> But if it's windowed then it should be impossible.
I worked on several apps for the visually impaired that automatically move the mouse cursor to different UI elements in the front-most application, regardless of the window state. It’s a good reminder that “impossible” often just means “I haven’t accounted for that use case yet.”
If it's part of the OS's standard accessibility framework then it's acceptable. The important point is that applications shouldn't be able to arbitrarily move the mouse in situations when it's unexpected.
Coming from Linux, the accessibility framework is just another series of programs. My main a11y program is a tiny little binary that uses the keyboard to move the mouse around at will; I certainly don't want the system to try and restrict that.
You are arguing for uniformity. It does make a lot of sense: the global UI makes a considerable effort to build a single perfect UI, but that can only work if the apps actually make use of it.
But why shouldn’t the global UI itself make use of mouse warping?
> The important point is that applications shouldn't be able to arbitrarily move the mouse in situations when it's unexpected.
That is quite a different statement from "It should be impossible." What should be impossible is for the OS to prevent this type of usage when it is clearly useful. Beyond accessibility, I use these features to automate testing of native macOS GUI apps.