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New Mice from Apple - Without Buttons?
memoryhole writes "According to this story from AppleInsider, Apple is coming out with a new kind of mouse. They will be wireless and optical - and without buttons. Apparently, the mouse responds to squeezing, tapping, and stroking - in what will be a programmable manner, a little like some trackpads." Just so long as it ain't a hockey puck (whoops! I've grabbed the wrong side again) but this sounds pretty sweet.
well, when this article, and a dozen or so like it, likely based on the same sources, came out a couple weeks ago, i submitted the same story.
/.
but alas, timeliness seems not to matter in the realm of
and besides, this is just romor, not even very well documented or corroborated. i think the story lead should say that - though the source (appleinsider) kinda gives that away.
it's refreshing, though, to see more and more apple articles here, seeing as this is supposed to be a news site for all nerds, not just linux geeks.
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
Imagine trying to tell a clueless type to left-rub or right-rub his mouse. Ewww.
And then there's this, from the article: "It's not just another wireless, optical mouse. It's done by Apple, so it's impressive."
You can hear the asskissing from here. Disgusting.
You know... its funny how Apple always seems to come up with interesting ideas. Take Microsoft's new mouse... all they did was add a tailight really. Sun had the optical mouse in use a long time ago (granted, you had to have the reflective pad..but that was HOW many YEARS ago?).
Even if you "hate" the Macintosh... you really have to admire Apple's will to do things differently... (don't mean to sound like one of their commericals..but really). What other companies goes out on a limb with "different" types of technology? Years after everyone talked about hating "all in one" designs... they released the iMac, and everyone thought 'wow.' Who knew that plastic cases would be so popular (and copied). Heck... how many of use use one of those silly GUIs? (I know it was Xerox's project, but Apple brought it to the masses)
They are building their laptops to be sleek (well, I liked the black G3's.... I dunno about the new power books) and completely wireless. C'mon...that's just plain cool. And speaking of wireless... the whole idea of the Airport is cool.
I'd have to say its probably far more exciting working at Apple where you get "cool" stuff done, than say at "ordinary" companies where its just "what's the marketing doing today? let's go there..."
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What concerns me is that I like to rest my hand on the mouse while I'm pushing it around. Squeezing the mouse requires a lot more mussle flexing than just pushing a button. Not only that, but it can disrupt movement. Just try it: move the mouse pointer to various parts of the screen and squeeze the sides of your mouse. It's disconcerting.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Over at dumbentia. Perhaps life does imitate art.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Continuing its long tradition of simplifying the user interface, Apple also announced its new screen-less monitor. According to an Apple spokesperson, the moniter is controlled by squinting and grimacing by the user. Apple is betting that people will appreciate the reclaimable desk space. In a move reminiscent of its innovative abandonment of the floppy drive, another rumor afloat is that Apple's next version of the Mac OS will need no input devices whatsoever. Instead the OS will simply percieve psychically what the user wants to do. "We think this is another innovative step forward" said an Apple spokesperson. When questioned on the feasibility of such an OS, the spokesperson offhandedly commented "Well, we determine for the user what they want to do anyway". Analysts are predicting that Apple may be building the road to its own extinction. "In the future, by the mere thought of getting any real work done, Apple users might end up causing the Mac to vanish altogether".
;)
(ok, that last bit was flame bait
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
When the original Mac was developed, research was done to determine the best possible type of mouse. At Xerox PARC, the Smalltalk machines generally had three buttons, labeled by color (a naming tradition that continues today in eg. Squeak). It was found that three- and even two-button mice were considered too complex for the target user. There were just too many instances when it was neither clear nor intutive which mouse button you use. Hence, the standard one-button mouse.
Fast forward a bit, and you'll come to today, when Apple is going to unleash it's new set of strokable, squeezable mice on the exact same type of users as the one-button mouse was designed for. Will it be any easier? Do you stroke to copy? Tap to move? Squeeze to check your email? I wonder exactly what sort of "research" they did. The one-button mice has sufficed for Mac users for years, and they are likely to be confused with something new. In fact, it reeks of the way Apple stopped supplying iMacs with floppy disks, perhaps in order to prevent the users from confusing IBM and Apple disks (something which I understand is quite common with Mac users).
Who will be there to hold the user's hands? It will certainly be a big leap for Mac users, and I am unsure whether many of them are capable of handling such a shift so radically. Finally, I think they'll need some big marketing, combined with promises of a "richer Internet experience" to pull this one off.
Apple is known for having simple and easy to use computers. I'm wondering if these new mice will be easy for newbies to figure out. Like, if you would be aboard the Star Trek ship, and not having watched Star Trek before, would you know how to open one of those sliding doors if it didn't open for you when you walked up to it? Probably not. Hand someone a mouse without obvious buttons, and they won't know what to do with it. With a mechanical mouse (one with buttons that is), you can fiddle around with it, press the buttons, and see if that does anything on the screen.
What I'd like to see would be more like a 3d mouse. You hold it in your hand rather than laying it on a table. I recall seeing something similar for presentations, but looking at the description, it looked like it was more for just button pressing to move the slides rather than for moving a cursor on the screen.
So does my wife! (She is cordless too!)
Ken
This story is from AppleInsider...the same people who perpetuated for years that an Apple branded Palm device was only months away...Let's take this tongue in cheek, we can't do anything to prove this, so I'd say that this is vaporware, and this coming FROM an AppleGeek.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Apple has again and again changed the way computers are used in the last 15 years (unlike a certain other software giant whose idea of 'innovation' is "let's leave somebody else develop something good, then we buy them out and claim it was ours").
Think about it: WIMP was first deployed in a wide commercial environment by Apple (along with the mouse). Apple's user interfaces are actually very use-able (I usually say that if Un*x allows people to have a computer do what they want. Windows allows the computer have people do what it wants. Apple does the same, but usually the computer's and user's ideas of what is to be done are the same). Apple was able to slip a processor architecture in without skipping a beat (almost), and is about to introduce a really kick-ass environment (MacOS X is way cool). Always without skipping a beat. Damn, that other software company still has 16-bit stuff in their OS!
So yes, I am impressed more often than not by Apple. And this is a nice idea. Let's just wait and see how well it delivers on its promises.
(btw: I'm not usually an Apple user, so I'm not evangelizing)
1 October, 2000
For immediate distribution
Apple, often lauded for having sparked revolutions in the design of the personal computer in the form of its "Macintosh" line, is now poised to ignite a whole new revolution in the field of teledildonics. With the advent of the new "Touchy-Feelie Force Feedback Mouse," Internet pervs all over the world will enjoy a whole new range of virtual tittilation.
The new Touchie-Feelie mouse responds not by clicking buttons, but by manipulating in a provocitive manner: lightly tapping, stroking, and rhythmic squeezing all produce distinct results. A waterproofed version is in the works to enable oral stimulation, and a force-feedback model has already reached the testing phase.
"These new mice are amazing," said Roy Farbengrinkle, a vendor of pornographic software lucky enough to get to beta test the force-feedback model. "They resist just the right amount when stroking digital [expletive deleted]. And the way that it shakes when I use it to [deleted] her in the [deleted] with a [deleted] camshaft [deleted] really [deleted] my [deleted], let me tell you."
Farbengrinkle warned, however, that the mice may not be suitable for every purpose. "The other day I was checking my stocks and I sneezed - I guess the way my hand squeezed the mouse caused me to buy 200 shares of Alcatel. So they're not really all that good for, you know. Business stuff." He then shrugged. "But hey, who really uses their computer for anything but porn, anyway?"
Copyright 2000, Amalgamated Dress
As for the fears of some that it would be difficult for newbies to learn, I think that the real fear is that it would be one more thing that the kids would have up on us: learning without the barrier of ingrained assumptions, they'd be sailing along on the thing while we're perplexedly searching for the button, like some old codger looking for the crank on the front of his Cadillac.
Learn without training wheels, sez I. You don't need the fixed, clicking button anymore than you need to keep your hands on the keyboard at all times, the exhortations of countless typing instructors (sworn to turn out the fastest typists possible for the secretarial pools of the nation) notwithstanding.
I looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked into me--and we both winked.
I have never been a big fan of the Mac, primarily because the UI (and the one button mouse) drive me batty.
That said, this seems like an idea with lot of potential if implemented well. For one thing, squeezing seems like a much more intuitive way to implement drag-and-drop - vs. having to know where the right place to click & hold in that particular UI is.
Even better, imagine being able to trace Palm graffiti-like characters right on the mouse - just draw a line with your finger to the left or right to go forward back in your browser, trace a "?" for help, custom symbols for selecting weapon in Quake, launching favorite apps, etc.
If it ends up being another hockey puck, but now with invisible buttons, then it is time to put Apple out to pasture.
From their 1998 gallery.