One of the big ‘wow’ moments when Apple unveiled the new iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard was the way it integrated a new kind of cursor. In an interview with Techcrunch, Apple SVP Craig Federighi explains how the company did.
In some ways, the work on the new iPad OS cursor began with the Apple TV’s refreshed interface back in 2015. If you’ve noticed some similarities between the way that the cursor behaves on iPad OS and the way it works on Apple TV, you’re not alone. There is the familiar ‘jumping’ from one point of interest to another, for instance, and the slight sheen of a button as you move your finger while ‘hovering’ on it. “There was a process to figure out exactly how various elements would work together,” Federighi says. “We knew we wanted a very touch-centric cursor that was not conveying an unnecessary level of precision. We knew we had a focus experience similar to Apple TV that we could take advantage of in a delightful way. We knew that when dealing with text we wanted to provide a greater sense of feedback.”“Part of what I love so much about what’s happened with iPadOS is the way that we’ve drawn from so many sources. The experience draws from our work on tvOS, from years of work on the Mac, and from the origins of iPhone X and early iPad, creating something new that feels really natural for iPad.”
Check It Out: Craig Federighi Explains How Apple Reinvented The Cursor For The iPad
Apple’s cursor redesign on the iPad is awful. The one before it wasn’t great either.
What’s weird is that in some apps it’s better than others. On this page it’s working well. In Apple’s Notes app, it doesn’t work well.