disconnect the USB cable.
OPERATION
Operation is easy. Once you select the settings you want, restarting is simple:
Connections and displays configure and display automatically within a second or two.
CONCLUSION
If all you need is an external monitor, I’d recommend Sidecar first. But, if you want to use a Mac as a second monitor, create a teleprompter, or drag files between devices, YAM Display is fast, easy to use and very affordable.
I recommend it.
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6 Responses to Review: YAM Display – A Fast Way to Create an External Monitor
Thanks for the shout out! Just wanted to point out that you still called Sidecar Sidebar in this article as well
I even learned a few things about the software that even I didn’t know from using it for a few years!
Mark:
Sigh…. Fixed. Thanks,
Larry
Larry:
What are the advantages to using this as opposed to the built in option in the Mac OS to share the screen to an iPad attached via a USB cord? The ability to mirror or extend the display to an iPad is built into the OS.
Lew
Lew:
For basic mirroring or adding a “second” display, there’s no difference. The KEY, for me, is the ability to flip the image so i looks good on a prompter.
Also, YAM Display can use an iMac as a second monitor, which Sidecar doesn’t support.
Larry
Initial report on using an older iMac as an extra monitor using Yam Display suite of software.
TL;DR – it works, albeit with some caveats. There is a small bit of lag like Larry mentioned experiencing in his BetterDisplay review. While the resolution can be the default 2560 x 1440 for an iMac and at 30 Hz, it’s not as sharp. It’s great for a 3rd monitor option for M1 & M2 Macs that only support 2 monitors.
The Rest:
So after reading about being able to use this software with an iMac, I decided to haul out my old Late 2015 27″ iMac. I had replaced it with a Mac mini M2 Pro about a year ago. I had a 2nd monitor with the iMac so I had to purchase another monitor since I was losing the iMac.
Starting with the 2015 models, Apple disabled Target Display Mode for the iMac line, so any thought of using the iMac as a display was out of the question. There is a dongle option with Luna Display. It’s $90 and it may or may not have better performance. The real question was what to do with the iMac? It had to real trade-in value, and while I could have sold it for maybe $300-400, I would need to add in almost $80 for a special shipping box and then the cost of shipping. And while Apple will accept it for recycling, they no longer will allow you to drop off something like an iMac for that purpose. You can ship it to them for free, but you still need to get the box. A some point I had planned on doing that.
In order to get everything to work in what I think is the optimal way, you’ll need to do a few things. At the bare minimum, get a wired mouse if you don’t already have one. Also get a USB 10-key. Both need to be wired for best results. Also, you can get an Ethernet switch. While it’s not going to help with lag or the clarity of the display, it will give you a rock solid connection. Relying on WI-Fi is fine, but there is sometimes a delay by as much as 30 seconds or even more to see the results on the iMac.
You’ll need Yam Air ($7.99 installed on the iMac, and the Desktop version of Yam Display (free) on your M-series Mac. All of this will cost just about $50 depending on what you already have. The switch and ethernet cables were about half of that for me. Plus I didn’t need to take up a USB-C port on my Mac mini (I’m already using all of them) with a dongle that potentially prevents using an adjacent USB-C port.
For the iMac, completely erase it. You’ll need to create an initial account to be able to purchase and download Yam Air from the App Store. For this part you will need to use a regular keyboard. I used my old iMac keyboard since I had just gotten a Touch ID enabled one for the Mac mini.
Completely disable all iCloud functions on that account. AND, if you’re using Advance Data Protection, you’ll need to disable it in order to access the App Store. You can choose to launch Yam Air to connect to your Mac at this point. There is an option to do this automatically when the program launches. You need to make sure the Desktop Yam Display is running on your Mac first. Also, have Yam Air launch at login. I can’t remember if there’s a preference for it, but I enabled it in System Settings.
While you’re doing this, set up your 10-key. It can be a bit tricky, but when you plug it in, you’ll get a message to set it up as the OS won’t recognize it. Click the 100+ key keyboard option (you’ll have 3 to choose from). From there it should work. There may be another setting or two, but it should recognize all the keys on that keyboard. Because of the type of desk I have, I can put the 10-key and mouse on a shelf that is under the desk and slides out (it’s meant for synthesizers) and has plenty of space to just live there. I can even just enter my password by touch so I never need to slide out the shelf.
Next, create another Admin account and delete your original account associated with your Apple ID. This will allow you to re-enable ADP though you may have to delete the iMac from the list of devices. For this new account create a password with the 10-key. Initially I tried to set up an account without a password, but because I didn’t do my initial tests in the order I’m describing, I had a hard time getting the iMac to recognize just pressing the Enter key. Even so, it would only recognize some keys and not others. I chose to just create a password that is easy to type.
I also turned on the firewall on the iMac, and made sure my firewall was on for the Mac mini. The iMac itself doesn’t pose a security risk AFAIK since you’ve deleted all personally identifiable information from it. And ALSO, you never use it as a computer. But it does have access to your network. And while you’ll still need to login into any device on the network, enabling the firewall adds an additional layer of security. Assuming I’m not mistaken in all of this.
If all went well, when you log into your iMac, it will boot up with Yam Air ready to go and automatically connect to your other Mac. Set the Yam Air window to full screen and you’ll have your extra monitor. When it comes to the mouse pointer, I just move it to the bottom right corner (disable Quick Note from Hot Corners). I set up the bottom left corner in Hot Corners to Lock Screen. No matter how you set your Power settings on the iMac, that screen will never shut off, even if your other Mac has been “locked” since the iMac is still receiving a signal. However, if you use the iMac mouse to lock the iMac, it also somehow registers the same with the Mac mini, assuming you’ve set the same Hot Corner. You’ll notice if you move the iMac mouse to the bottom of the window, the other Mac’s dock will appear if you have that function set up. Once the other Mac is locked, you’ll see the iMac’s Lock Screen appear and I click Cancel and that screen goes black.
To wake everything up, move the iMac mouse or hit a key on the 10-key and then just enter the iMac’s password and also your other Mac’s password. It’s a bit of a kludge, but to have a 3rd monitor to use for something that doesn’t require the best clarity, like just running an email client or Messages, or other software that can be off to the side, it’s great. The other two hardwired monitors will act about 95% normally. I’ll occasionally see a bit of lag with the mouse pointer on those screens, but most of the time I don’t.
And if you don’t need that 3rd monitor, just log into your main Mac. The iMac screen will stay off, but it will be active as a 3rd monitor. In other words, if you move your mouse pointer over to where it would be, the pointer will act as if that screen is on. You can just quit the Yam Display program on your main Mac if you don’t want the annoyance of occasionally losing your pointer :).
I definitely wouldn’t use this as a 2nd monitor option. Especially if I was relying on it for intensive tasks like video editing. I haven’t used FCP yet with this setup to see if there is any noticeable performance hit, but normal operations seem to be fine. Having a Pro chip may help with that versus a regular M-series chip. I’ve watched videos on the main 2 monitors with no problem, and simple tasks have been fine. I only need the 3rd monitor option to allow more screen real estate without having to swipe to secondary desktops (screens).
Mark:
This is an AMAZING write-up! Thank you for taking the time to figure this out and report on it. Much appreciated!!
Larry