I will also say that the cognitive dissonance of using a touch surface as a mouse for a touch OS felt like a lot to get over, particularly as Mac gestures like two-finger scrolling don’t work.

I also tested Apple’s Magic Trackpad and it worked fine over a USB-C to Lightning cable, but I couldn’t find a way to pair it wirelessly.

It’s possible that wired mice work better with the faster refresh rates of Apple’s ProMotion displays, but I can’t be certain there. I tried this with a Mad Catz RAT and the tracking actually felt smoother than the Logitech. Or, assuming you don’t have a USB-C mouse kicking around, you’ll need a USB-A to C adapter to plug a regular wired mouse directly into the iPad Pro’s USB-C port. I had no problem getting up and running with my Logitech MX Master. You can use a mouse over Bluetooth or USB if you’re using the former, you’ll have to make sure it’s paired. Go to Touch, under the Physical and Motor sectionĪt this point you’ll need to have your pointing device ready to go.Here are the steps you’ll need to follow: The feature is an extension of AssistiveTouch, which has been around in iOS for many years and is most commonly used as an on-screen floating home button. Next, you’ll have to actually enable the mouse support, because it’s turned off by default and buried in the Accessibility menu. (This also technically works on iOS 13, in case you really want to use a mouse on your iPhone.) The usual caveats about beta software apply: it’s super buggy right now, so don’t try this out on a primary machine unless you have a good reason to, and make sure to back everything up first. Here’s how it works, and here’s how to get started.įirst of all, you’ll need to be running the iPadOS 13 public beta, which is now available for anyone to install. Apple no doubt has good reasons for wanting to keep people focused on the touch interface, but the ability to use a mouse has the potential to completely change how people get things done on the iPad Pro. When Apple announced iPadOS earlier this month, no-one from the company made mention of a major new feature: mouse support.

How to use a mouse with ipad