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Folks Doing "Real Work" On An iPad - How the Heck Do You Quickly Navigate To &Cut and Paste Text ??
- Thread starter jozero
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You're not alone. For the longest time I was the sole drummer beating the drum for adding mouse/trackpad support to iOS. As you've seen firsthand, it is so easy and so seamless and so OPTIONAL. (things that many detractors don't understand)
I used to JB my iPads and use the mouse, but then I became frustrated when software that I relied on required an update to iOS and then I'd lose the JB. In the end, it was more frustrating to go through those cycles than to simply go without a mouse.
I believe that Apple will officially support mice/trackpads in a future version of iOS. The most likely push will come from Apple's enterprise customers.
Nice try. The problems with the Surface Pro have NOTHING to do with its support for mice.
I don't understand your reply. If you can point, click and select text with your finger on an iPad, then a mouse can surely do the same. Again, I see no reason that a mouse wouldn't work perfectly on a iPad. And those that are using a mouse on a jail broken iPad seem to enjoy using it.
All Apple has to do is turn on the function to allow pairing a BT mouse. Why not? For those that don't want to use a mouse, well, they don't have to.
It leads to developers relying on it and the apps losing touch usability - small hit targets etc. Just as on the Surface Pro.
If you think that's all Apple has to do, you're wrong. Mouse support in iOS cannot simply be "enabled" because it doesn't exist at all. The jailbreak doesn't enable something hidden in iOS, it is actually only a touch simulator driven by a BT mouse. Proper mouse support means A LOT more work and testing.
Sounds like you know more about it than the rest of us..
I sure wish they'd add it at some point...
Whatever the JB version is doing is AWESOME... and works wonderfully well.
[doublepost=1455899197][/doublepost]Good source for the latest BTC Mouse updates...
Guy does such a bang up job!
He's added tons and tons of features
http://www.ringwald.ch/cydia/mouse/
Yesterday I was doing some work on the Mac Mini (ripping my B5 DVDs 
) after using the iPP exclusively for a while. Gotta move the cursor -- whoa! Why do I have to move my hand so far just to reach the mouse? Oh well. Move the cursor from one side of the screen to the other. *scrape* *scrape* *scrape* Yeesh, all I would need to do on the iPP is point. *click* now move the cursor to the next click point. *scraaaaape* *click* Yeesh, all I would need to do on the iPP is point. Lather, rinse, repeat.
) after using the iPP exclusively for a while. Gotta move the cursor -- whoa! Why do I have to move my hand so far just to reach the mouse? Oh well. Move the cursor from one side of the screen to the other. *scrape* *scrape* *scrape* Yeesh, all I would need to do on the iPP is point. *click* now move the cursor to the next click point. *scraaaaape* *click* Yeesh, all I would need to do on the iPP is point. Lather, rinse, repeat.
No it doesn't. What Modern UI apps for Windows rely on mouse input? Mouse input is only relied upon for desktop applications. It is the reliance on desktop applications that are the issue with using the Surface as a tablet in touch mode... not the fact that a mouse is supported.
Pretty simple, turn on your Emoji keyboard. Then, hit the keyboard selector key on your hardware keyboard to bring it up on screen, the emoji keyboard appears on screen even when you have a hardware keyboard attached. Then use the standard two finger gestures to navigate and select text, and hit the keyboard selector key again to go back to your hardware keyboard.
I'm going to give text keyboard selection and movement suggestions here a solid try. I knew some of them but not all, so thanks for listing them.
I am not doing this as an attempt to pay penance at the Apple alter, I'm want it to work because the iPad would be brilliant as a day to day carry around work device, with iMac at home. I'd love to sketch out ideas with the Pencil and also do coding work. I think I need to toss the logitech though and get a case that fits the apple keyboard - a proper sized keyboard I am used to. Then the main annoyance will be text navigation which I will attempt to re-train myself on.
I am not doing this as an attempt to pay penance at the Apple alter, I'm want it to work because the iPad would be brilliant as a day to day carry around work device, with iMac at home. I'd love to sketch out ideas with the Pencil and also do coding work. I think I need to toss the logitech though and get a case that fits the apple keyboard - a proper sized keyboard I am used to. Then the main annoyance will be text navigation which I will attempt to re-train myself on.
What Logitech do you have? I'm using the Logitech K811 keyboard with my iPad Pro (and two other devices), it is very good.
Do you need the emoji keyboard for this? The eject button will bring up any software keyboard, correct? At least, that's the case with Bluetooth keyboards. Haven't tried with the Smart Keyboard.
That's correct, unfortunately the Smart Keyboard doesn't have the eject key, so you need to activate something like the emoji keyboard to make it work. Any Bluetooth keyboard can do this as you described.
It's kind of funny to see the strong reactions to this request. The touch simulator alone would be a massive increase in productivity for people who need it (and judging from the repeated requests, that is a lot of people). But as with any Apple product, you'll hear a ton of excuses and rationalization about why a missing feature isn't needed - until Apple adds the feature. Then it's the best thing in the world.
Yep - Then all of the sudden Apple is the illuminati of ideas....
I've been a long long long time Apple lover, but even I have to chuckle at the silly defense of nearly everything they seem to do. They make plenty of mistakes, oversights...some large ones at times.. Like we all do (and all companies)
Exactly right! When Apple doesn't have something as a feature, a lot of folks around here say you don't need it. Then when it becomes a feature, they either go silent or sing it's praises.
A good example of this was over in the Apple TV forum. When the ATV4 came out, there was no longer bluetooth keyboard support or external app to enter text. A lot of people questioned why would anyone need such a thing. It turns out many (including me) used a keyboard quite often with their previous ATV. Lo and behold, the upcoming TVOS is reinstating BT keyboard support. Now those naysayers seemed to have disappeared.
There's no reason that Apple can't add BT mouse support to iOS other than they don't want to.
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It's their own product, they are entitled to not add any features if they don't want to. Buy a Macbook if you don't like the iPad.
Thanks. I have both. Sure it's obviously their product. Doesn't change my opinion though.
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The way I see it is no, Apple does not want to add mouse support to iOS and they have a good reason for this. They really want to push touch interactions forward and to encourage developers to innovate using touch. Adding mouse support it would be like them saying "that's it guys, we went as far as we could with the touch, but now we're out of ideas, so here's mouse support for you". I don't think Apple will ever do that.
That's how I work too, even on the iPad, be it non-fiction or fiction. I create one file per section. File list on the left, editor on the right; much easier to manage and scan through documents
I got the ultra thin, which also bakes in a hard case for the iPad - use on my lap in front of TV with iPad as a single solid unit. its slightly smaller, so I can't adapt to it. I am constantly hitting the wrong keys. Besides that it is nice.
http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/ultrathin-keyboard-ipad?crid=1221
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Early report here but my attempt at using all keyboard is failing. I am in Xcode, Coda and Terminal quite a bit. Option - Arrow mentioned previously intrigued me as a decent jump up and down a document but not too jarring - entire page up down jumps. However there is no concept of paragraph with coding. So Option - Arrow Up / Down does nothing. I need to figure out how to jump up and down per method. Of course Xcode on iPad is a mute point, but perhaps this WWDC will surprise us. Or perhaps iPad is just better for text editing, not coding - its simply not the right tool at this point for my needs.