Mice and Keyboard support in 3.1

Question

Apparently, Android 3.1 will support USB devices such as mice and keyboards.

1. How much of an issue is driver support? If you have a "normal" keyboard or mouse, will it just plug and play?
2. Does the OS provide support for these input devices through standard Android controls, or will each program have to be modified seperately to support these input devices?

Answer 1

Most (pretty much all) USB keyboards and mice support the USB HID protocol. You might not be able to use some special "media keys" or other advanced features, but standard features will work without additional drivers.

As for routing USB Input to standard Android UI events, I suspect they'll do it (they'd be stupid not to) but couldn't find any conclusive information as of yet.

Answer 2

I've just tried a normal Microsoft USB mouse on my ASUS EEE Pad Transformer running Android 3.1.

It works just fine both in pre-installed applications (I tried the browser) and in third-party applications that I'm pretty sure have no dedicated support (they are not even adapted to 3.0 yet).

And as @Patrick noted, pretty much all USB mice and keyboards support the USB HID protocol, so you won't need specific per-mouse drivers.