use iPhone as mouse for iPad2?

[vanchopski]

I've just picked up an iPad 2 and am using it with an Apple wireless keyboard. It's wifi only so I tether it to my iPhone when I need web away from wifi.

It seems like there should be a way to use my iPhone as a mouse or trackball when I am using my iPad with the keyboard.

Does anyone know of a combination of iphone and ipad apps that will enable this?

Thanks

 

[f4780y]

You would need to jailbreak both devices as far as I can see. Unfortunately there is no JB for iPad2 yet, although one is expected soon.

To turn your iPhone into a BT HID mouse / trackpad you need "WeBe++"

To allow your iPad to accept a BT mouse connection, you need "BTStack Mouse"

That combination should allow you to use the iPhone screen as a trackpad controlling a mouse cursor on the iPad screen (which for the avoidance of doubt is uber cool! )

Hope that helps (for when a JB is available at least!)

 

[vanchopski]

@F4780y - I appreciate the quick reply. Thanks.

So is jailbreaking required only because nobody has yet created an approved app that can provide the functionality I described?

In other words, if someone knew how, could they create an app that would do this and sell it at the official app store ?

I know nothing about app development but considering the amazing things iPhones and iPads can do I'm surprised nobody has come up with this particular function yet!

 

[thewitt]

Jail breaking is required because there is no way to do this using the published and approved APIs - you have to use undocumented and unsupported functions.

Apple does listen if a business case can be made to support additional API calls. We have experience doing just that.

One of the reasons iOS devices are as stable as they are, like it or not, is that Apple limits what can be done - mostly for technical reasons.

I can crash my Android phone by simply running two programs one after another and Google developers are stumped. Why? In part because the Android platform is wide open.

There will always be critics, however I will take stability over "neat" features any day.

-t

 

[madscijr]

still no mouse support for ios

The idea of using your iPhone or iPad (or use your *old* iOS device or droid or windows phone) to control a mouse pointer (or as a keyboard, or both) on your *other* iOS device is so practical, simple, and liberating that it would just be out of character for Steve Jobs' company to allow such a thing. Keep in mind the man got his start in electronics by building phreak boxes! Of course he would make it so that if one wanted to be truly productive, they would have to "break the rules" a little, that's the beauty of Apple. It's all one giant Zen prank on the unimaginitive, and 99.9% of the world don't get the joke! If you are comfortable doing the jailbreak and can find the hack, more power to you, because there is no practical reason this shouldn't be possible via bluetooth, wifi, or (for devices that support it) NFC.