Apple releases two-button mouse

HyperionX · Post by **HyperionX** » 2005-08-02 01:28pm

http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/design.html

The Button That Wasn’t

Alas the fate of the one-button mouse in today’s multibutton world. Who has time for intuitive, elegant design when there is so much clicking to do? Thanks to a smooth top shell with touch-sensitive technology beneath, Mighty Mouse allows you to right click without a right button. Capacitive sensors under Mighty Mouse’s seamless top shell detect where your fingers are and predict your clicking intentions, so you don’t need two buttons — just two fingers. Click on the left side to use Mighty Mouse in its simplest, single-button form. Click on the right to access contextual menus within applications and edit, copy, label or download from your mouse. It’s simple sleight of hand.
It Squeezes, Not Squeaks

It wouldn’t be fair to call Mighty Mouse a two-button mouse with one button. Especially when it responds to pressure from your fingers in four different places. Besides the left- and right-click functions, the Scroll Ball clicks down to act as a third mouse button. And force-sensing buttons on either side of Mighty Mouse respond when you press in with your finger and thumb. Perfect for Mac OS X Tiger users, the side buttons are pre-programmed to activate Exposé, so you can view all your windows with a squeeze. Of course, you can also customize Mighty Mouse to open whatever you choose — Spotlight, Dashboard or any application when you have Mac OS X Tiger v10.4.2 or later.

Pray to your god. The end is near!

sparrowtm · Post by **sparrowtm** » 2005-08-02 01:33pm

Back when I studied Web Design, and my teacher sat me in front of a MAC, my immediate response was something like: "Ehrm ... excuse me. Is that supposed to be a mouse?"

Finally, finally - in a strange, bewildering way - Apple computers join up to the 19th century. What next? Microsoft coding an actual web-browser?

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-08-02 01:37pm

Bah, just beat me to it :p

Looks like Hell has frozen over, anyone up for skiing?

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2005-08-02 01:38pm

Apple just doesn't want to loose out on money. Apple computers have been able to use USB mice for years and handle the second and third buttons.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2005-08-02 01:43pm

There is a God. It took them fucking long enough.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2005-08-02 01:47pm

Hold on fokes, who wants to be that the R&D costs were more to to get these fancy sensors(Its a two button mosue that still LOOkS like a one button mouse woooohooo...) than to simply accept the right click standard thats in everything else in the entire @$%@% world?

But wait this is Apple.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-08-02 02:52pm

Was there a reason they made only single button mice for so long?

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2005-08-02 02:56pm

sparrowtm wrote:Back when I studied Web Design, and my teacher sat me in front of a MAC, my immediate response was something like: "Ehrm ... excuse me. Is that supposed to be a mouse?"

Ugh ... it's "Mac", as in short-hand for "Macintosh". "MAC" stands for "Media Access Control".

Mr. Bean wrote:Hold on fokes, who wants to be that the R&D costs were more to to get these fancy sensors(Its a two button mosue that still LOOkS like a one button mouse woooohooo...) than to simply accept the right click standard thats in everything else in the entire @$%@% world?

It's a 4-button mouse that can look and act as a one-button mouse, which is valuable for Apple. In other words, the design scales both on the software end and the physical end.

Because believe it or not, some people actually do prefer one mouse button. I'm not one of them, but there are some seriously computer-illiterate folks out there who really do have difficulty with the concept of separate right- and left-clicks.

You may laugh and mock, but at the end of the day, their money is just as green.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and it's a design that fits both right-handed users and Southpaws without sacrificing ergonomics. I love my MX1000, but if I was left-handed, I wouldn't be able to use it.

Lord Woodlouse · Post by **Lord Woodlouse** » 2005-08-02 03:27pm

InnocentBystander wrote:Was there a reason they made only single button mice for so long?

IIRC it's because they were the first lot to make the thing. So when IBM made one later, they added an extra button (I remember Acorn computers had three...).

I think copywrite was involved somewhere.

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2005-08-02 08:46pm

Took them long enough. Though admittedly the scroll ball is an interesting idea. I wonder if you could fit two of them, one in front of the other?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2005-08-04 08:32am

ArsTechnica has dissected the mouse ...

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2005-08-04 04:39pm

Huh...and here I am, using an ambidexterous four-button mouse with scrollwheel/fifth button. I love GE...

It is nice to see Apple progressing into the early 90s, though

.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2005-08-04 05:39pm

Apple it seems is where all the Nazi weapons designers fled and had their brains cryogenically frozen. This is something out of Nazi 1946 tech..."we will use capicatance instead of buttons!"

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-08-04 07:00pm

I was about to ask whether they could actually legally use the name "Mighty Mouse" for their product, but then I saw this at the bottom of the front page:

Mighty Mouse © Viacom International Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Anyway, I've always hated the newer Apple mice, first the cumbersome and uncomfortable "hockey puck" design of the iMac and G-series, then the irritating whole-mouse-is-one-big-button "bubble" design that was simply annoying to adapt to and allowed you to screw up too much (at least the puck had a fucking real button).

While the scroll ball is pretty cool, I think overall it's a pretty half-assed compromise. Apple still is way too concerned with aesthetic appearences and design style for their products then user efficiency and practical use, hence why the damn thing still technically has one "button," this time moved up to the front rather than being the whole surface and using touch-sensitive pads under the surface rather than break up their "hip" design with--Saints preserve us--seam lines.

EDIT: Oh, and thanks to the disection over at ArsTechnica, it seems that Apple made the operation of the touch-sensitive pads somewhat counter-productive, making you have to hover your fingers over the surface when not clicking rather than allowing you to rest your fingers on the buttons.

Erik von Nein · Post by **Erik von Nein** » 2005-08-04 07:07pm

I've been using a four button mouse with a scroll wheel on my old 2001 iMac for about a year-and-a-half, now. I don't see why Apple didn't just release one standard instead of having people go through third party support.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-08-04 07:11pm

The Dark wrote:Huh...and here I am, using an ambidexterous four-button mouse with scrollwheel/fifth button. I love GE....

Hell, the standard Microsoft "IntelliMouse" optical mouse (two side buttons, two top buttons, scroll wheel) that my mother and I use is ambidexterous (she uses her left hand, with L-R mirrored, while I use my right).

Hawkwings · Post by **Hawkwings** » 2005-08-04 09:12pm

I've got this old crappy mouse with two giant buttons and a scroll wheel. It's perfectly symmetrical though, and fits well into my hand.

Durandal wrote:Ugh ... it's "Mac", as in short-hand for "Macintosh". "MAC" stands for "Media Access Control".

MAC stands for a lot of things... Media Access Control, Magnetic Acceleration Cannon... the list goes on.