With the addition of the USB C port on the new iPad Pro, can that be used to connect a mouse, an external monitor, and one or more hard drives using a USB C hub?
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John Carter
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What Can the New iPad Pro USB C Be Used For?
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It cannot connect to a mouse as that doesn't make any sense. A mouse controls a cursor. iOS has no cursor. Well, at least not a pointer cursor like Mac and Windows. So a mouse would have no function.
Yes, it can connect to an external monitor. In fact Apple has been talking a lot about this option.
It can't really connect to a hard drive any more than the previous iPads could. There have been external Flash drives for iPads for a while, using special apps to transfer data to and from them. So they don't work to add extra storage, but as a location to archive or access data through this app. Of course you can use cloud storage (iCloud, Box, DropBox, etc) to really expand your storage.
I'm not sure about using a hub, but reports show that some hubs do work with it. So you can add multiple things at the same time, or charge while using something else.
Connecting devices to an iPad is just like connecting devices to a Mac. There has to be software to support it. We have grown accustomed to this being pretty automatic as hardware has been using standards and macOS comes with software to do things like use microphones, access hard drives, print, scan, etc. We forget that there is software supporting this because they software is plug-and-play for the most part. But with the iPad using iOS that isn't necessarily true. So you can't just plug in any old USB device and expert it to work. Chances are you need an app to support it.