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IOS Apple

Sophisticated Mouse Cursor Support Coming To iOS 14, New iPad Smart Keyboard Models With Trackpad (9to5mac.com) 33

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
According to code seen by 9to5Mac, Apple is set to roll out rich system-wide support for mouse cursors with iOS 14. From a report: Apple added rudimentary compatibility with external mice in iOS 13 Accessibility settings, but iOS 14 (iPadOS 14) will make it mainstream. The iOS 14 build also referenced two new Smart Keyboard models in development. The changes coming to the software will bring most of the cursor features you recognize from a Mac desktop experience to iOS. One difference may be that the pointer disappears automatically after a few seconds of not touching the connected mouse or trackpad, a concession to the touch-first experience of the iPad. It would reappear when the user attempts to move the cursor again.

This includes support for multiple pointers depending on what is being hovered over, like switching from a standard arrow pointer to a pointing hand when hovering over links. It is possible these APIs could then automatically translate over to Mac apps using Catalyst, which currently lacks an API for changing mouse cursor type. Apple is also developing support for Mac-like gesture, like tap with two fingers to right-click.
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Sophisticated Mouse Cursor Support Coming To iOS 14, New iPad Smart Keyboard Models With Trackpad More

Sophisticated Mouse Cursor Support Coming To iOS 14, New iPad Smart Keyboard Models With Trackpad

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  • like DOS any anything else back int he 80s if not Xerox research in the 70s, ... yay! innovation. ;-)
  • It will be a hybrid of MacOS and iPadOS and will be the Mac equivalent of Windows 8 and Surface.

  • I use Android, and 10 years ago I was able to plug a USB keyboard or a USB mouse (or even a bluetooth mouse) on my phone and it worked OOB. It's 2020 and you cannot plug a mouse or an iPhone or an iPad? really?

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by Bobrick ( 5220289 )
      That was my reaction too... last time I had a tablet was years ago, a Nexus 7 model from 2012 if I recall correctly, and I would use an external bluetooth keyboard/trackpad with it. I guess Apple users didn't pay enough until now to fund the R&D to implement such a complex feature yet?

    • Apple is also developing support for Mac-like gesture, like tap with two fingers to right-click.

      32 years ago I had a DOS mouse with more than one button. Someday Apple will catch up.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      I use Android, and 10 years ago I was able to plug a USB keyboard or a USB mouse (or even a bluetooth mouse) on my phone and it worked OOB. It's 2020 and you cannot plug a mouse or an iPhone or an iPad? really?

      Apple realized that developers are lazy and will either make the point-and-click or the touch interface work well. Microsoft's early tablets used a stylus and it sucked, because it was a desktop UI in drag. The touch UI of Windows 8 sucked for desktops. Early 2-in-1s sucked both as tablets and as laptops. Apple saw that mess and decided they'd have no part of it, the iPhone/iPad is touch first and the Mac is keyboard+mouse first. They probably just as often made two sales of it rather than none...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      Ah, but was that mouse sophisticated [etsy.com]?

    • ... that the entire mod points system is completely rotten and defective by design.

      Trolls, ideoligists and triggered fanboy should never get modpoints!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by nnull ( 1148259 )

      Couple years ago, someone suggested I just travel with my iPad to do my work. So I gave it a whirl one time when I was traveling to see how it is. And boy, what a nightmare it was.
      Half the work I was doing in minutes on a laptop is now taking hours. Using the touchscreen to touch to do word processing documents was completely abysmal. This was also the time I discovered that IOS doesn't support using a mouse (WTF?)

      - Support for libreoffice files is non-existent (Why? Why would no one support an open forma

  • Too much innovation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Monday March 09, 2020 @02:38PM (#59812100) Journal

    Wow, mouse support. Where will all this mind-boggling innovation end? Maybe some day you'll be able to click on stuff too!

    Please, Apple engineers, I beg you- stop with all these amazing inventions or pretty soon there won't be anything left for future generations to invent.

    • Wow, mouse support. Where will all this mind-boggling innovation end? Maybe some day you'll be able to click on stuff too!

      Please, Apple engineers, I beg you- stop with all these amazing inventions or pretty soon there won't be anything left for future generations to invent.

      Ironically enough, this is old (mouse) innovation that is basically trying to displace new (touchscreen) innovation. Of course, the reason for this is quite simple; The customer is never fucking satisfied.

      Oh, and thanks to patent hoarding and the utterly broken USPTO, future generations are already fucked when it comes to inventing anything.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jezwel ( 2451108 )
        It's more likely that Apple noticed the iPad was getting less enterprise love due to poor ability to replace existing PCs and laptops. External mouse,KB, and display is needed, as any apps/resources not available in the host OS can be had via a VM - if those external inputs are available.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Wow, mouse support. Where will all this mind-boggling innovation end? Maybe some day you'll be able to click on stuff too!

      You laugh, but it's something that's needed if you use the keyboard attachment. Using a touchscreen sucks when using a keyboard, but a trackpad doesn't. It lets you write text and navigate around without having to move your hand far away from the keyboard.

      People mock Vi's "jkl;" cursor keys, but they're great for moving about the document without your hand leaving the home row

      It's really

      • You laugh, but it's something that's needed if you use the keyboard attachment. Using a touchscreen sucks when using a keyboard, but a trackpad doesn't.

        Why not just get a laptop? $200 to $300 will get you a pretty good laptop these days.

        Sure, I could outfit my tablet with all sorts of stuff to turn it into a usable PC-like device, but why not just get a PC/laptop? I don't want to do CAD or graphics or writing on a tablet. I want to watch movies and maybe dash off a quick (dictated) email. But that's it, it's an entertainment gadget, not a work gadget. (Yes, I know there are exceptions and that's what they are: exceptions.)

        People really should just admit th

    • Apple has a quota they need to fill, inventing 100 new UI technologies before implementing 1 conventional, tried-and-true technology.

      For example, Google's first Android device had mouse support via finger, stylus, mouse, AND built-in trackball. 12 years later, Apple is finally figuring out how to implement cursors on touch devices.

      But, in the meantime, Apple has invented totally non-obvious technologies such as Force Touch, 3D Touch, Really Hard Touch, Soft But Really Hard Touch, Middle Finger Touch, Magic

    • Wow, mouse support. Where will all this mind-boggling innovation end? Maybe some day you'll be able to click on stuff too!

      Please, Apple engineers, I beg you- stop with all these amazing inventions or pretty soon there won't be anything left for future generations to invent.

      What the iPad really needs is some kind of external storage medium. Imagine a disc of plastic, coated with some kind of magnetic coating.. onto which you could save documents. These discs would be easily damaged, so a plastic casing would be needed. About 3 1/2 inches in diameter would be about right, and should store up to about one MILLION bytes....

      • About 3 1/2 inches in diameter would be about right, and should store up to about one MILLION bytes....

        Okay now that's just crazy talk and you've been reported.

  • To stick to the back of my phone. Without a separate battery. So I can do away with the utter insanity that is touch screen "keyboards".

    I mean I thought everyone ran behind Apple every stupid misguided and user-insulting idea... Or is it *only* those? ;)

  • Apple needs to spend a year (like they have in the past) focusing entirely on stability and refactoring with a moratorium on new features. On all their platforms.

  • Love my iPad, can't stand iOS on my phone (shrug)

    Anyhow, recently tethered my bt mouse to my iPad, effectively useless. Can't use it in anything really, but especially RDP which has been on the iPad for a very long time. It's ridiculous. Requires special very very expensive mice at the moment.

    The pencil is also a terrible terrible device, ridiculously hamstring by the lack of even a SINGLE button. The iPad hardware is fantastic, the keyboard is lovely, but the inability to do mouse like tasks due to them be

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