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

iOS may not 'support' mice or 'trackpads' but I have actively paired mice with my iPads for years and used them successfully in applications quite cheerfully. I've come to this thread only recently after updating to 11.4 on my iPad pro 12.9 and suddenly, I could no longer use the little wireless mouse I've been using ever so long. Again, support may not have been there, but it was working just fine and dandy until I upgraded a couple of days ago.

Since I use apps like Citrix via iOS for work, the use of a mouse was very helpful and now poof the iPad has become a touchscreen wank once again.

John Scott1 wrote:

Yep I did give product feedback to Apple, hope it helps.

I'm not convinced it will, not because Apple won't read it -they will- but, because it seems quite clear that it's not the direction they want to take the iPad. Apple has a long and storied history for doing what it thinks best, not what customers say they want. It seems to, over all, work for them. But, it does mean that not everyone ends up being happy with Apple products.

iPads and iOS have existed for 8 years with no mice of trackpad supoort,whatsoever.

So, I wouldn’t hold my breath for any mouse/trackpad support anytime soon.

To add an onscreen cursor to iOS at this late stage in iOS development means that the basics iOS would have to be rewritten/re-coded and every single app/App developer, in the iOS App Store, would have to re-code their apps to include code to be able to make use of onscreen cursor arrow/pointer.

This is not going to happen.

Sorry.

Are these iPad app tutorials live or video tutorials?

For video tutorials, there are many ways to get around this shortcoming.

There are plenty of YouTube iPad and iOS App video tutorials on the Web.

You could comment and ask questions about how these kinds of iPad tutorials ard done.

Not sure how live tutorials would be done, though.

Why are you telling us? We are users like you, and we have no power to change anything about how iPads or any other Apple product work. Apple does not follow threads in Apple Support Communities; you need to let Apple know your feelings at https://apple.com/feedback.

Morzerarc wrote:

"If you see a stylus, they blew it." Steve Jobs

Apple is clearly blowing it.

Throw away that Pencil right now. Pull it from the shelves. Refund the money to the people who spent $100 on something they clearly do not need.

While they're at it throw out the keyboards. Remove bluetooth. If touch is all we need then what is this smart keyboards and pencil nonsense? What are they thinking? They're doing it wrong!

You may not need a trackpad but that does not mean it shouldn't be an option. To say "hey, touch is all you need but here, you can use a keyboard and a stylus if you want but absolutely no other productivity options ever!" is ridiculous.

And I don't believe for an instant that the maker of the best trackpad on the planet can't make one that works in iOS.

The bottom line is there is not one good reason that people should not have that as an option as well. You don't have to use it if you don't want but that's no reason to not make it an option.

I’m not the one you need to convince to make it an option. For now it is not an option nor has it been one for the entire history of iOS. If you want that to change, submit feedback at Apple‘s feedback page. Nobody here has any say in how iOS is coded.

Never going to happen.

There will never be mouse or trackpad/ball support.

Apple has always envisioned their mobile devices, and the iPad, specifically, to be, primarily, touch ONLY devices.

The iPad was the mobile touch computing device that was always conceived of and designed first, but Apple used what it learned conceptualising, designing and engineering the iPad and used that knowledge to design, build and introduce/market the iPhone first.

As already discussed, Apple deliberately designed iOS to NOT use a mouse. It is a touch interface. If you’re waiting for Apple to change that, then join the line of folks who’ve been asking the same thing since iOS was released.

Could Apple change that? They’re a trillion dollar company - of course they could. But they clearly and very deliberately have not done so, and there is no reason to expect they will do so.

If you need or cannot live without a mouse, then an iOS device is not for you, and never has been for a decade now.

DoBox has been around for ages - don’t buy their hype about not jailbreaking iOS. Their app cannot be installed without effectively hacking iOS. And without their App, their hardware does nothing. Any app not in the App Store, or any device that requires a specific app not in the App Store requires some compromise in iOS security and default integrity to install and use. You use such things at your own risk, and without any support from Apple should issues arise.

Again iOS does not support a mouse and never has. Native iOS nor Apple have ever supported DoBox, their device nor their app to use it.

Nothing about DoBox nor it’s app to use their hardware is supported by Apple, nor natively supported in iOS.

Every single business is trying to adapt their products to fit better the disabled and accessibility is one of the main words on the political correctness dictionary, even so you think that Apple shouldn't think about those kind of challenges faced by disabled ? If your visions is really true why they have a website in which they say that their goal is make their gadgets accessible to everyone ? It is just a bad a joke from apple? Like him I also don't feel pain on my shoulder after a few hours working with iPad.

There is no way that any single device is going to be accessible to everyone. And, no one here can speak for Apple. If you want Apple to know your concerns, use the feedback page:

Product Feedback - Apple

If you think that you can change Apple’s stance on this,

The only way to get Apple to, DIRECTLY, listen to you is to use their feedback portion of their website.

iPad Feedback

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

Cognizant Apple employees read ALL feedback generated from all of the various feedback pages and transfers the data to the and responsible Apple teams and personnel , but NO Apple employees will ever respond with any type of direct, individual replies from the feedback you post.

Good Luck!

Excellent points. In regard to the posting below, the person is not trying to get you to say anything; they are merely pointing out the truth about the situation.

I have a MacBook Air and I am writing a book. Sometimes I like to write in cafes (I like strong coffee). I bought an iPad thinking that I could write the book on Pages without having to carry my Mac Air around. It worked at first. But then I started getting bad shoulder pains from using it with a keyboard and having to stretch my arm to use the display as a touch screen. I then read a number of articles by Apple engineers saying that they were against touch screen displays on computers for this very reason. It's not ergonomic. (Google Apple, touchscreen etc...).

Yet in Apple's advert they show someone using their ipad as a touchscreen. It's a shame there isn't a bluetooth trackpad or mouse because then I could use the ipad as a computer, particularly since it is now possible to have more than one screen up at a time and the ability to access your files in the cloud. I don't use my newly purchased ipad at all now because it doesn't fulfil the reason I bought it for - despite what it shows in their adverts.

I would be hard pressed to believe that Apple doesn't read the posts to see what issues people are seeing. They may not care about posts like this since it's a feature request, that I could see. I hope that everyone who has complained about need mouse support has filled out a feedback with apple as a feature request, otherwise you may as well just shout it out your window.

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

Really.

I been an iPad user for 8 years, now.

I know exactly what I need and a mouse ain’t one of them.

What I like to see is more hardware/software keyboards with text “I-beam” cursor navigation arrows keys.

That would be nice and I DO have both a Bluetooth Logitech keyboard and a third party iOS software keyboard ( PadKeys ) that actually have “I-beam” cursor navigation arrows to navigate around in documents.

If more iPad users had really bothered to actually learn to use the iPad’s virtual software keyboard, Apple included, since iOS 9, a nifty software keyboard trackpad feature by bringing up the iPad's software keyboard, do a two finger single tap to turn the entire keyboard area gray colored and into a large, gigantic trackpad area where you can easily control the position/location of the text insertion point "I-beam” cursor.

You can highlight text and lines/body of text by doing a two finger double tap on the iOS software keyboard.

Then, do a single two finger tap on the keyboard area to fine tune the text selection.

That is as close to a mouse or regular trackpad that Apple is willing iOS to, currently, get.

I learned from day one to learn to type with the tools the iPad had gave to me and I learned to type very well using the iPad’s virtual software keyboard.

IPads do not need not a mouse or a trackpad and Apple will, in all likelihood, never allow them with iOS and iPads.

A certain group of people want tablets to be laptops.

Why?

Microsoft is doing this with their Surface tablet/laptop combination computer but serving two paradigms has not been ideal for those devices, either.

The trackpad amd mouse were never part of Apple’s tablet vision. Neither was external keyboards, but Apple seemed to acquiesce on using external keyboards as some users just can't seem to adjust to typing on a smooth, glass surfaces.

I don't see Apple acquiescing on mice or trackpads for iOS and iPads any time in the foreseeable future.

It is what is.

Apple is doing what it wants to do, as Apple always has, and giving customers what THEY think customer may want and need.

Apple has never designed products by committee or customer focus groups.

It's their products and they are making plenty of money on these iDevices the way they are.

Apple doesn’t want to add mice or trackpad support to their tablet products.

It is that simple.

We are lucky we got external keyboards and finally a smart stylus to work with.

My first post may have been rude, it surely was (and I'm sorry for that), but it's because some of the Apple's "acolytes" claim the right to say "...it's not for you, buy a computer" "...it's a touch only device!". Who they are to say that? They are more conservative then Apple itself! It's sounds like a cult, not a community.

There are rumors that mouse will be supported in IOS 13. They may be not true, but there is more and more users asking for this functionality. This tread itself has nearly 1000 "same question" button hits. Are they all wrong?

Mobile devices are fully capable of replacing stationary computers in some easier tasks. I don't mean it as desktop replacement but rather as its addition or complacement? I love my Ipad and use for various tasks from comic books reading to documents editing and terminal for checking 3D reconstruction progress on remote workstation… with mouse support I would be able to comfortably interact with this process.