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Microsoft plans to add trackpad and mouse support to its Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps for iPad by the fall, according to TechCrunch and The Verge.
iPadOS 13.4 introduced trackpad and mouse support on all iPad models released in the past four to five years. Keyboards with trackpads include Apple's Magic Keyboard and Brydge's Pro+ for the iPad Pro and Logitech's Combo for the 10.2-inch iPad and the 10.5-inch iPad Air.
When using a trackpad, the cursor displays as a circle on the screen, popping up only when you have a finger on the trackpad. The circle then morphs into various other shapes when hovering over app icons, text fields, or other on-screen elements.
Top Rated Comments
And how is exactly is it going to work perfectly in all apps that were never designed for it? If they added touch to MacOS, would it suddenly work perfectly in all apps that only expected a mouse pointer?Exactly. So Apple made this thing but instead of it working for apps through the OS, the developers have to add the functionality on a per app. Another reason to avoid the $300-$350 Keyboard.
It generally works, but apps are going to need updates, especially if they aren't using Apple's standard text fields and controls (and something tells me Microsoft Office is in that category).
If the developer uses standard controls, everything works. The more the developer creates custom controls (like say, the Ribbon), the more you then have to do yourself.Aren't these OS level changes that work on all apps? Why would they have to add support for them?
My trackpad works with the Office apps. It doesn’t properly support things like the I-Beam in a Word document. There are bugs with the Ribbon where it doesn’t always recognize the tap (like the other poster reports), and there’s no animation on the buttons in the Ribbon. I think they might be doing a lot of custom UI and in the process made the automatic stuff Apple provides not work. And I’m not sure how much choice you have when talking about the document view.
Another annoying bug is that there’s some stuff around making selection touch-friendly that Word seems to do that other apps don’t (tapping will try to put the cursor at the front or end of a word), which still happens with mouse input, and is just plain annoying.
I wonder if it is “by the start” or “by the end”. Huge difference there.By the fall, really?
GSuite users: Wow, multi-window in beta, and cursor support by this fall? That sounds amazing...