Apple to Release iPadOS 13.4 Next Week With Full Mouse and Trackpad Support
Apple revealed its upgraded iPad Pro line today, and the big new feature is a new Magic Keyboard with a built-in trackpad. Yes, the iPad Pro is finally getting a trackpad.
And although we expected Apple to add full trackpad support to iOS/iPadOS with iOS 14/iPadOS 14, it turns out Apple was planning an earlier release. The company will ship trackpad support for the iPad with iPadOS 13.4 next week — on March 24, to be exact.
Trackpad support on iPadOS 13.4 is not a regular cursor experience. Instead, it’s something completely different — because of course it is.
“Designed specifically for the touch-first experience on iPad, the cursor appears as a circle that highlights user interface elements, text fields and apps on the Home screen and Dock, giving a clear indication of what users can click on. Fluid gestures on the trackpad make it easy to switch between apps, access the app switcher and activate the Dock, Control Center and apps in Slide Over,” says Apple.
Apple claims trackpad support on iPadOS will work just fine in first-party apps, and “most” third-party apps will work without any changes. There’s apparently new APIs for developers who want to improve the trackpad experience even further.
Apple will also update its iWork suite of apps to take full advantage of the new trackpad support on iPadOS.
The new mouse cursor UI has a circle that morphs into a hovered-version of the control under it, definitely not a traditional cursor pic.twitter.com/mkHcCZE8JJ
— Simeon (@twolivesleft) March 18, 2020
Trackpad support on iPadOS 13.4 will not be limited to the new Magic Keyboard, however. Apple is only releasing the Magic Keyboard in May, so iPadOS 13.4 adds trackpad support for other devices. To be exact, Apple says the trackpad support will work with Apple’s Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Trackpad 2. It will also apparently work with third-party mice connected over Bluetooth or USB.
The new update will be for all iPad Pro models, iPad Air 2 and later, iPad 5th generation and later, and iPad mini 4 and later.