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Tech News and Commentary
Dave and the team discuss a foldable smartphone, Android and foldable devices, car makers working together on autonomous vehicles, cellphone cancer research, Tesla’s parking lot autopilot, an Apple software rollback, Alexa and butterball, Fortnight developments, Facebook Messenger unsend, and more.
Keith listens on AM800 CKLW “The Information station” and asked: “I travel a lot and have an iPad Pro 10.5 inch. How can I play my movies on the iPad, connected to the hotel TV. Is there some type of device I need to use to view my movies on a hotel TV screen?“
Keith, it’s surprisingly hard to connect mobile devices to hotel room TVs, partly because hotels like to sell you content, but also partly because there are not many good solutions.
You really only have two ways of connecting your iPad to the TV: wirelessly, and using a wired adapter.
Connecting the two devices wirelessly would require a third device, something like a Chromecast or an Apple TV. Those tend not to work very well in a hotel environment because they assume both the iPad and the device are going to be on the same WiFi. There are some ways around it, like bringing your own router and connecting them both to it, even if it doesn’t have an internet connection, but no one seems too happy with the reduced functionality they get when they try things like that.
Connecting the two devices wirelessly would require a third device
The wired solution may work for you, the adapter you need is called a Lightning to Digital AV adapter, and you may want to go for Apple’s $40 version. There are generics, and they cost about half, but Apple’s has been updated to support HDCP, which means that you can use it to play copy-protected media. That allows you to play Netflix, Amazon Video, iTunes videos, and just about anything else that allows AirPlay.
That didn’t use to be the case, by the way, but it seems to have been fixed, and having HDCP compatibility makes this adapter a simple and viable choice.
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