Tip: A more natural cursor with a trackpad in iPadOS 13.4 | iGeneration

With iPadOS 13.4, Apple has chosen to officially support mice and other trackpads for its tablet. No more accessibility hack, make way for a real cursor and complete management of trackpads, including multitouch gestures like on the Mac:

For me, who had been using my iPad Pro with a mouse since last summer, this welcome change forced me to rethink my setup. The Logitech MX Master mouse I used previously gave way to a much better supported Apple Magic Trackpad 2. Multitasking gestures are extremely practical and save a lot of time, especially for quickly switching from one app to another. The ability to select text is also valuable when you spend your time writing and rereading on the tablet.

Instead of just taking over the arrow from macOS, Apple has come up with a whole new slider for iPadOS 13.4. Round, it is semi-transparent and permanently adapts to the color of the background. On a light background, it displays in a dark gray, but it changes to an almost white gray if you place it on a darker background. It's significantly more complicated than the macOS solution, where the black arrow is surrounded by a white line that makes it distinguishable everywhere.

Apple has obviously taken the time to completely reimagine the cursor experience. It turns into a cursor when it is hovered over a text, with a fluid animation between the circle and the cursor. That's not all: by default, the circle turns into a button when hovering over an app icon on the home screen, or an icon in an app. As a result, the cursor temporarily disappears and it becomes the icon, with an animation that strongly recalls the tvOS selection:

It's an interesting idea and an impressive technical demonstration, but it doesn't hold water in my opinion. We "lose" the cursor each time we pass over an icon, which is confusing. In addition, the magnetism that is applied gives the feeling that the movement is not fluid, as if there was a small delay on the passage from one icon to another. In truth, it's not, and you can very quickly hover over a row of icons on the home screen for example, but the effect is still there regardless.

After just a few days, I got tired of this shapeshifting slider. Fortunately, Apple has provided an option to deactivate it and find a more classic cursor. It is in the “Accessibility” section of the Settings, then the new “Pointer control” section. Uncheck the "Pointer animations" option to disable this behavior.

The option is oddly named, because it doesn't remove all animations, as you might think. The round cursor always turns into a line above the text and there is even always an animation when you pass over an icon. In fact, almost nothing changes, except that the cursor remains permanently visible and no longer turns into a button. Here's what it looks like:

I think this should be the default behavior. It is perhaps less innovative and spectacular than the transformation of the cursor into a button, but it is much more practical and pleasant on a daily basis. And by the way, I also strongly recommend if you use a Magic Trackpad to uncheck the other accessibility option, "Trackpad inertia".

You may not necessarily see the difference on the two videos (the option is checked on the second video, not on the first), but it is sensitive to use. By default, cursor movement has a small inertia, which causes it to continue moving in the same direction when you lift your finger from the trackpad. This is a very different behavior than macOS and I don't really understand the point of it. Cursor movements are less precise and slower without this option and I almost had a feeling of nausea because of this inertia.

Anyway, I advise you to take a look in these settings to adjust the behavior of the cursor if you do not find it to your liking. While you're there, you can also change the size of the circle, change the delay before it disappears (two seconds by default) or even change the scrolling speed. The other settings related to the trackpad can be found in the Settings, then “General” and “Trackpad”. Also take a look if you haven't already, to adjust the speed of cursor movement, the direction of scrolling or even (de)activate the possibility of touching to click and the secondary click with two fingers.

iPadOS 13.4 does not offer as many options as macOS to manage its cursor, but not far. And fortunately for me, because I appreciate this method of control much more without the inertia and especially by reducing the animations of the cursor. Now it's up to you to adapt the experience according to your preferences...