iPad Mouse Support - The Missing Elephant

[Appleaker]

And I'm saying I don't think Jobs would have done such a thing !

He likely would have, and kind of did when he was alive. But he didn’t point it out and say ‘this can replace your laptop’ or ‘you no longer need a PC’. He acknowledged that it would eventually replace laptops for most people, but also admitted he didn’t know when that would happen. Not only are Apple pushing the iPad prematurely, but they are also going overboard on the marketing to the point where it has hurt their reputation with some demographics. Even the people it’s been effective with may not be happy if finding out it can’t fit their needs.

For a lot of people, it’s happened naturally and the way Jobs intended it to happen (although for many it’s their phone that’s replaced a computer as the primary device). Apple aren’t doing the iPad justice by marketing it as a PC replacement now, it should just happen naturally over time to the point where the user realises that they no longer need to use their PC for their computing needs.

 

[Mousesuck]

Sure they do - a lot of people want mouse support to further increase the usefulness of their iPads.



Mediocrity has nothing to do with making a device more useful to people and those who don't want it don't have to use it.



There are some things that Apple took the lead on (like dropping physical media) but completely ignoring what people want is not the smartest thing to do.

Mediocrity has everything to do with It.

As Henry Ford said “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Paradigm shifts and novel solutions are not the result of the inner workings of the average brain. There you can only find average solucions.

Doing a parallelism with our late 19 century friends, you all want faster horses intead of cars.
The car, a concept that you (the average) can’t even grasp...

So what I really meant was not that Apple should ignore what people want but rather give what people didn’t even knew they wanted.

The IPad Pro still doesn’t replace the laptop, and the easiest and faster solution to that problem would be mouse support.

Ok, but lets be real, happening or not happening, what an average, little minded, redundant and uninteresting solution that would be.

Besides, the best business practice is not to follows trends but make the trends follow you.
As I said before people don’t know what they want, they just have the felling that they do.

 

[yep-sure]

After using the iPad Pro with the Smart Keyboard exclusively (for perosnal use) for the last few weeks, I still stand by my previous post that iOS itself doesn't need a mouse. Mouse support in Citrix/RDP is 100% needed (and I believe there is a Citrix Mouse now available for this).

But also, I'm a keyboard guy. E.G. When writing VBA and advanced formulas in Excel on my Windows laptop for work, I'm not using a mouse, I'm using the keyboard. It's quicker and more efficient.

For me, what's needed on iOS are more keyboard shortcuts. I miss the music, volume and brightness controls. Why couldn't some CMD+Number keys serve this purpose? I wish I could TAB through all on screen UI elements of different apps. Oh and an ESC key would be ideal but that's not gonna happen. Keyboard support in games would be great, not that I really play many...but it would be cool for old school FPS's like Wolfenstein and Doom that are on the App Store (I realise this is up to the devs...these examples will be unplayable soon anyway - 32bit)

 

[off_piste]

I have seen that before and would really love it if Apple eventually came out with something like that.

Apple does that and they're supporting mice. There's no difference between trackpad support and a mouse.

 

[off_piste]

I feel like marrying mouse support with the current touch interface is not as trivial as everyone here seems to think. Admittedly, I have not seen how it works in Android, but something tells me it is compromised and not terribly elegant. I also cannot see Apple implementing a solution that puts a mouse arrow on the home screen.

If you take an iPad Pro, even the 10.5”, add a keyboard and mouse, you are at least as heavy, if not heavier than a MacBook. At that point, why not have the MacBook? There is far more inefficieny with the iPad besides mouse input. I think if you need a mouse to get done what you need to get done, then an iPad, or rather iOS, will never be the most appropriate tool for you.

I say this as someone who loves their iPad Pros and has tried using them as a replacement for macOS and found far more that keeps that from happening than mouse support.

1. Check it out on Android. There are countless videos where you can see for yourself how well the mouse support works. It's really not complicated support.
2. The arrow would only be on the screen when the mouse is connected, like on Android.
3. Yes, it becomes heavier but I don't envision using the keyboard and mouse all the time. It will be in home dock type situations or in certain travel situations when I have a bag. Besides, my iPad bag would carry both with no issue.
4. Yes, there are other limitations but Apple, as usual, is slowly rolling out changes that remove those impediments. Will they get all the way there? No clue.

 

[richpjr]

So what I really meant was not that Apple should ignore what people want but rather give what people didn’t even knew they wanted.

Here's the problem - they haven't given us anything useful to use with the very expensive keyboard they sell. If there was eye tracking or some other revolutionary technology, than I'd jump all over it. Instead I have...a pencil. Or worse, my finger to constantly reach up and touch the screen, both of which are an ergonomic nightmare.

 

[clubtech]

Here's the problem - they haven't given us anything useful to use with the very expensive keyboard they sell. If there was eye tracking or some other revolutionary technology, than I'd jump all over it. Instead I have...a pencil. Or worse, my finger to constantly reach up and touch the screen, both of which are an ergonomic nightmare.

This x 100.
And mediocracy has nothing to do with it. It’s just an ergonomic nightmare light the poster above suggests, at least on the 12.9’’ model.

 

[Cashmonee]

1. Check it out on Android. There are countless videos where you can see for yourself how well the mouse support works. It's really not complicated support.

So a quick Google Search for Android mouse support turns up very few recent pages. Most of it is old 3rd party stuff. Am I missing something? Is there official support? Also, judging by results, this doesn’t seem to be something people are actually begging for. I highly doubt whatever implementation a 3rd party has come up with is all that great. I think it is a far more complex solution than you believe. The idea of how an app reacts with and without a mouse alone can be challenging, much less the entire OS.

 

[turbineseaplane]

This x 100.
And mediocracy has nothing to do with it. It’s just an ergonomic nightmare light the poster above suggests, at least on the 12.9’’ model.

Apple themselves have been the ones telling us about those bad ergonomics as one of the reasons (OS support/reworking being the other) that we can't have touchscreen Mac's..

Funny how they don't find the exact same ergonomics to be a problem at all on iPad's..

 

[Cashmonee]

Apple themselves have been the ones telling us about those bad ergonomics as one of the reasons (OS support/reworking being the other) that we can't have touchscreen Mac's..

Funny how they don't find the exact same ergonomics to be a problem at all on iPad's..

But they are two very different experiences. A tablet should be much more intimate (closer) than a desktop or even a laptop. I don’t think that there is no place for touch on laptops or desktops necessarily, but what is good on a laptop is not necessarily good on a tablet. They are different things.

 

[clubtech]

But they are two very different experiences. A tablet should be much more intimate (closer) than a desktop or even a laptop. I don’t think that there is no place for touch on laptops or desktops necessarily, but what is good on a laptop is not necessarily good on a tablet. They are different things.

The 12.9'' is too big to be just a "tablet". It's meant to be docked most of the time for most people and as such has an ergonomic issue without a touchpad, mouse or other pointing device that doesn't require the user to lift their arm for every single click.
Touch interface is great when you hold a device in your hands. It's terrible when paired with a keyboard for long work sessions.

 

[sparksd]

So a quick Google Search for Android mouse support turns up very few recent pages. Most of it is old 3rd party stuff. Am I missing something? Is there official support? Also, judging by results, this doesn’t seem to be something people are actually begging for. I highly doubt whatever implementation a 3rd party has come up with is all that great. I think it is a far more complex solution than you believe. The idea of how an app reacts with and without a mouse alone can be challenging, much less the entire OS.

My Bluetooth mouse works with every Android device I have (4). When it's paired & connected, it shows up as an arrow cursor on the window and mouse clicks work like finger touches - click on an app icon and the app opens. Use it in a document or spreadsheet app and acts as cursor placement. You can still use touch with the mouse connected. I have a Dell XPS laptop with touch interface support and it works pretty much the same. Some people use USB connected or wireless devices with an OTG cable - I have and it works but I prefer the Bluetooth mouse. People have also connected keyboards, gamepads, trackballs, etc. the same way. I have used Bluetooth mouse and a Bluetooth keyboard together on an Android tablet (more than one, actually). It all works quite well.

 

[clubtech]

So a quick Google Search for Android mouse support turns up very few recent pages. Most of it is old 3rd party stuff. Am I missing something? Is there official support? Also, judging by results, this doesn’t seem to be something people are actually begging for. I highly doubt whatever implementation a 3rd party has come up with is all that great. I think it is a far more complex solution than you believe. The idea of how an app reacts with and without a mouse alone can be challenging, much less the entire OS.

One of the reasons is that android tablets have failed, hence you can't find too many videos showing mouse on an Android tablet. From my experience owning many tablets it feels pretty native to the system. You can scroll inside an app with the mouse scroll wheel. Click, right click, long click and drag they all work. Another reason it was never widely used is because most Android tablets were not larger than 9.7''-10.1'' so touch was manageable.

A better example would be a Chromebook with Android apps as the apps were designed for touch first. In addition to the iPad Pro 10.5'' and 12.9'' I also have the 2in1 Samsung Chromebook Pro which has Android apps enabled. The track pad feels extremely native to the Android apps and the system as a whole. When I flip the screen into tablet mode, touch feels very native as well.
Chromebooks also have a "dock" like the iPad. You can have the dock disappear as soon as you open an app, but once you move the mouse cursor to the bottom of the screen the dock shows up, much like the swipe up gesture on the iPad with iOS 11. You can click, long click, long click and drag etc...it mimcs your finger touch using the track pad or mouse . It all works very well.
The only difference between the Chromebook approach to the iPad is that Chromebooks were created for point first and then touch (as the 2 in 1's just recently became a thing), while the iPad was created for Touch only (for now) and hopefully in the future point as well. I hope this makes sense.

 

[Cashmonee]

So how would multitasking in iOS 11 work? Or 10 for that matter? How about the dock? Pinch to zoom? Yeah, you can replace single touch with a mouse pointer, but multitouch is a lot more difficult. I have had an Asus touch enabled Chromebook. It wasn’t good, and certainly not natural.

I do agree that a 12.9” iPad Pro is an ergonomic nightmare with the keyboard in place, which is why I went with the 10.5 this time around. I don’t think a mouse is really the solution though. I also think those wanting a mouse are a very small minority. I just don’t think it would be a good experience, and I certainly don’t think it would be the bridge to making the iPad Pro a more appropriate replacement for desktop OS.

Having said that, I could be wrong. Who knows? It would not surprise me to see Apple eventually release a mouse that solves all of these issues. Even then, it wouldn’t solve the windowing issue. I think what many of those here want is macOS with touch support, or at least Pencil, not iOS with desktop features.

 

[turbineseaplane]

But they are two very different experiences. A tablet should be much more intimate (closer) than a desktop or even a laptop. I don’t think that there is no place for touch on laptops or desktops necessarily, but what is good on a laptop is not necessarily good on a tablet. They are different things.

I'm not sure what your point is.
When an iPad is docked with a keyboard it's distance from the user and "intimacy" is nearly identical.

If it's awkward to hold your arms up and touch an iPad that's docked to a keyboard, the same rules and issues should apply to a touchscreen laptop too.

If anything, the touch interactions would be less awkward for the laptop as touch interaction in that context is optional - one could just use the trackpad and keyboard as normal and reach and touch when it makes sense or is desired. That isn't the case at all with an iPad/keyboard combo.

 

[richpjr]

So how would multitasking in iOS 11 work? Or 10 for that matter? How about the dock? Pinch to zoom? Yeah, you can replace single touch with a mouse pointer, but multitouch is a lot more difficult. I have had an Asus touch enabled Chromebook. It wasn’t good, and certainly not natural.

I do agree that a 12.9” iPad Pro is an ergonomic nightmare with the keyboard in place, which is why I went with the 10.5 this time around. I don’t think a mouse is really the solution though. I also think those wanting a mouse are a very small minority. I just don’t think it would be a good experience, and I certainly don’t think it would be the bridge to making the iPad Pro a more appropriate replacement for desktop OS.

Having said that, I could be wrong. Who knows? It would not surprise me to see Apple eventually release a mouse that solves all of these issues. Even then, it wouldn’t solve the windowing issue. I think what many of those here want is macOS with touch support, or at least Pencil, not iOS with desktop features.

I can only speak for myself, but I wouldn't change the way any of the touch, multitouch, zoom etc. work. I'd just like a mouse/track pad that I could use with an ASK that allowed me to point and click, quickly move a cursor around in a document and cut and paste. When the iPad isn't docked, I'm happy with everything working exactly as it is. Just typing this reply I have to reach up and touch the Post Reply button, then scroll up and touch the forum links at the top to browse around the forums. It's just not very efficient for me. But clearly others don't agree as this topic seems to have a lot of wildly different opinions on it.

 

[Cashmonee]

I'm not sure what your point is.
When an iPad is docked with a keyboard it's distance from the user and "intimacy" is nearly identical.

If it's awkward to hold your arms up and touch an iPad that's docked to a keyboard, the same rules and issues should apply to a touchscreen laptop too.

If anything, the touch interactions would be less awkward for the laptop as touch interaction in that context is optional - one could just use the trackpad and keyboard as normal and reach and touch when it makes sense or is desired. That isn't the case at all with an iPad/keyboard combo.

There is 4” from the edge of the ASK to the screen on my 10.5, 4.5” on my 12.9, 8.5” on my 13” MacBook Pro (granted a 2013, but I am sure the new one is close). The iPads are clearly more intimate than the laptops. Your second paragraph speaks to my other point. I think what most here would really like is macOS with touchscreen and Pencil support.

I can only speak for myself, but I wouldn't change the way any of the touch, multitouch, zoom etc. work. I'd just like a mouse/track pad that I could use with an ASK that allowed me to point and click, quickly move a cursor around in a document and cut and paste. When the iPad isn't docked, I'm happy with everything working exactly as it is. Just typing this reply I have to reach up and touch the Post Reply button, then scroll up and touch the forum links at the top to browse around the forums. It's just not very efficient for me. But clearly others don't agree as this topic seems to have a lot of wildly different opinions on it.

In this case, I think you are introducing significant complexity for a rather minor feature, which will bring more confusion and the possibility for non-uniform UI between apps. I just don’t think it is worth it. I like iOS simpler. I do not want them to tack on desktop feature after desktop feature and make iOS a complex as a desktop OS. While some are great and can be done in keeping with the iOS simple philosophy, eventually you will get features that just make things complicated again with little reward.

 

[onepoint]

Mediocrity has everything to do with It.

As Henry Ford said “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Paradigm shifts and novel solutions are not the result of the inner workings of the average brain. There you can only find average solucions.

Doing a parallelism with our late 19 century friends, you all want faster horses intead of cars.
The car, a concept that you (the average) can’t even grasp...

So what I really meant was not that Apple should ignore what people want but rather give what people didn’t even knew they wanted.

The IPad Pro still doesn’t replace the laptop, and the easiest and faster solution to that problem would be mouse support.

Ok, but lets be real, happening or not happening, what an average, little minded, redundant and uninteresting solution that would be.

Besides, the best business practice is not to follows trends but make the trends follow you.
As I said before people don’t know what they want, they just have the felling that they do.

I want something that allows me to continue enjoying superior stylus handwriting support, top notch apps, and that keeps me from wearing out my shoulder having to reach across a desk and touch the screen constantly.

I don't really care what the means is; I'm open to new ideas.

 

[sracer]

I want something that allows me to continue enjoying superior stylus handwriting support, top notch apps, and that keeps me from wearing out my shoulder having to reach across a desk and touch the screen constantly.

I don't really care what the means is; I'm open to new ideas.

1. superior stylus handwriting support
2. top notch apps
3. shoulder wear-out prevention

Sorry, you can only have 2 of those 3.

Depending upon which 2 you pick, you'll end up with either an Android, iOS, or Windows device.

 

[onepoint]

1. superior stylus handwriting support
2. top notch apps
3. shoulder wear-out prevention

Sorry, you can only have 2 of those 3.

Depending upon which 2 you pick, you'll end up with either an Android, iOS, or Windows device.

Unfortunately, 110% spot on!

 

[sparksd]

1. superior stylus handwriting support
2. top notch apps
3. shoulder wear-out prevention

Sorry, you can only have 2 of those 3.

Depending upon which 2 you pick, you'll end up with either an Android, iOS, or Windows device.

Guess that's why I have multiple of each.

 

[sracer]

Guess that's why I have multiple of each.

Me too. But I don't want to.

I've been trying an experiment lately...using my 12.9 Pro with only a smart cover (rather than the ASK). I'm finding that while using the onscreen keyboard, I don't miss a physical pointing device (as much). There are still tasks where a mouse would be far superior, but for those other tasks, touching the screen is fine.

HOWEVER, when using the ASK, those same tasks (tasks where touching the screen is fine) become cumbersome touching the screen. This isn't new, I've known this before, but it really helps reconfirm the importance of having a "matched set".... physical keyboard AND mouse vs virtual keyboard AND touch.

 

[richpjr]

In this case, I think you are introducing significant complexity for a rather minor feature, which will bring more confusion and the possibility for non-uniform UI between apps. I just don’t think it is worth it. I like iOS simpler. I do not want them to tack on desktop feature after desktop feature and make iOS a complex as a desktop OS. While some are great and can be done in keeping with the iOS simple philosophy, eventually you will get features that just make things complicated again with little reward.

But adding mouse support is not complex at all, and should be rather trivial to add (it's already in jailbroken iOS). I don't want them to tack on feature after feature. But if there were a few features that would substantially increase the usability for some users, than I'm all for it.

 

[seadragon]

I guarantee, somewhere deep inside iOS there is this:

InpMousedrv=0

That needs to be changed to a 1.

 

[richpjr]

I guarantee, somewhere deep inside iOS there is this:

InpMousedrv=0

That needs to be changed to a 1.

LOL - probably true!