Shiny new iPad.

Lucious new display.

Your Mac glances longingly…

This week Josh Lowensohn, CNET News Staff Writer reports on an iPad app that enables the new iPad to be a high resolution second monitor using Apple’s obscure new HiDPI mode.

Avatron Software‘s app Air Display allows users to “extend” their Mac desktops to an iPad, essentially turning the tablet into a second monitor. An update to the app now offers an option to enable HiDPI mode, a setting tucked away in Apple’s Mac OS that renders the user interface at four times normal resolution (twice the resolution in each dimension).

That’s well-suited for Apple’s new iPad, which as luck would have it features four times the number of pixels as the iPad 1 and 2, and a higher pixel density than any panel found on Apple’s desktop or notebook computers. At least for now, that is.

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In the meantime, the $9.99 app offers a hack-free way to enable the feature and utilize it on the newest iPad’s display.

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To use the feature, Air Display users need to be running Lion, the latest publicly available version of Mac OS X. …

Read in full: “Avatron Software has just added a way for users see their Mac desktops at “retina-like” resolution — via the new iPad“ by Josh Lowensohn, Staff Writer, CNET News/Apple Talk, April 2nd, 2012 (@Josh)