William Gallagher
The first beta release of the new iPadOS has a hidden and big feature — mouse support.
Developers using the first beta of iPadOS have found that you can control the software using a mouse plugged into your iPad. The feature was not announced by Apple, and it is a part of the accessibility options rather than a default. The same option, though, will also allow you to wirelessly connect an Apple Magic Trackpad.
Writing on Twitter, developer Steve Troughton-Smith shows an iPad screen being controlled a mouse cursor. He clicks controls within apps and also manipulates the home screen with it.
Hello mouse support on iOS 13! It's an AssistiveTouch feature, and works with USB mice. @viticci nailed this pic.twitter.com/nj6xGAKSg0
— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) June 3, 2019
The feature is similar to the long-standing iOS one that let you replace the old physical Home button with an on-screen icon. It was intended for people who had any difficulty pressing the Home button, but also tended to be used by people whose buttons were failing or broken.
In use, the mouse cursor doesn't resemble a regular Mac one so much as a virtual finger, such as you might see in screencast recordings.
Troughton-Smith also confirmed that the same feature is available when you use an Apple Magic Trackpad paired to your iPad running iPadOS.
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Update: Troughton-Smith confirmed the mouse feature also works on iPhone and iPod touch.
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66 Comments
Hooray, this should wipe out another contingent of repeat feature request posts here. :)
I really want to see how smb file server access works and eventually being able to access the directories at work, it it certainly looks possible. So if that’s doable, at this point in time it seems Apple has pretty much delivered everything I wanted for the iPad.
Next up, making dinner.
I get why Apple didn’t mention this on site but at the same time a lot of people aren’t going to know about so they’re still going to knock the iPad as not being a proper computer. If Apple thinks most support on the iPad is OK why not just say so?
I think putting mouse support as an assistive measure on the iPad is appropriate. It should be finger based first and foremost
The reason I want this is for RDP when I need to connect to work. Would prefer to have a standard arrow pointer, though. With that, the iPad may be all the way there for me to replace the Mac.