I need to use a mouse with my ipad pro. What gives?

After 5 years, Apple acquiesced on allowing stylus support on iPads.

It is almost 9-years since the first iPad and Apple still has not acquiesced on allowing mice or trackpad support for their tablet line.

It is what it is. Any opinions, yes even mine, notwithstanding.

Apple doesn’t care what I think or what anyone else in these support communities thinks here in this post.

EVERYONE is entitled to their opinions on this topic/post, but Apple is not listening to any of us.

My opinion is just that, but doesn’t change any of the current facts.

If you feel vehemently that all iPads/iPad Pros should natively support mice and trackpads, you can keep adding feedback to Apple’s feedback page more than just once.

iPad Feedback

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html

I was one of those who said iPads don't need a mouse but after purchasing the 2018 iPad Pro with 3rd Gen keyboard folio, am admitting I was wrong. Everything about it is awesome, it has increased my productivity but I've noticed that when doing work over 4 hours and more, I start to get neck pains and noticed this was because I always reach to touch the screen to do this or that. Keyboard shortcuts only go so far. For that reason, I can't do long hours work on it. If they do provide any kind of support for a mouse or accessory to navigate instead of touching then it's a game changer for me. I like working with the touch of iOS a lot but when I need to do long hours work of navigating documents, remote connect to my Mac for applications that don't have iPad support, files from google drive and iCloud, telegramming, email, WhatsApp, Microsoft Office apps and browsers all happening at the same time, keyboard shortcuts don't get that far and I always have to reach out and touch. So my take for my personal preference is for short bursts of work yes, touch of iOS works well on the iPad Pro but for longer hours of work, a mouse will help my case. So for me now I'll switch to doing short bursts of work on the iPad and when I need to do longer hours, switch to my Mac. If a mouse input surfaces, then the iPad Pro will really be that which I hoped. I never say never for who thought we would have the pencil (aka stylus). iOS 13, lets see, my new iPad Pro is waiting. :-D

Hi, again, BobSaggy,

Just saw this YouTube video, and thought of you. He’s saying using Keyboard Shortcuts — accessible on any app by simply holding down the command key; you don’t even need to memorize things — makes a mouse virtually unnecessary. https://youtu.be/TcGHkJHTP78

Didn’t know if you were aware or if you might find it helpful!

"A mouse on iOS is a dumb idea anyway."

Troll much!? There's a good bit of post-WWDC swirl indicating that iOS 13 and/or iPadOS will gain mouse support as an Accessibility feature, but even if that is true it's unclear how app developers will respond.

Jump desktop has been an iOS app for years. Paperspace is just a cloud based virtual machine hosting service if someone wants a virtual desktop machine as opposed to their own hardware.

Settings, Pages (or Numbers), Apple Pencil - set slider to “select and scroll”. The Pencil will NOT assume you want to draw and works just fine for selecting text, moving cursor, etc.

I just got the Brydge for iPad Pro 11 Keyboard. That with my Apple Pencil and it's a pretty darn tootin' fantastic combination. I use my Pencil like a mouse, more than I jot notes or draw with it.

One can argue it’s not Apple being stubborn at all. It’s all the people persistently asking for something iOS does not have, never had, and never plans to add.

iOS and iOS devices have been around for over a decade now. They have always been, from day one, purely touch devices, as designed to be. Just as iOS has no central user file system, does not support Bluetooth FTP file transfer, etc. It was deliberately and consciously designed not to have those features.

It’s not inherently stubbornness when a company simple remains true to its product design concept and principles. Why people even continue to expect or demand this to change is what’s behind me. It’s a touch interface operating system - has been since day one and remains so today 10+ years later. Hundreds of millions of users world wide seem fine with that if persistent sales figures indicate anything.

I agree 100%. If I'm editing a document without a mouse, forget it. It is useless. For other types of work it is ok. The iPad Pro will never replace a laptop unless it has a mouse or pointing device. Period.

I’ve been using iPads to write and edit text documents for years. All without the aid (crutch?) of using a mouse or trackpad!

Let’s be honest about the Surface Pro Products.

Microsoft Surface devices are, basically, smaller form factor mobile Windows laptops.

On the Surface/SurfacePro devices, Windows looks to be pretty unweidly to use and navigate by touch alone and so do all of the regular apps for Windows.

Windows and all of the available applications that run on Surface devices are NOT optimised, AT ALL, for touch.

That is the REAL reason Microsoft allows 5 different input devices (keyboard, which looks a LOT like an Apple keyboard , BTW, mouse, trackpad, pen AND Surface Dial) because all the UI elements in both Windows and Windows applications are too small to navigate with your fingers!

Microsoft and Windows forces you to use another input device, mostly, instead of your fingers!

Kinda defeats the idea of having a “touch” screen interface if you STILL need the use of a, seemingly, integral pen, mouse or trackpad.

IPads and iOS are designed from the ground up, to be, primarily, touch ONLY devices.

Microsoft Surface products are not true touch screen computing devices.

They are a regular full blown laptop computers with touch screen capabilities added to them.

Whole different animal!

Other than stylus support, I would not hold my breath or hold out hope for Apple to add native wireless mouse or trackpad support to iPad any time soon.

It took Apple nearly 20 years to offer multi-button mice with Apple Macs.

We are only year 8 into iPads.

So, you will have, at least, another 12 year wait for this to, possibly, happen and by that time, new computing input device technologies will surely be with us, by then, with mice and trackpads, possibly, being obsoleted by that time.

mojowozi-man wrote:

Word editing and other business requirements are not the same thing. Say you need to use the iPad to log into a regular computer. One example of thousands. Just because you don't need it doesn't mean the need isn't real.

Apple has been making iPads for 8 years and Apple STILL does not believe a mouse or trackpad is necessary to use an iPad and now with Apple's creation of the Apple Pencil ( stylus ), Apple believes that the Apple Pencil ( or any stylus, for that matter ) is a good stand-in for mice/trackpads.

"They have always been, from day one, purely touch devices"...which is why they have had an interface for an external keyboard from Day One? Because typing on a featureless piece of glass eliminates the ability of touch typing, and is therefore inherently slower and less productive? And therefore, won't sell?

Same idea with a mouse versus my finger. There's a time and place for using each. I've used desktops (which Apple still supplies with a mouse), Android tablets (mouse and keyboard, no prob) and iPads, both Pro and Mini (using my fingers to locate and move text.)

It's just easier and, especially, faster to locate and move text using a mouse. It's far more precise than a finger, both to land and to use to highlight a block of text. I can't see through my finger, so I either must wait for the circle to magnify what/where I'm 'touching', find the cursor in that circle, then adjust my finger, or I must make the font large enough that I can hit the right location without waiting for the OS to catch up. Of course, this costs content space, as this reduces the amount of on-screen text by a factor of three or so.

There are other failings of the no-mouse idea. I can think of two more just now. But the idea that a half-inch wide hunk of oily meat, pressed to a piece of featureless glass is a substitute for the precisely designed cursor a mouse generates for the sole purpose of locating a single point on a screen is ludicrous.

Swiftpoint GT mouse with TeamViewer or other applications. YES, you can use a mouse!! Don't go with Citrix mouse....they have horrible support (NO SUPPORT WHEN THE MOUSE WON'T WORK). TeamViewer....Great.

GrinNBarrett wrote:

Spoken like a person stuck on a one way trip to nowhere with no idea of a world outside their own bubble.

No, spoken like someone who is good at accepting reality. iPads do not support mice. Therefore, if you require a mouse to do what you need to do, the iPad is not, at this point in time, the correct device for your needs. I'm not sure how you can argue with that.

I'm not judging your needs or desire for things to be different. You're entitled to your opinion and I trust that you know what you need. But, that doesn't change how the iPad currently works.