Good news for all iPad users who were tired of using their fingers for formatting text! Apple has come up with a solution for you. The tech company is now introducing trackpad and mouse support. 

So if you have an iPad Pro, you can buy the new Magical keyboard for $349. But if you have the regular one you can get the Logitech’s keyboard case for $150 or you can just use your existing Bluetooth mouse or trackpad. 

Source: Business Insider

So the first question that comes to mind is, how does it work? The device is usually meant to be touched with your fingers instead of operating with tiny pointers. Even when Apple pencil made it to the market, it didn’t bring any change to iPad and iPadOS.

In fact, just a few months back, iPadOS introduced multiple windows, split screens, slide-over windows, custom gesture for text editing and more for increasing multi-task performance. So adding one more feature would just complicate it, right?

Well, based on a video presentation that Apple gave to the tech analyst, operating the mouse-based system is quite tricky. You can watch the video here:

People still have a lot of questions and until we get our hands on the technology, here’s what we know for sure. 

Source: Mac stories

1. The pointer will only appear when you need it. It would not be present on the screen at all times unlike other systems so you will have to touch the trackpad for it to appear on the screen.

2. The pointer is a little circular dot. The original purpose of the iPad is to operate it with a touch-based system, so Apple says this shape makes the most sense.

3. The shape can change. So just like your usual computer system, where the pointer changes to a hand, arrow or cursor this circle can also resize. But a lot of UI operations on the iPad are big and are meant to be touched. The iPad cursor does not turn into hands or pointers. Instead, it changes shape to become the size of the object you are pointing at on the screen. If you don’t like this, you can always go ahead and turn it off.

4. It carries out all the mouse functions. You can choose cells in a spreadsheet to select text in a document

Source: Get Popular News

5. One thing that is going to improve is the selection and manipulation of text. You can copy, cut and paste it with ease instead of dragging it with your fingers.

6. You can move your cursor to the bottom of the screen to bring up the decks.

7. You can click on the status icons in the upper right corner to bring up the Control Centre.

8. You can move your cursor on the right side of the screen to bring out Slide-out apps.

9. You can go home by swiping up with three fingers.

10. You can open multi-tasking by swiping up and holding with three fingers.

11. You can swipe between open apps by swiping left and right with three fingers.

12. You can swipe between Slide Over apps by swiping using three fingers when the cursor is inside a Slide Over app.

Source: YouTube

The good thing is Apple hasn’t forgotten its old devices and is working on some more changes. Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering said, “If you like what you’ve seen us do with iPadOS, stay tuned, we’re going to keep working on it.”