This is it. Having a bluetooth keyboard and a dock seems weird to me, because you would still have to touch around to select things. Surely thats a bit counter-intuitive, plus I bet its a nightmare to put your curser in the middle of a word in pages. Having a tiny bluetooth keyboard and mouse set would make this a very sexy piece of kit. Heres hoping.
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why no mouse support for iPad?
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This is it. Having a bluetooth keyboard and a dock seems weird to me, because you would still have to touch around to select things. Surely thats a bit counter-intuitive, plus I bet its a nightmare to put your curser in the middle of a word in pages. Having a tiny bluetooth keyboard and mouse set would make this a very sexy piece of kit. Heres hoping.
It doesn't work if you try to pair bluetooth keyboard and mose for the same time. -_-
Ps. I just paid for btstack keyboard for 5$ and it doesn't even connect
Not at all. Bluetooth keyboard has arrow keys, which can be used to position the cursor very fast and accurately.
Well, also leaning forward to tap a new font, bold, center or whatever. Just seems like it would feel weird.
Yeah. But when the mouse first came out, boy, did it feel weird to reach out to the side for the mouse to do whatever it was that required a mouse. I eventually got used to it, but it took a while! Now I'm like, ok, lean forward to tap the screen -- just another thing to get used to!
Holy crap a bunch of naysayers just got pwned hard, cursor and all. That's pretty cool, I'll have to give it a try.
Yeah. But when the mouse first came out, boy, did it feel weird to reach out to the side for the mouse to do whatever it was that required a mouse. I eventually got used to it, but it took a while! Now I'm like, ok, lean forward to tap the screen -- just another thing to get used to!
Arguments like this negate the fact that there are many situations that a mouse is faster and more accurate than your finger. For this reason, your finger may never replace a mouse entirely.
Hey thanks. Like I said, those capabilities have been there since day one, detrimental or not.
Well, the way I see it, I have my finger and the keyboard, why complicate things with a third input method if we can possibly get away with two? So I'd prefer it if the multitouch UI developed in the direction of shifting tasks to keyboard+finger, rather than keep the mouse along for the ride. Sure, there may be some tasks that are better *for now* with the mouse rather than the finger, but as the finger-based UI develops, I'm hoping people would figure out better ways to do them with the finger, or shift them back to the keyboard. Like, setting the margins, for instance. I hate dragging lines to set the margins, whether with a mouse or finger. I'd rather be able to type in a numerical value I want the margins to be -- or perhaps with the iPad/iPhone OS, we could dial in a number. But in any case, my point is, it's not always a dichotomy between mouse vs finger, think outside the box, there are other ways to get things done!
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/09/magic-mouse-syncs-with-jailbroken-ipad-enabling-cursory-cursor/
Now that anyone who wants a mouse with cursor can have one (if you are willing to jailbreak your iPad) the reason to have that capability will begin to make perfect sense. To begin, it lets you keep your grimy hands off the screen if you want. Second, a short flick of the mouse gets you access to the entire screen. Far more efficient than reaching up and across the screen with your whole arm.
Every nay-sayer here owes the rest of us an apology.
Now that anyone who wants a mouse with cursor can have one (if you are willing to jailbreak your iPad) the reason to have that capability will begin to make perfect sense. To begin, it lets you keep your grimy hands off the screen if you want. Second, a short flick of the mouse gets you access to the entire screen. Far more efficient than reaching up and across the screen with your whole arm.
Every nay-sayer here owes the rest of us an apology.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/09/magic-mouse-syncs-with-jailbroken-ipad-enabling-cursory-cursor/
Now that anyone who wants a mouse with cursor can have one (if you are willing to jailbreak your iPad) the reason to have that capability will begin to make perfect sense. To begin, it lets you keep your grimy hands off the screen if you want. Second, a short flick of the mouse gets you access to the entire screen. Far more efficient than reaching up and across the screen with your whole arm.
Every nay-sayer here owes the rest of us an apology.
Nuff said. The slap in the face to all the nay-sayers is the vid is using the iPad commercial music. LOL.
Apparently there are some people who think outside the apple crate. Jailbreakin' now.
You're not the only one!
If I jailbreak my iPad 3G, I can get the Facebook app and others to go "native" fullscreen, I can enable Voice Control, connect and use a mouse for LogMeIn and iTeleport, and turn it into Wi-Fi hotspot with MyWi.
I just don't want to lose these features and deal with additional headaches with every firmware update or some other lockdown method from Apple. Don't want to hijack the thread, but what to do?!
Anyone who has played with the iPhone/iPad simulator has already seen this sort of mouse interaction. Call me when they get actual multitouch gestures working with a mouse.
It's not that using the mouse would never be useful, but I don't see Apple officially including support unless using the mouse completely eliminates the need to touch the screen.
I'm sure this will be implemented eventually, probably sooner than later. It was interesting to see so many cries of "mouse on ipad impossible" and then a month after release sure enough there is a mouse on the ipad complete with an on screen cursor and everything.
Even though multitouch gestures will probably land soon, I don't see what the big deal is. In 20 years of word processing I've never used a single multitouch gesture. Although I think some might be useful, I think they would be more useful as being finger multitouch gestures. I can see myself using my right hand on the mouse to select, highlight, copy/paste, and just generally do fine tune type movements. My left hand can quickly pinch to zoom in/out on a document, or swipe to choose between documents, etc. But it will be a moot point soon enough.
I can't wait to try this out, sadly my ipad is still on a factory line somewhere so I can't jailbreak it and get going.
Thanks! When RemoteTap for iPad comes out, I will give it a try "native" first and if I find myself constantly reaching for a mouse that isn't there I'll be taking a look at Spirit.
I know this is a wired solution, but I couldn't resist.
Dear God what is a JooJoo?
Personally I'm all about the touch... touchy touch touch... I don't even use the BT keyboard with my iPad because it sucks crazy amounts of battery. Have you guys noticed the massive increase in the amount of juice the iPad drains with Bluetooth turned on?
People who oppose the mouse w/ iPad realize that this is an option that needs to be activated by the user. So why not give the option to users who may find it (the mouse integration) useful to their needs. The rest can use it purely as a touch device. It seems like the iPad hardware can easily accommodate the mouse and all its functions.
I am glad this thread turned into a healthy discussion of the issue.
BTW...Apple stock climbing once again...
I am glad this thread turned into a healthy discussion of the issue.
BTW...Apple stock climbing once again...
Tried the Bluetooth mouse hack
The other night, I just had to try the Bluetooth mouse hack. I am in the camp that agrees that iPad is a great touch device, but want it to be much more. I'd love to leave my laptop behind if it is at all possible. I have the Apple BT keyboard, and it works great, but like someone mentioned here, I find myself reaching for a phantom mouse. I also have found that buying a $5 picture frame stand works great when I am using the BT keyboard. Reaching up and taping the screen is awkward when I want to change cursor location or open a new app. Enter the BT mouse hack which is only available on a jailbreak iPad. My experience was mixed. Breaking the iPad was way easier than I expected, and subsequently restoring it to normal was easy too. After backing up my iPad and then jailbreaking it, I installed the BTStack mouse app. Apparently, it replaces the stock BT drivers on the iPad or at least renders it useless. I noticed that it reversed the BT icon in the top row of the screen to mirror image. The mouse experience was great. I used the Apple Magic Mouse, and I was pleased that I could change screens by swiping or by grabbing the screen with a left mouse button and swiping on the background, and was able to select an app to run by left mousing the apps icon on the screen. I was also pleasantly surprised that I could return to the desktop by hitting the right mouse button anytime only if I had the swap mouse buttons option selected in preferences. After that, things went downhill. I could not pair my BT keyboard at the same time, in fact, it locked my iPad up a few times when I tried. Also, my stereo BT headset would no longer work either. As I said earlier, I restored my iPad to normal and concluded that having a BT mouse without an external keyboard was useless. I thought about the Apple keyboard accessory that docks the iPad to a keyboard, but I dismissed it because you can only use that accessory in the portrait configuration. I do believe and hope that since it is possible to have a BT mouse connected to the iPad, that the Apple engineers will figure out how to do seamlessly.
The other night, I just had to try the Bluetooth mouse hack. I am in the camp that agrees that iPad is a great touch device, but want it to be much more. I'd love to leave my laptop behind if it is at all possible. I have the Apple BT keyboard, and it works great, but like someone mentioned here, I find myself reaching for a phantom mouse. I also have found that buying a $5 picture frame stand works great when I am using the BT keyboard. Reaching up and taping the screen is awkward when I want to change cursor location or open a new app. Enter the BT mouse hack which is only available on a jailbreak iPad. My experience was mixed. Breaking the iPad was way easier than I expected, and subsequently restoring it to normal was easy too. After backing up my iPad and then jailbreaking it, I installed the BTStack mouse app. Apparently, it replaces the stock BT drivers on the iPad or at least renders it useless. I noticed that it reversed the BT icon in the top row of the screen to mirror image. The mouse experience was great. I used the Apple Magic Mouse, and I was pleased that I could change screens by swiping or by grabbing the screen with a left mouse button and swiping on the background, and was able to select an app to run by left mousing the apps icon on the screen. I was also pleasantly surprised that I could return to the desktop by hitting the right mouse button anytime only if I had the swap mouse buttons option selected in preferences. After that, things went downhill. I could not pair my BT keyboard at the same time, in fact, it locked my iPad up a few times when I tried. Also, my stereo BT headset would no longer work either. As I said earlier, I restored my iPad to normal and concluded that having a BT mouse without an external keyboard was useless. I thought about the Apple keyboard accessory that docks the iPad to a keyboard, but I dismissed it because you can only use that accessory in the portrait configuration. I do believe and hope that since it is possible to have a BT mouse connected to the iPad, that the Apple engineers will figure out how to do seamlessly.