Does iPad 2024 support Wacom Cintiq (is it possible to add drivers now)

The only method by which device-specific drives can be installed under iPadOS is by installing a manufacturer-provided App.

As such, if Wacom provides a suitable App for iPadOS, an associated driver can be installed. Otherwise, iPadOS does not support external touch-screen monitors or drawing tablets.

“if Wacom provides a suitable App for iPadOS, an associated driver can be installed.”

For security reasons, I would expect Apple wants to review the driver code, if they even allow apps to install hardware drivers, which I doubt.

Not Roland, not Yamaha, not any audio interface maker installs an iPad driver.

I lose a lot of functionality with hardware on an iPad because it’s limited by USB compliance.

For example, DSP chips in audio interfaces are only available to a Mac or PC user.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my iPad, but let’s be honest about the limitations that keep iPads from achieving Steve Jobs original vision of the iPad being a device for everyone and the Mac becoming a device for niche markets and high computing power tasks, such as science.

Of course, that line is blurring too, with Apple’s powerful SoC now in iPads. For a lot of us, Steve Jobs iPad vision, which he had before the iPhone, is a perfect day-to-day computing solution.

You need a computer (Mac or PC), if the hardware vendor uses drivers to support certain features. If the hardware is USB Class Compliant, then it will work within the constraints of the USB standard, for example.

I’m waiting for the hardware vendors and Apple to work together so we can install firmware updates, too. That’s another hardware requirement which requires a computer (Mac or PC).