How to Use a Mouse on iPhone
A mouse works on iPhone once AssistiveTouch is enabled — but iOS can't hide the system cursor. Here's the full setup and the best ways around the double cursor.
On iPad, a mouse just works in CloudGear — connect it, and you get true mouse pointer lock with the system cursor hidden, exactly like a PC. On iPhone, two iOS quirks get in the way. Neither is a CloudGear limitation; both come from how iOS itself handles a mouse on a phone. The good news is that both are easy to work around, and this guide covers each one.
Step 1: Enable AssistiveTouch (required)
On iPhone, a connected mouse does nothing inside an app until you turn on AssistiveTouch. Connect a mouse without it and the pointer simply won’t appear — it looks like the mouse isn’t working at all.
To enable it:
- Open Settings > Accessibility > Touch > AssistiveTouch
- Turn AssistiveTouch on
- Turn Perform Touch Gestures off
That’s it — the pointer will now work in CloudGear.
Why these two settings? iPhone won’t hand pointer input to apps unless AssistiveTouch is enabled — it’s the system feature that exposes a mouse to the rest of iOS. The second toggle, Perform Touch Gestures, makes the pointer behave like a simulated finger, tapping and swiping as you move it. That’s not what you want for gaming, so turning it off gives you proper mouse behaviour instead of touch emulation.
Step 2: The system cursor can’t be hidden
The second quirk is a hard iOS restriction: iPhone does not let apps hide the system cursor. When you’re in a game that draws its own cursor or aiming reticle, you’ll see two cursors at once — the iPhone system pointer floating on top of the in-game one. On iPad, CloudGear can hide the system cursor and lock the mouse cleanly; on iPhone, iOS keeps that pointer on the phone’s screen.
This doesn’t stop the mouse from working — aiming and camera control still function — but the extra cursor on screen is distracting. Here’s how to get rid of it.
The Fix: External Display or iPad
There are two clean ways to avoid the double cursor on iPhone:
- Connect to an external display. Plug your iPhone into a TV or monitor via USB-C or HDMI (Lightning to HDMI is also supported). The system cursor stays on the iPhone’s own screen, while the external display shows only the game and its in-game cursor — a clean, full-screen picture with no stray pointer. This pairs perfectly with CloudGear’s native-resolution external output, turning your iPhone into a console-style setup.
- Use an iPad instead. If you have one, an iPad sidesteps the issue entirely. CloudGear hides the system cursor and applies true mouse pointer lock on iPad, so mouse-driven games play exactly as they would on a PC.
More on Mouse & Keyboard Gaming
The steps above are iPhone-specific. For the bigger picture — why Safari can’t do mouse-driven cloud gaming on iOS at all, how pointer lock works, adjusting mouse sensitivity, and setting up a keyboard — see our full guide: How to Use Mouse & Keyboard for Cloud Gaming on iPhone & iPad.
