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Comment by kanishkdudeja | Hacker News Reader

I hope iOS 13 will have mouse support for the iPad Pro.

Only being able to touch the screen while using the iPad Pro in laptop mode feels really limiting.

It's not only the fact that a finger is so much less precise than a cursor, but also that UIs made for fat fingers take up a lot of space. Buttons are bigger, when dragging you need to know what's going on under your finger, etc.

I also think that the lack of a desktop UI and a mouse is a huge limiting factor of the iPad Pro.

Also, sometimes you are using a UI not designed for touch (e.g., remote desktop).

At least AWS has solved that problem. The iPad Workspace client supports a Bluetooth mouse. I wish it were supported system wide.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/workspaces/latest/userguide/amaz...

You can do mouselike pointer selection via the on-screen keyboard: a force press on iOS devices that support it, else two fingers together: your keyboard is now a mouse pad.

I"m not much of a mouse user so this is adequate for me.

I don't know why this factual comment would be voted down. It is functionality built into the OS to produce mouse cursor motion.

Not like my life depends on a karma point; this is simply puzzling.

Because it’s a horrifically limited “mouselike cursor”: it’s entirely bound to inside a text entry field.

It achieves nothing of what people actually what mouse cursors for.

Okay, then say that. Don't downvote, or if you have to downvote, justify it then and there.

BTW, people use the mouse to select and change the cursor position all the time, so it's very relevant to the topic since it's a step toward desktop-like mouse support.

I always forget about it but that is a great feature, especially since it's nearly impossible for me to modify the start of a url in safari since my finger bumps up against the edge of the case.

All that horsepower, no accurate steering wheel.

Is it a pro device if the choice to add a mouse isn't there? Many pros work in pixel accurate selection instead of pencil or finger.

It's a "Pro" device because Apple used a flimsy keyboard that doesn't allow the possibility of actual lap-top use.

You can buy other keyboards... it's the specs that make it Pro.

Can you get a USB-C keyboard? BT keyboards are generally painful to use

I don't see why a USB-C to USB-A adapter wouldn't work for a keyboard.

But yes, it does look like it's a product you can actually buy

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Macally-UCKEYE-Keyboard-12-inch-Com...

Yup Logitech makes a good keyboard.

"Pixel-accurate" might be an obsolete term today when you have 9 or more pixels where previously there was 1. (I know, that isn't what you meant ;-)

See how Autocad was using a command line for ages to implement precise control over coordinates. Don't need a mouse for that. At the same time, the imprecise things that you use mouse for (e.g. dropping a symbol from a library into a workspace, or connecting controls with outlets in an interface builder) are much easier to do using a direct touch.

Obsolete or not, it was clear what I meant. :)

A mouse has a lot of reasonable functions that are quicker for selection and editing that touch doesn't come near. Touch has its own benefits.

Is pixel level selection an issue when the UI immediately supports an arbitrary zoom level? (Pixel grows to the size of your palm).

The iPad UI is designed around touch, so generally not in those cases.

Add a few select and very valuable uses (remote shell, remote access, desktop/graphic layout) and a mouse is much faster.

I wonder when they're just going to start calling it "iOS".

apple: we won't give you touch screen laptops because touchscreens are garbage

also apple: here's a laptop with only touchscreen.

fan boys are going to have a field day to sell this one up. (edit: it already started with a workarounds for text input only. let's see how far it will go :)

Touchscreens are garbage on a desktop-oriented OS like macOS. The giant-ass buttons and controls in Windows 10 are one of the things that make it so infuriating for me. I don't want big buttons sucking up screen real-estate everywhere when I have a mouse available for precision input.

No, they said they're unviable on laptops because of having to lift your hands up. Now they're pushing the iPad Pro with a keyboard that props it up to stand vertically, without a touchpad, requiring the user to lift their hands up more often than, say, a Surface.

UX design in the past 10 years (since the iPhone launched) has incidentally been precisely in the direction of giant buttons everywhere.

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