What do you mean – you want to use an iPad Mouse?
An iPad and an iPad Mouse – What sort of insanity is this?
There are one or two people that get themselves an iPad, perhaps not so much those people that get an iPhone or iPod Touch, that can’t get away from the traditional ways of using a computer. And that is quite strange, when you think about it, using the word traditional, in a computer orientated sentence. Ever since personal computing got the mouse, and everybody got completely used to using a computer in that way, it has become Traditional – despite the relatively small number of years. But then computer users that are coming to the iPad from using a PC, also get stuck into the notion that they should also be using Microsoft office. New iPad users do have to get used to the idea that the iPad is a new way of doing things. So when using one of these newfangled touchscreen devices, not only do you not need a stylus, you also do not need an iPad mouse.
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Do I have to Jailbreak to use an iPad Mouse
There may be ways that you can do a jailbreak of your iPad and have the cursor pointer travelling across your screen, guided by an iPad mouse. Perhaps you can even get the Apple Magic Mouse working with the iPad. Seems a bit silly to me, when we have the joy and usefulness of being able to touch the screen and select what we have underneath our fingers, to think that a mouse is going to be really useful or necessary with a touch screen device.
If you are thinking that you need an iPad mouse then probably you would have been better to buy yourself the MacBook Air. You would lose all of the touchscreen features, but you would have a trackpad that you could touch and you would also have the use of Bluetooth to connect the Apple Magic Mouse.
Connecting a keyboard to your iPad
The Apple Bluetooth keyboard is a lovely keyboard to type on, if I have a lots of words to type, as I might do, if I am taking part in NaNoWriMo, then it will be a better option than using the on-screen keyboard of the iPad. In fact it is also possible to use the Apple Bluetooth keyboard to connect to an iPhone. Now that would be really good in terms of not having many devices to carry around when travelling and computing. I have heard that using a Bluetooth keyboard in combination with the iPhone, actually works very well when travelling by aeroplane. Personally I would still prefer to use the iPad for that though, it is just a question of eyesight and my need for spectacles.
iPad mouse – Like Steering without wheels on a car
In one of these complaints that I read in the Apple support forums about the non-implementation of an iPad mouse a user said – that an iPad connecting to a keyboard but not to a mouse or a trackpad, is like a car with a steering but no wheels. I would say that this iPad user just does not get it. Why have an iPad and not want to touch the interface device which is the touchscreen?
What do you think?
Can you imagine a situation where you would like to have an iPad mouse? Do you get these irrational urges to connect a mouse to your iPad? As I have already stated on this website I do believe that there are occasions when a stylus would be very useful. Such as drawing or handwriting applications in particular. Please leave your comments below to let us know what you have to say about this rodent-based iPad issue.
4 thoughts on “What do you mean – you want to use an iPad Mouse?”
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Seriously.
You truly cannot see when using the iPad, a person might want to use a keyboard AND a mouse?
Programming, when in a VPN session.
Writing, when using the keyboard…
Think about it.
Please.
A keyboard yes, that is feasible – mouse I don’t think so….
I have to think the reason that Apple decided to allow you to use a BT keyboard but not a BT mouse is that they wanted developers to develop touch apps and not just port Mac apps to the iPad. I suspect that there are other reasons as well. For example, it keeps the OS simpler and more stable – without peripherals, there are no third party drivers to worry about or to crash the system. Also, a mouse equipped iPad might cannabalize Mac sales. For me, a mouse equipped iPad would mean that I would no longer need two Macs (I have a Mac Mini at the office and a MacBook Air that I use when I am on the road).
As someone who writes for a living, the lack of a mouse to control the insertion point is a real drawback. Trying to correct a typo takes 10 times longer on an iPad than it does on a Mac or PC because you have to play around with the “magnifier” on the screen to get the insertion point where you want it – whereas with a mouse you could do the same thing with a simple point and click. There may be some tasks that lend themselves to touch screens – writing long, technical documents is not one of them. The touch interface is simply less efficient for writing long or technical documents.
I think the lack of a mouse has led to the frequent criticism that the iPad is a great media consumption tool, but that is not so great as a media creation tool. If you recall, the iPad originally could not print and the only way you could get documents on or off of it was through cabling it to a computer and using iTunes. Apple addressed those weaknesses by giving you AirPrint and iCloud (and third parties responded with utilities like Printopia and DropBox). I think the lack of mouse input is another weakness that Apple should address.
I don’t think that touch input vs. mouse input has to be an either / or choice – it can be both. You should be able to use the iPad as a touch device, but should also be able to hook up a mouse to expand its functionality.
I have found that although there are some things that might slow you down when compared to using a normal desktop computer there are other benefits and enhancements that either make things quicker or better to use. I often find that it balances out to a certain extent. Also there are some text applications that give you extra keys to let you move around in your text faster. I have to look and remind myself which ones are good for that. Then again there is the dictation on the new iPad which should make things quicker, It doesn’t work as well as the Dragon Dictate full application on the Mac though but still useful. Just use the right tool for the job that you want to do and then there is no need to worry about the lack of this or that bit of hardware. The iPad is great at what it does and a writer would be better off with a Desktop or Laptop, probably. Then again having the iPad there with you when you are out and about and you need to get some text out of your head into a form that you can use and abuse later then the iPad is miles better than a napkin with a pen.