Apple Hig Pointing Devices

---
name: apple-hig-pointing-devices
description: Use when designing or reviewing mouse and trackpad selection, pointer effects, hover-revealed controls, cursor roles, hit regions, or mixed pointer/touch/eye input.
---

# Show what precision input can do without changing the task

Read [Pointing devices](../../references/pointing-devices.md). Inspect the target platform, pointer actions, touch/keyboard equivalents, custom hit regions, and requested design/review/adaptation. Preserve user gesture mappings and the existing stack. This guide marks tvOS/watchOS unsupported; do not impose iPad pointer behavior on Mac or visionOS.

Map selection, dragging, text insertion, links, invalid drops, and resizing to their semantic cursor/effect roles. Keep systemwide gestures and modifier-drag meanings. Hover can reveal minimized bars/playback controls, but essential work must remain coherent when switching to another input. Distinguish a pointer from a finger only for a useful precision benefit, such as click-to-seek.

On iPad, use highlight for small transparent controls, lift for small opaque controls, and hover for larger content. Check target padding, contiguous adjacent bar hit areas, correct lift corner shapes, and how easily a person can escape magnetism. Avoid unexplained attraction without the matching pointer transformation. Limit scaling where neighbors would collide; tint alone can suit tight rows. Keep pointer accessories simple and meaningful.

On Mac, use appropriate cursor roles and respect configurable primary/secondary clicks and trackpad gestures. On visionOS, preserve system transfer among gaze, pointer, and window context; do not recreate gaze-based pointer relocation or assume private gaze data is available.

**Worked transformation:** Before, an iPad asset grid lifts every dense row until neighbors overlap and displays a custom pointer instruction paragraph. Decision: feedback should communicate target/action without moving the layout into conflict. After, dense rows use restrained tint/hover, resize affordances use simple accessories where applicable, and ordinary controls retain standard effects with touch-accessible actions.

Deliver corrected cursor/effect/hit-region assignments or implementation. Fail if an effect hides a neighbor, a target traps the pointer, input switching loses selection, or a system gesture is overridden. Native magnetism, configurable gestures, and spatial pointer transfer require actual supported execution; static review cannot establish their feel.

Use [Focus and selection](../apple-hig-focus-and-selection/SKILL.md) for keyboard target movement and [Gestures](../apple-hig-gestures/SKILL.md) for shared manipulation meanings.