
Ask HN: How does Apple expect us to dump PCs without a mouse? - dalacv
Who cares about whether it&#x27;s 5 years old or not.  I don&#x27;t want to lift my hands from the keyboard to touch the screen.  Am I missing something here?  Why is there still no bluetooth mouse support (or some replacement) on the iPad Pro.
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oneeyedpigeon
The answer to this relates to how Apple intends - and has always intended -
the iPad to be used: first and foremost, it's a tablet. There is still a big
debate surrounding this form factor and its standard use case. Whilst
Microsoft appears to be aiming for the "laptop with a removable screen"
market, Apple is firmly coming at this fight from the opposite direction; the
iPad is very much a tablet that you can attach a keyboard to if you really
want.

Now, whilst Apple has conceded that the on-screen keyboard isn't quite up to
scratch for enough people that it warrants proper external keyboard support, I
think it's highly unlikely they're going to extend that to mouse support.
Think about the 'Pro' moniker. Professional artists will use the Pencil (plus
touch control with their fingers). Professional writers will use the keyboard.
Neither group has a huge need for a mouse - if they do, they certainly don't
seem to be shouting about it at the moment.

So the vast majority of pros, doing work, aren't looking for mouse support.
Casual consumers (there's a chance that Apple is phasing out all iPads except
the iPad Pro which, to be honest, makes the name seem a little unwarranted,
but that's another story) are best served by the touch screen, and are using
tablets in their hands, not placed down on a surface, and certainly not on a
surface with enough room for a mouse.

Even if a pointing device were required, I'd argue against a mouse for the
table form. Mice require certain surfaces to work properly, if at all. They
either come with an annoying wire, or an annoying requirement to source and
charge batteries (although the latest overpriced offerings from Apple are
trying to deal with that). They sometimes sort-of support the excellent swipe
controls that trackpads have nowadays, but rarely, and they're not as good.
Mice are pretty bad, and are probably nearing the end of their ubiquity. If
Apple really were to support a pointing device (which, as another poster
points out, would require software changes that I'm not even going to begin to
address), they should go with a trackpad or a trackpoint on the Smart
Keyboard.

Having said all of that, I clearly don't understand what your use-case
actually is. What do you want to use a tablet for that requires mouse support?

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DerekL
> Why is there still no bluetooth mouse support (or some replacement) on the
> iPad Pro.

Because iOS apps would have to be revised to support mouse clicks, scroll
wheels, mouse overs, contextual menus, etc. Or maybe iOS would just treat the
mouse as a single finger, limiting its usefulness.

A mouse or equivalent would be useful for certain things, such as VNC,
emulators, and testing desktop versions of web pages.

------
smt88
Some (a lot of?) people use PCs in a way that doesn't really improve much with
a mouse. Apple continues to invest in other products that do have a mouse
because, at least for now, they don't expect _everyone_ to be able to give up
a mouse.

