The tablet is presented to macOS as a virtual display. That sounds like a technical detail, but day to day it turns into four concrete things: it does not count against the monitor limit, macOS remembers its settings, several of them sit side by side, and turning it really rotates it.
When the tablet connects, a new display appears in macOS Displays settings. You drag it to the left or right of your MacBook, and windows go full screen there. So there is no separate “streaming window” to learn — to macOS, your tablet is a monitor.
That has a side effect, and for most people it is the best part: it does not count against the external monitor limit. On a MacBook that supports a single external monitor, the tablet is added even while that monitor is plugged in.
Resolution, scale and where the display sits in your arrangement are stored nowhere on our side — the single authority is macOS’s own display memory. Our job is to keep the tablet’s identity stable so that memory works: each tablet always appears to macOS as the same monitor, which is why your resolution and window layout are where you left them next time.
Stream settings work the same way: the first time you connect over the cable, the app offers a short measurement; accept it and the result is written to that tablet and applied again on later connections — over Wi-Fi too.
The identity is derived from the tablet itself and it persists: uninstall and reinstall the app, or clear its data, and macOS still recognizes it as the same display. Only a factory reset makes it count as a new monitor.
You can connect more than one tablet to the same Mac — one over the cable, one over Wi-Fi. Each tablet gets its own virtual display: its own resolution, its own place in the arrangement, its own calibration. Closing one does not drop the other’s session; the other tablet blinks once and carries on with its own display.
Audio is per display too: each tablet becomes its own output device in macOS. Details: how audio reaches the tablet.
Turn the tablet upright and the display on the Mac rotates with it — you do not have to change macOS’s Rotation setting by hand, and the stream does not drop. Reading long documents, code and web pages is where this shows most: a portrait reading screen next to your landscape MacBook display.
Turn it back and it returns to landscape, with the layout you had in that orientation.
While the app is riding out a momentary Wi-Fi hiccup, the display is not destroyed — it is parked: if the tablet is back within a few seconds it takes over the same display and your windows stay where they are.
When you unplug the cable, or the connection drops from the outside, the display is closed and your windows return to the MacBook screen. Only that moment is lost, though: reconnect and the tablet comes back with the same display identity, your resolution and its place in the arrangement intact.
Plug in the cable; the display appears in macOS on its own.
