News, news everywhere, don’t know which one to focus on! Let’s just focus on this one for now. Apple is set to unveil the next big iPhone and iPad software upgrade – iOS 13, and with it, we’re expecting a lot of neat additions. One of them, reportedly, is the possible inclusion of a trackpad or mouse support for iPad Pro. Time to break out into a rhapsody yet?
It all started with a tweet from developer Stever Troughton-Smith in which he claimed that the reported feature “is indeed in the works.”
If you missed last week’s @_connectedfm, @viticci had a pretty interesting scoop that he’d been sitting on re mouse support coming to iPad as an accessibility feature. As far as I’m aware, that *is* indeed in the works. I feel like every pro user will turn that on, day one ????
— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) April 22, 2019
Coincidence? I think not.
Now, I’m no skeptic and do not have a suspicious disposition. But you know what they say – there’s no such thing as coincidence. Not when it comes to Apple anyway. Wondering what we’re on and why we’re talking like Aristotle and Master Oogway?
The rumours of a mouse for iPad coincides with Apple’s Marzipan project. The Marzipan project, in layman terms, will enable porting iOS apps to run on MacOS with minimal friction. And how are these two related? Marzipan apps require inputs from a mouse, and obviously, if it is to work seamlessly, Apple needs to extend the functionality to iOS as well.
Why a Mouse for iPad?
For starters, us folks love anything that’s easy. And that’s precisely why we prefer the iPad Pro range over the MacBook Pro lineup as an ideal work device. iPads are easily portable thanks to their tablet form and are highly versatile. And if they add a mouse support to the mix, things could get even easier.
Federico Viticci, MacStories editor, spoke on the Connected podcast where he talked about the possible mouse support. He also suggested that the mouse for iPad could be part of an accessibility feature – AssistiveTouch. And to find out how much of this information held any weight, people donned their Sherlock hats and began researching. And the research bore some fruit. Apparently, you can have a cursor in the iOS if you pair it with the right accessibility hardware.
Viticci added that according to his sources, you would also be able to directly plug a USB-C mouse into the iPad Pro’s USB-C port, and without any adapters! Making life easier? Yes, please! Let’s do the Fandango.
Is There More Good News?
A USB-C connection to use a mouse or a trackpad sounds likely, but it’s also possible that Apple engineers will turn to other ways of facilitating the use of a mouse. Of course, that’s if the feature is indeed in the works.
The market offers Bluetooth mouse by the buckets, including Apple’s own Bluetooth mouse, so it only makes sense that they offer support for Bluetooth mouse as well. That would save us their users the hassle of buying a USB-C mouse or a USB-A version adapter. Moreover, using Bluetooth will enable the use of mouse support in iPads and older iPad Pro models that have a Lightning instead of USB-C connection.
And that’s all for now. Apple dropping all these hints and it’s got our Mercury rising! Let’s start the waiting game, and have some mixed feelings about the awesome feature and how this could potentially be a luxury.
