Jailbroken iPad gets Apple Magic Mouse support

By Rene Ritchie
last updated

Redmond Pie decided to try out BTstack Mouse on a Jailbroken iPad and the results were promising:

Not only did it worked with Apple Magic Mouse, but also with almost all the other Bluetooth enabled mice I had. For those of you who don’t know, BTstack Mouse is a free utility which was first released earlier this year for jailbroken iPhones and iPod touch.

First a Nintendo Wiimote, then an external HDD, now BT mouse. Is there anything Jailbreak can't do?

Check out Ally's Spirit Jailbreak guide, and TiPb's Jailbreak forum for more, and the link below for step-by-step BTstack for iPad instructions.

[RedmondPie]

YouTube link

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.

16 Comments
  • This looks awesome. Now, someone please put a custom bluetooth trackpad into that iPad-laptop case and we'll be set. :D
  • I find it hilarious that people are buying an iPad, then propping it up with a stand, connecting a keyboard, and now a mouse. We almost have a MacBook, although it's not so easy as just opening the lid to turn it on. I guess external storage is next... which I think people have already accomplished via the camera connector, no? LOL.
  • @HZC awe poor you, can't you afford one?
  • @HZC and the only difference that's left between this and a real laptop is the crippled OS on this thing lol
  • Fist time ever a JB feature has captured my attention. It's a good thing, besides betting for new interfaces/ technology /Guis, to stay put with what you leave behind to smooth the transition. This should be possible by default, like bluetooth keyboards are. Very interesting.
  • I didn't pay 500 bucks to NOT use Apple's revolutionary capacitive display.
  • I thought they were trying to market the ipad as NOT just another computer. With the keyboard and mouse, it seems to me people want it to be more like a desktop. Whats the deal people...
  • Awesome, maybe next then can get rid of the UI altogether and replace it with a command line interface. Making technology go backwards is cool!
  • but will this be enough for Chad to jailbreak now? :)...probably not but still lol.
  • Why would you ever do this? I'm not a fan of the iPad but i understand it's supposed to be easier than booting up a computer. But doesn't adding all this extra hardware cr@p defeat the purpose of it? I would love someone to explain the point of all these crippling hardware additions that seem to be a fad. Isn't it like owning a PS2 and only buying PS1 games?
  • Wow stupid idea. It's a tablet computer not a imacpad. I would never do this with mine. But to each his own.
  • @Bshecko
    Not really -- PS2 games directly comparable (and superior) to PS1 games in all contexts, whereas UI metaphors can be better or worse, depending on the user and use case. You, Macboy15 (and probably most users) would never do this, but some will find it useful.
    One reason to do this would be if you are using your iPad as a laptop/desktop replacement for typing-intensive tasks. If you have an iPad, try word processing (not occasional sentences, but long form documents, at least 30 minutes at a stretch) for a while, both with the on-screen keyboard and the external one. For that use case, the on-screen keyboard is much less efficient than a a full size, external keyboard; the on-screen one may only be slightly harder to type on one, but, more importantly, you have to move your hands off the surface or hover between input; you cannot rest your hands on the keys when not typing. This is not a big issue for short bursts of input, or even for occasional longer voluntary typing, but for a job with hours of typing at a stretch, it is a big deal.
    Now, once you have your keyboard on your desk, the question then becomes what is the most efficient model for cursor interaction. I am no kinesiologist, but it is hard to argue that moving your hand 10 inches, extending your elbow, holding fingers at or near head height, and swiping and holding directly on the screen long term be as efficient or better on the shoulder and wrists than moving the hand three inches to the mouse and using a finger. The iPad metaphor just does not serve those people well.
    That it does not is not a "flaw" in the iPad per se, just that the iPad was designed with different priorities and without those specific concerns. You can argue that these sorts of concerns affect a vanishingly small number of people, and you would probably be right. You can argue that these people should not be using their iPads for tasks that lend themselves better to a regular computer, and you might also be right, though I would argue that it is up to the purchaser, and if they want to buy iPad's and stretch them, they can. Ideas that fail will be forgottenl, and ideas that succeed can be refined and incorporated.
    This is why Apple will not (and probably should not) ever try to crush jailbreaking totally -- it is the best money on R&D and feature marketing they never have to spend.
  • Yessssss! Pretty soon, now, we will have a full-fledged netbook!! Let's get Flash up and running!! Let's run Windows 7!! The possibilities are endless. Who needs a touch screen? Who needs the ability to simply drop the thing into a bag? Let's drag around keyboards, a mouse, an external hard drive, some additional power cords. We will party like it is 1999!
  • For those that remote into various computers, a mouse is priceless. I can now use the vga adapter and a monitor, with a keyboard and mouse.
  • This is perfect. I won't use the mouse all the time but I need it for remote assistance and word processing. Apple should have included this with ios. Great work.
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