The compatibility of the iPad with any bluetooth mouse and trackpad has meant a great change in the way we interact with our iPad. A new experience that is completed with the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro. We show you all the gestures you can do with a trackpad connected to your iPad.
Compatibility requirements
Whenever we talk about iPad and trackpad, the photo of an iPad Pro and a Magic Keyboard appears, and the best example is the video that accompanies this article, but the reality is that any iPad with iOS 13.4 or higher and any Bluetooth trackpad, as well as any keyboard with a Trackpad, such as those from Logitech or Brydge, allow us to handle ourselves through gestures. What does vary is the number of gestures available, so the Magic Trackpad 2 or the new Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro allow all the gestures that we show you in this video, while the Magic Trackpad 1 only allows a few. If you have another keyboard with a trackpad from another brand, you will need to review the specifications to see which gestures are supported.
All gestures
All trackpads
- Doing click with one finger: tap the trackpad with one finger. On Apple trackpads and on the Magic Keyboard this gesture can be performed anywhere on the trackpad. In other trackpads it may be limited to the central area of the same.
- Hold down: pressing and holding shows certain menus, as if we were using Haptic Touch.
- Drag: holding down an item and then moving your finger on the trackpad will allow us to move that item.
- Show the Dock: we will have to lower the cursor to below the lower edge of the screen.
- Go back to the start screen: first we will have to perform the gesture of showing the Dock, and after it appears we must lower the pointer to below the bottom edge. If you have an iPad with Face ID you can simply click on the bottom bar.
- Show Slide Over: we must place the pointer on the right side edge of the screen and then slide it past the side edge. To hide it we must perform the same gesture.
- Open Control Center: We must place the pointer over the status icons in the upper right part of the screen, and then click or slide up.
- Open Notification Center: With one finger, move the cursor beyond the top edge of the central area of the screen. Or click on the status icons on the top left.
Magic Trackpad 2 and Magic Keyboard
In addition to all the gestures already mentioned, the second generation Magic Trackpad and the new Magic Keyboard have a good number of additional gestures. Other keyboards from other brands can also make use of these gestures but it will depend on their compatibility.
- Vertical and horizontal scroll: we must use two fingers and move up / down to scroll vertically, or right / left to scroll horizontally.
- Zoom: With two fingers on the trackpad we will perform the gesture of separating them to zoom, or approach them to reduce the zoom.
- Go back to the start screen: in addition to the gesture that we indicated before, with these trackpad models we can slide up with three fingers to return to the home screen, or the gesture of joining four fingers.
- Open app selector: if we want to open the multitasking screen with all the applications open we must make the gesture of sliding up with three fingers but pausing before lifting the fingers. We can also put four fingers together and pause before lifting them.
- Switch from one app to another: with three fingers we must slide from left to right or from right to left to go to the previous or next app, respectively.
- Open the widget screen: with two fingers we slide from left to right.
- Open search function: from the main screen we must slide two fingers down.
- Secondary click: what we would understand as the "right click" of the mouse would be achieved by clicking with two fingers. You can also use the Ctrl key on the keyboard while clicking on the element.
