How To Use a Mouse With Your iPad

A new feature of iPadOS is the ability to control your iPad using a Bluetooth mouse. You can add a mouse as an assistive touch device in the accessibility settings and then you get a round cursor on the screen that you can mose with the mouse. You can click to simulate a tap at that location. You also get a menu that you can bring up to access things like Home and volume. There are a variety of ways to customize this feature.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. On this episode let me show you how you can control your iPad using a mouse.
MacMost is brought to you thanks to a great group of supporters. You can go to MacMost.com/patreon. There you can read more. Join us and get exclusive content.
So iPadOS, also known as iOS 13 for iPad, has a great new feature where you can connect a Bluetooth Mouse to your iPad and then use that as a pointing device. So instead of tapping and dragging all around with your finger on the iPad screen you can use a mouse. You get a cursor and you can drag that around and you can click to tap.
So to setup your mouse go to Settings, then Accessibility, then Touch, then Assistive Touch. Then go to Devices and add your bluetooth mouse. I'm using an older Apple bluetooth mouse. It should work with most bluetooth mice also. Once you've got that connected then you need to go back up and turn on Assistive Touch to get it going. Now you'll be able to move your mouse and see a cursor. It's a circle with a dot in the middle of it and move around the screen. 
Now my mouse was automatically configured so a left click was basically the same as a tap. I was able to tap on menus and buttons and do things. The right click was configured to bring up the menu. The menu is how you access special functions that would be hard to get to otherwise. Like the Home button. So here I'm going to launch Safari and then I can scroll in Safari not with two fingers on the mouse like you might think, but by clicking and dragging. So just a single left click and drag. I can click on links just like you would like if you were using a Mac. 
There are really no surprises here. It works just like you would expect it would. Except you do have trouble when you want to do something like go Home you have to learn how to use that special menu. You can bring it up a variety of ways. I'm using the right click but you also can click that button that's at the bottom right hand corner of your screen and it will bring it up there as well. You can use it for things like going Home, bringing up the Control Center, etc.
In fact you can customize this menu. All you need to do is go back into Settings. Back under Assistive Touch. There you can look at the menu and you can pick one and customize its function. You also have the ability to change this cursor size and color and have it fade away after a few seconds until you move the mouse again. That way you can get it out of the way if you're watching video and such. Also you can control the speed of the mouse movement so you can make it fly across the screen with a slight touch of the mouse or move slowly and deliberately. So you can adjust it depending upon the size of your iPad screen, sensitivity of your mouse, and how you like things.
So here's the deal. This really isn't meant for people that would just prefer to use a mouse rather than touching the iPad screen. This is an Accessibility feature. So it's meant for people who may not be able to touch the screen or have difficulty doing that and have a much easier time using a pointing device. It could be a mouse. It could be something else. That's why it's all hidden down in the Accessibility features and why it may not be the ideal way to use an iPad. 
Now I could see if you're setting up your iPad and you've got a bluetooth keyboard and you want to have a mouse there and you just want to be in an app and do some writing. Then using this may actually work out for you. There's still the issue of multi touch. A lot of apps, especially games, really need you to be able to touch multiple places on the screen at the same time and do all sorts of gestures that's going to be difficult to reproduce using just a single point on the screen with a mouse and a cursor.
I find it funny that on the one hand there are people that really want to be able to use a mouse with an iPad and there are people on the Mac side of things that really want to have a Mac touchscreen. I think now that we have iPadOS it will be interesting to see in the coming months whether or not some people actually do adopt using a mouse with their iPad. I think it's highly dependent on how you use your iPad. If you're trying to use it kind of as a laptop or desktop replacement and if you're sticking to using only a few apps where this makes sense like say word processing. In future versions of iPadOS will Apple move this up and out of Accessibility functions and make this easily available for us to turn on and off and use everyday.

Comments: 19 Responses to “How To Use a Mouse With Your iPad”

Marc Chamberland

5 years ago

First thanks a lot for your videos. Always instructive ! Is it possible that my iPad 2nd generation is not compatible with a mouse. It doesn't recognize my Magic Mouse that I use with my iMac 27 !

Gary Rosenzweig

Marc: This is an iPadOS (iOS 13) feature. A second generation iPad from 2011 can't update past iOS 9, if I remember correctly.

Sorry Gary, i have an iPad Pro 12,9 2nd generation.

Marc: It should definitely work with that. Bluetooth pairing can be tricky however. Your mouse may not want to give up its connection to your iMac.

Chamberland Marc

Ok then. I will keep trying. Thank you

After few try, I finally succeeded ! For those who are asking what is the "PIN" number for the Magic Mouse it's 0000

Liz

Thanks as always you have the most useful videos. Is there a way to change scroll direction of the mouse?

Liz: Not that I can see, no.

Dave

I’ve heard there may be security issues with third party keyboards and possibly other devices in the ipadOS. Is this true or has it already been dealt with in the recent update?
Thanks Gary.

Dave: The third-party keyboard issue was just a vulnerability. There was no reported exploit. It was patched with the most recent iOS update.

Linda Taylor

Thank you so much Gary! I was talking with a long time Mac user today and he was going to investigate this as he'd not heard of a mouse being used with an iPad. I'm thankful you explained to Mark Chamberland why the mouse couldn't be used with a 2nd generation iPad as that's what my friend has. Now I can keep him from getting too excited as he'll not have success. We an always rely on you for excellent advise!! 👍😀👍🏻

Bonnie Sweeney

I was talking with the Apple Rep at Best Buy yesterday and i was inquiring about the mouse and if it would work with my iPad 6th generation and he said no its only for the iPad pros. I will be going back today to mention this wonderful news in a nice way..He also did not know anything about any iPad that supports photoshop cc yet. Have you heard anything about that?
Bonnie :-)

Bonnie: Last year they showed a version of Photoshop that would be close to "full Photoshop" for iPad at an Apple event. Since then, rumor sites have mentioned it appearing as a beta test in the wild. So we should see that soon.

DONALD KEYS

Is it possible to use a TRACKPAD instead of a mouse?

Donald: From what I've read, the Magic TrackPad 2 will work, but not the original model. Of course there isn't as much of an advantage to using a TrackPad over just touching the screen.

Perry

Gary, there is an advantage as both mouse and trackpad allows you to work on iPad remotely something beneficial to people with mobility issues among other things. I can rest my bad back lying on my bed and use my iPad setup on a table/dresser nearby

Gudy

Hi there, I have got a brand new ipad 2019 and it doesn't see any blue tooth devices - I have got a logitech MX Master and a logitech K810 keyboard. My old ipad (it is 6 years old) is showing under "Bluetooth" the mouse and the keyboard. Any tips how I can make them visible at the new one?
Oh, the mouse has appeared but now its gone again :-((((

Gudy: Try turning Bluetooth completely off and then on again. Also, make sure you have disconnected those from the other iPad.

Gudy Terenzio

Thanks Gary, it worked itself out - all of a sudden they "clicked" :-).

Comments Closed.

How To Use a Mouse With Your iPad

Comments: 19 Responses to “How To Use a Mouse With Your iPad”

Welcome to MacMost

Free Weekly Newsletter

MacMost Online Courses

Keyboard Shortcuts PDF

Connect with MacMost

MacMost Sections

Popular Tutorials

Information