Slashdot Mirror
Review Of The New Apple Mouse
Noctrnl writes: "Just caught this review of the new Apple optical mouse over at CNN. Looks like Microsoft may finally have some competition for the optical IntelliMouse."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
dork...
...and she'll still sign autographs with her left hand.
I was teaching a friend to play guitar, she being a lefty thought she should play like lefties do, with the fretboard in the right hand. I told her it was an entirely new skill, and you are going to be equally akward either way, so instead of burdening yourself with having to buy specially made and strung guitars the rest of your life, why not just learn to play the customary way? She did, and now she rocks.
So... sorry you've become accustomed to a mouse in your left hand. That's your own fault.
Oh yea, and they do make teardrop mice, totally symmetrical. Logitech firstmouse+ and Micros~1 wheelmouse. But.... you don't seem to be after a solution, just a reason to bitch. nevermind.
> Too bad a GUI doesn't make up the whole
> operating system, huh?
Actually, the original Mac OS used to be derided as a Program Loader Frontend. Which it pretty much was, because as soon as you started an app, it couldn't do anything else until you exited. Then they tacked on the Desk Accessory concept (ok, maybe it was in there from the start), which essentially was a GUI-ized version of a TSR.
There are few hacks out there bigger than the MacOS. It's been hacked to such an extent that what they call nowaways the MacOS is one huge collection of patches and hacks. Try running one of the earlier Mac apps from the Fat Mac days on System 9.x. I always get the biggest kick out of Mac fanatics that gush over the great design of their OS. As long as all it takes to install a device is to drag an icon into a folder, plug it into the SCSI bus and go, that qualifies as a great OS. Never mind the rest.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
I also find the little red light extremely annoying...Apple should come out with a mouse that has a similar light...but a different colour...a blue or green would be swell.
I'm sure apple tried this, but then they would have to color match the mice with the iMac shells. It's probably pretty hard to make a "snow" color opitical light.
Stupid Cheap Guitars
Riiight; Never worked tech support have we? I've had problems with people understanding what a click is never mind left/right/middle/side etc. From what I've seen of Mac users the OS seems well designed for a single mouse button. Though I admit I can't understand how they live with out a wheel.:)
one button mice stick. What next? Three button keyboard?i?
....
No, mice with zippers. Think about it
Will in Seattle
There are cars that only use one pedal, at least a couple of the prototype electrics have been this way, and at least one Mercedes Benz prototype tossed out both of them for a joystick. (*drool..)
Anyway, stopping and starting are two very different and concrete things to a novice driver. Screwing up, even once, could render you dead as well, so they have incentive to learn as well.
Clicking is always clicking to the novice computer user. There is no concrete action aside from 'push the button', and the only incentive to learn is so they don't have to call tech support/their kids/their instructor.
.sig: Now legally binding!
Macintosh Performer. One mouse button in order to get this context menu press, command + click in order to get that context menu press option +click etc etc.
New G3/4 iMac mouse. how to get authritis 101, who the hell designed those little cookie cutter orb looking things anyways. form follows function never made it into that lab did it. then again it's a great ploy since everyone with a palm size larger than a 3yo will be forced to buy another one.
Agh! Your sig is totally wrong! I'm sorry, I'm not normally one to bitch about such things, but I'm a huge Simpsons fan and the fact that you're going around with a messed up sig is a travesty!
Here is what it's supposed to be:
"We must move forward, not backward. Upward, not forward. And always twirling, twirling towards freedom."
You see, the biggest part about this joke is the fact that he contradicts himself. First he says to go forward instead of backward, and then he says to go upward instead of forward. It's funny! The way you had it is just stupid. It almost makes sense. What's the point of making sense?
I am not an idiot. Please use my name to email me.
"That's right, I'm quoting myself."
-Upsilon
Recently in my town, an old woman got confused approaching a stop light and hit the gas instead of the brake. She went right through a convenience store and killed a cashier.
--
Don't lead me into temptation... I can find it myself.
Like I said, extra mouse buttons are redundant on the Mac. As soon as I get one of these new Mac mice, the M$ mouse is moving to my PC to stay.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I know a couple of people who use wheel mice with their PC's and just ignore the thing. It doesn't confuse them or anything; they just don't know what it is for so they leave it alone. It strikes me that one would have to be pretty dense to think that the screen was moving by itself, unless someone somehow forgot that they were also turning the wheel. Most people understand cause and effect even if they don't get computers very well :)
Here's a link to the description of the IntelliMouse Optical for all you southpaws.
Microsoft ambidexterous optical mouse
"Apple continues to use the one-button mouse for a single, overriding reason: ease of use. Two-button mice are harder for beginners to comprehend." How stupid does apple think people are? or are apple customers really that dumb? I suppose we can infer that since they bought an apple in the first place....
No. It uses the same mechanism as the MS optical mice, and those work OK at one or two millimeters off the desk, but cease working completely at about 5mm off the desk.
yea I know ( I use alogitech first mouse) but it's not the same
/singing
we shall over coome we shalll over cooooomme
logan
If you twitch really fast, the mouse will go off in all different directions.
Excellent, it's just Apple's way of telling you to slow down and mellow out. Do some yoga and tai chi to get in the iMac frame of mind, and then you'll realize that Quake is just a game, and we're all just players who die in the end.
Will in Seattle
Apple made a great mouse for Apple users. But if they think a mouse will help them gain desktop market share, they're nuts. They've deliberately ceated an Apple-only mouse that cant be used on linux or windows systems:
-> no second button
-> no scroll wheel
Seems like apple would rather preach to their choir than bother to try and make money. Hardware sold by Micro$oft ends up on Apple systems, and on boxes running *nix. If Apple adopted the same approach, they'd actually be more relevant.
--
______________________________________________
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
I only put my computers on the floor if I have no other place for them. I've opened up PCs with dust bunnies the sixe of tennis balls in them. Computers should go on your desk unless you have a proper holder on the side of the desk off the floor.
--
Don't lead me into temptation... I can find it myself.
Well, from testing my Microsoft optical mice out, the detection area seems to be somewhere in-between 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch, leaning closer towards the quarter inch area.
This means it's easy to pick the mouse up and realign it on the mousepad if you need to realign the cursor on-screen... just about as easy as a ball-mouse probably.
Since when was there Counter-Strike on the Mac?
I attached a keyboard to my mouse...104 "buttons", plus the three that were there before... :P
one button
two buttons
optical
moving parts
meta-clicking
wheels
gaming
USB
logitech
Microsoft
HP...
Who cares? Everyone has their preference, Apple isn't dictating the way life should be in 2020 any more than Microsoft and other companies are. I think the real problem here is that a lot of people who arn't mac-users (and hence were not even considered in the design of this mouse) are a bit cross because they love the mouse secretly, but can't use it with its single button. That may be your loss and Apple's, but its no need to berate people who could conceive of coping in preference to the other features they like.
Personally however, I want a multi-buttoned mouse, lets say 3 for now... maybe 4... and so this mouse is not for me; its a shame really because it looks like tasty candy.
I really like my sun 3 butotn mouse thats all slim with a ball (came with the ultra 10) too bad I'm not going to get it to work on any other machine.
Which reminds me... I have a terminal keyboard from wise (I think) that has a really nice feel... it has a 4 cable phone connector (RJ45?); does anyone know how I could map this to a DIN for an old IBM compatable machine (486DX-33)?
I have a feeling scroll wheels, even though they supposedly are more ergonomic than mice without them, are just as likely to cause RSIs than regular mice.
:P
I'm using one right now, and I can feel the knuckle of my index finger and the muscles on that side of the hand moving every time I use the wheel.
In fact, once you start paying attention to the feeling, it becomes rather uncomfortable.
Try, people, to understand that computer companies, for the most part, do things as simply as they can. If you understand the more complex stuff and want a more complex mouse, get one by all means. Don't expect that everybody in the world needs a 3-button optical wheel mouse, or trackball, or whatever it is you own, and certainly don't expect the company to force your mindset on other people.
And as for being one button being misguided, sheesh, the OS is designed to work just great with one mouse button and can accept as many as you want.
Windows is designed with two buttons in mind, and that makes it nearly impossible to do tasks like getting properties without a two button mouse.
X-Windows is designed with 3.... do you see where I'm going? Different OSes have different minimal mousing requirements. Apple's OS needs only 1. If _you_ need more to function on the Mac OS, by all means, buy one.
Hrm, this scroll wheel hurts now
My intellimouse explorer (5 button optical, one big button on the left side of the mouse, one on the right) is symetric lengthwise, so it will work the same for righties or lefties...
try this link
"I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines." - Mr. Furious, Mystery Men
In our typing class in HS we once switched the mouse and keyboard connections to two system. the girl at the system sits down and starts clacking away only to find it's not typing. she wracks the keyboard and clicks away at the mouse, which isn't moving anywhere she wants. so she does the old left handed upside down mouse backwards movement trick. (weve all done it with a dirty ouse ball) then clacks the keyboard again. only to have it type out, CINDY STOP HITTING ME !!) aqfter which she screems and runs to the tutor who dismisses it and checks it out, he also clacks at the board only to have it type out I'M NOT YORU TOY !!! needless to say by thsi time I wa slauging so hard I got figured out and thrown out of class,
"That's like saying cars shouldn't have a gas pedal AND a brakes pedal, because, hey, how do you know which one to press?"
:)
:)
Believe it or not, that's a bug!
Most people can quickly learn to use two pedals effectively, just like a person could learn to use two button mice. Does that make those right and one button mice wrong? No.
In fact, Apple is right in saying that a one button mouse is easier to learn and has less chance of 'failure' - ie. the user messing up.
Take the car example.. A lot of first time drivers or those in accident situations can panic from time to time. What happens? Sometimes instead of hitting the brake, they hit the gas.. or they push down both. I hope we all can see why that's a Bad Thing (tm). That's probably one of many reasons car manufacturers are experimenting in different designs including one pedal cars. I think it's a great idea.
Hand controls made for the disabled to allow them to drive cars are my case in point. Now, granted.. Theres' many models or implementations that suck or are too overly priced, BUT the fundamental way it works is what I find to be a good feature. With most hand controls, pulling back on the controls allows one to apply gas. Pushing forward controls the breaks. Simple. The neat feature is one cannot apply gas and the break at the same time! Furthermore, the motion to apply the break is more natural than applying more gas. I think it's not too hard to see the good points about this.
So, in conclusion..
Question the truths you hold onto as "How things should be".. and do some reading sometime on UI design. You may learn a thing or two.
Is the "no button" button space on the Apple mouse mappable? In other words, does the mouse driver know where you've "clicked" on the mouse, or does it simply know you've clicked?
If it knows where you've clicked, it would be just a matter of configuring the driver to make it an N-button mouse. If the entire surface area of the mouse were mappable, you could have a really cool input device.
I really enjoy using the intellemouse for gaming...but...I find that the old ball mice are nicer, whenever I lift my mouse to move it back into place, the intellimouse's eye can detect the movement and my cursor still moves. the optical mice are really nice, but I would still prefer my old skool track ball mouse any day of the week.
I also find the little red light extremely annoying...Apple should come out with a mouse that has a similar light...but a different colour...a blue or green would be swell.
The anti-salmon
Another annoying thing is when re-aligning the mouse back from the edge of the desk during an intense UT fragfest, somehow the eye translates the movement to looking straight up and spinning in circles so fast it brings one to nausea. Also, I noticed that the eye generates heat and the damn mouse gets all sweaty especially during above noted fragfest... next they'll have active cooling mice, then someone will start tweaking that.... peltier mice anyone?
The Intellimouse Explorer is a much better mouse, more buttons, and a heftier feel. But the new apple mouse is much better than that discusting little hockypuck.
Gimme some of that sweet, sweet crack.
First off, I own a MS 5-button. I love it. It's great for what I want. However, when someone says to a new user, click, the user only has a 1/5 chance of getting it right. That's why Apple has 1 mouse button--to make it easier for a user. In fact, the OS is designed so that novice users only ever need 1 button. All I have to say, is that 1 button on the new mouse is perfect. The mouse is so smooth (both physically and operationally), and it looks absolutely goregous. If you want to see something cool, turn the lights off when you're using it. Furthermore, to give you an idea about Apple's attention to detail, on the bottom ring, where you set the clicker's tension, there's a magnifying glass right on the ring so that you can easily see what tension you're using. Wow! Even owning my M$ mouse, as soon as I saw this thing, I knew I wanted one. It's absolutely goregous, and really delievers the type of design only Apple seems able to create nowadays.
Why not use the front section of the mouse surface for pointing, the mid section for dragging and the back for resting your hand?
It's a good idea to put the wheel in a thumb-accessible location, but being a satisfied Trackman Marble+ owner, I'd be pretty annoyed. :) Maybe it could go on the right side of the mouse, so the pinky could use the wheel. No-one uses their pinky for clicking any buttons anyway, unless they've got some seriously weird mouse.
But the little black holes emit light -- Hawking radiation and all that. I think they're just blaming the bugs on the user.
---
I hope they come out with a multi-button version by the time osX ships preinstalled.
MacOS may be built for one button but Unix isnt.
yeah, when I came to the USA for the first time, I found hiring a car with only two pedals well confusing. Couldn't work out how to turn the MS 'automatic gearshift' Wizard off so I could choose when to change gears rather than the car doing it for me...
Think I'll stick to my bicycle next time... :-)
Did it ever occur to you to go to the Apple web site? A huge photo, plus a link to a spinning QTVR view.
You're welcome.
"The mouse is also a breakthrough in technological design. Apple will be the first company to bundle an optical mouse with all its desktop systems."
The breakthough in technology is a separate sentence, and is not being disputed in this case. The article leads the reader to think that Apple is the first to use optical mice with desktops, which as a matter of history is false.
I agree with your observations regarding the limitations of Sun optical mice, but no one here is claiming they were great. Perhaps they were great in their time.. they sure beat the old DEC VAX "larger than a hockey puck" mice.
-phillip
If they are only going to make mice with one button, they should make them shaped like Mickey Mouse better fit the target audience.
MS's 2 finger mice are bad enough, but one button?
With one button, you have to double and tripple click and use the keyboard to get anything done.
For simplicity, why not have a one button keyboard and have up to 102 consecutive clicks to represent each key.
A logitech-like 3 button mouse that fits my hand please.
I recently attended a lecture on software engineering by one of the developers of Microsoft Office, and he mentioned that a significant number of users that they had polled for research didn't even *know* that there was a second mouse button on their PC mouse. I can't for the life of me remember the exact percentage, but it was pretty significant... something like 30-40%. If that's true (and it's an accurate measurement), then IMO Apple's one-button approach isn't a bad idea.
magic chef
tongue in cheek
Sure, MacOS is optimized for a one-button mouse. Think of how much smaller and simpler programs are. You know, apps that handle left-button, right-button, wheel push, wheel roll, chording, middle button, side buttons, and so on.
These extra lines of code are just bloat and feature-creep, right? Everyone's a first-time user who feels comfortable with fewer options, for the first several years, right?
Fewer features, optimized. Think different.
:)
[
Hmmm. Mac hardware is fully capable of dual-booting Linux and Mac OS. The real question is, what could possibly induce you to use Windows at that point? *grin*
(Oh. Video games? Hmmm. Well. That's what Dreamcast/Playstation/Arcades are for.)
I do not have a signature
[Apple will be the first company to bundle an optical mouse with all its desktop systems.
Nope. Sun was selling optical mice with the SparcStations LONG ago.]
Mac will be the first to sell it with all of their desktop systems. Sun didn't sell it wilth ALL of theirs, only some.
Gaming requires that the mouse can track accurately when being moved very fast. Optical mice can have problems with this (why I use my Logitech Gaming Mouse (the old wedge-shaped version, slightly updated)).
Also, as other posters have noted, most people are comfortable with thier mouse on an angle, which can vary over time (as well, I tend to readjust myself during a game, which would throw the mousepad out of whack). This makes strict horizontal/vertical alignment difficult. Again, for desk work this isn't an issue, but for the mouse not to behave as you think it should in the middle of a firefight...
Kensington is releasing a "clone" of the gray MS Intellimouse that will be symmetrical. Probably cheaper too. The main difference is that instead of 2 thumb buttons on the left, there is one on each side. I couldn't find any info on their site yet, but I saw the mouse at Macworld Expo.
"Looks like Microsoft may finally have some competition for the optical IntelliMouse."
i'm sorry, but the intellicrap is the worst mouse i've ever seen. it's a great concept and all, but it doesn't work very well. on all 3 boxes i have used one on, it jumps around the screen every once in a while, very annoying. also, when you rev it really fast, it can't seem to keep up, not ideal for gaming. just my $.02
Erian
-
-
This Post has been brought to you by the letter "E".
The problem with the optical track ball is that crud collects on the tiny ball bearings inside the housing. This prevents the ball from rotating smoothly.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I can't relate to having 'very little control' over my left hand. No, I can't imagine what it'd be like to be thoroughily inept along one side of my body, if that's what you're saying. Do people live their lives with their non-dominant arm tied behind their back? How the hell to lefties drive stick shifts? To have 'very little control' over one's shifting arm would suck.
Geez... it's all about learned skills. You're a righty, you catch baseballs in a glove on your left hand because thats how you learned. Moving a mouse pointer on a screen is many degrees easier than consistently catching a baseball in flight.
If lefties want to torture themselves, fine. I just don't see why one can't spend a week with the mouse on the right side of the keyboard, learn to make your life easier.
Oh, I had thought it was from the descriptions I had read.
I guess its not innovative at all, but a lame one-button optical mouse selling for $20 more than a 5-button optical mouse from MS.
The only difference is the Macintoth Mouth matcheth my interior decorating thcheme...
I started to get some pain in my right hand from mousing, so I switched to using the left. I was pretty clumsy the first week, a lot better the second, and after that I no longer noticed. Nowadays I switch back and forth every few weeks to even up the wear.
So I would say it is quite possible to use the 'wrong' hand - mousing is a fairly simple motor skill which it seems one can learn pretty fast.
I'm glad apple doesen't make cars. sheesh imagine holding the pedal down for a sec to brake or change gears Put out the lights on the age of reason."
Vaughn "Its always darkest before it goes pitch black."
well, it's not like the surface of the mouse is touch sensitive or something. it's just a big hinged button. you tilt the top of the mouse, and it presses the switch down. one switch==one button. the rumors of the mouse registering various tilts as different clicks didn't pan out - and i'm not sure how it would be done, unless the hinge were a ball joint or something...
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
see, its just like the microsoft one... oh wait, it only has one button, not 2 or 4 or 19 like the different microsoft choices. and no wheel.
tell me again why we hate microsoft? its the lack of choices, right?
Agilent got all the stuff HP was famous for in the first place - top notch test equipment. Now all HP has is a bad PC line, a dying server series, and a (for you older guys out there) hot CEO.
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
I do, being left-handed. Frankly, I don't understand people like the first whiner either. All my life I've been left-handed, but, you know what? It's a right-hand world.
Fortunately for me, human beings are pretty darn adaptable. So I can use right-hand scissors, and I use my mouse with the right hand.
When the world gives you right-hand tools..... Just use your right hand. Anyone CAN learn to do
things with the other hand. It's just a little harder. And in the end, it's a whole heck of a lot easier to just teach yourself to use the mouse on the right side, than to rearrange 95% of the workstations whenever you need to use them.
The article frequently mentioned that mouse pads would be a thing of the past if users all switched to optical mice. While it's true that optical mice can work on a variety of surfaces, I don't think that the mousepad industry will be shutting its doors any time soon.
I bought an Intellimouse w/Intellieye earlier this month, and proudly set it on my desk without a mousepad. The response was decent, but I switched back to a mouse pad for one reason: comfort. The pad is soft, which minimizes the physical feedback I get from pushing it around. It also provides some traction: I don't want the mouse slipping around all over the place. Lastly, a lot of people have custom mouse pads that have everything from calculators to picture frames built in. It'll really be a vanity thing, IMO.
Mouse pads aren't going away. Not only do they provide ergonomic advantages as detailed above, but there are probably many people out there whose desks just aren't suited for optical mouse technology.
For more information, click here.
Uhh...competition? The Microsoft optical mice SUCK. If you move them too fast (such as doing a quick 180-then back in counter-strike) they will go insane and start flying the cursor around the screen. This basically makes them useless for gaming. I had one for a day before I returned it. Most likely Apple's new mouse will be just as useless.
-W.W.
"Well it should be obvious to even the most dim-witted individual who holds an advanced degree in hyperbolic topology...
They actually use the same component. The optical detector is made by Agilent (my father was one of the engineers who designed it), and for some unknown reason Microsoft didn't decide to go for exclusive licensing. I'm actually a little bit surprised that Logitech isn't making one already.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
- one button
- two button
- three button
- intellimouse
- trackball
- optical
which mouse will win? we can put them all together in a room full of digital cheese and see which one survives the battle!!Actually, it's not, but Agilent. That's the part HP spun off when they decided to focus strictly on computers. Agilent got to keep a chunk of the fun stuff.
Hell yes, I'm biased.
The reason I dislike clicking the wheel as a button is that I'd have a single part of my mouse acting as three distinct buttons - and I have to worry about accidentically scrolling when I'm trying to click.
It's a minor quibble, but that's just the layout I prefer. And since I don't do much mouse-driven gaming, I find the low maintenance of the Logitech optical mouse to be ideal for my needs.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Not from what I can tell... I bought Logitech's optical mouse last week out of curiousity, and although it's far more precise than the old mouse ball (and I'm just using the legacy PS/2 adapter under Linux), the CCD still goes nuts if I try and move the mouse across the pad too quickly.
I've adapted to it in Q3A; it was just a matter of jacking up the sensitivity high enough to where fast twitches across large pad areas weren't necessary. In the end, the positives (not having to clean a mouse ball, precision) outweigh the negatives of not being able to track rapid movements with much success.
Be sure you're using a mousepad or surface with irregularities (wood grain, patterns, etc.) so the CCD can differentiate between different portions of whatever you're using it on.
:wq
They have been holding off on the 2 button idea for a while now. why?
If the media knows that ppl want 2 buttons then there must be a large demand for it.
Many of these mac users want to stop pressing mouse/keyboard combos in order to get to certain menus. Makes sence, why not let them have 2 buttons?
I wonder, is a an attempt to force mac users to stay with mac OS? How motivated are you to install an OS (linux) whos GUI reccomends 3 buttons when you only have 1 button avalible?
I honestly think thats a silly way of looking at it, because if the processor is truly so much faster then I might enjoy running my os of choice on faster hardware. But to invest money in something I am not sure I'll enjoy is stupid. (I could borrow a friends mac but now I still have to purchase a mouse.) However if i was (assuming i didnt need to purchase a mouse) impressed with the mac hardware then $3.5k isn't that hard to justify. (ok it is a lot of money but ppl spend more then that on cars )
Basicaly my rant boils down to one question:
Are they forcing ppl to stay in MacOS or is it purely in the interest for the newbie (confusable) comsumer?
if it is NOT to confuse a consumer then I have a question: Are ppl that dumb? And how hard would it be to map both buttons to the same function by default?
-rev
excuse the poor english. i didnt talk much as a child (no-one interesting to talk to)
They did. The optical mouse in question has no buttons. To click, you just kinda push on it.
Just ordered mine; should arrive in a couple weeks (I'm a cheap bastard and will wait for free shipping).
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
This is slightly off topic but I rant whenever I get the chance. WHY ARE LEFT HANDED PEOPLE BEING NEGLECTED !!!!!
I tried once to get an ergonomically correct left haded mouse. aparantly it doesnt' exist and for teh few comapnies that make one I have to pay more money. I have also used those sun mice with the grid pad and it is impossibel to use. I have to cross my eyes and turn the pad upside down for it to work I cant' take it. one of my greatest deleits in life is watching a right handed person try to use my computer.
Actually I remember reading somewhere that the Microsoft optical mouse has a processor about as powerful as a 486....
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I had never really used a scroll wheel until about a year ago I visited a friend that had one. I found after using it for only about 30 minutes, my wrist actually *hurt*! I can type for hours with no problem, but just a few minutes with the wheel was enough to make sure I never have one attached to my computer.
It's too bad, since the wheel can be terribly convienent at times.
Ummmm, no...
How are you supposed to modulate your braking without a brake pedal (seperate braking input)? Admit it: you analogy doesn't work.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
Better yet, why stop at 3 buttons, or 5?
Why have any buttons at all? There is a buttonless mouse out there.
=================================
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
It's called a "reality distortion field".
I am an extremely fast twitch quake/unreal player. The M$ Optical mice cannot handle fast twitches well at all. If you twitch really fast, the mouse will go off in all different directions.
I've done this with several of these mice/surfaces, so it's not that I had a bad mouse. Needless to say, that just won't cut it for a lot of gamers like myself.
Actually, just using the mouse for normal applications I sometimes move it faster than it can handle. I find this very annoying.
Does anyone know if the newer mice still have these problems?
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
um, actually, i head that apple had a wheel on a mouse way back in like the fourteenth century.
don't know if they invented it, but there is a chance.
they just didn't think it was a good idea, which adds, well, another layer to the "ein komputer, ein fuhrer, ein mausbutton syndrome".
adrien cater
boring.ch
Point and Grunt
I guess Apple doesn't fancy its customers to be above buying based on looks and feel alone (function be damned, right?). Shame on the reviewer too, for he seems to be too absorbed in the attractive design judging by how he shills Apple's latest halfass job.
It's really impossible to argue that Apple was ever interested in the PC community, and the appearance of yet another one-button UFO is just keeping things simple and consistent for Apple's Legion of Mouthbreathers.
When criticizing the reviewer, you have to remember that he, too, is part of the LoM. In my experience, many Apple users don't buy Apple hardware; they support Apple as an institution using their time and money, and reviews of Apple hardware reflect this.
Look into a PC magazine, and you see articles discussing the comparative strengths and weaknesses of a number of systems from a number of manufacturers; clear winners and losers emerge.
By contrast, any Apple reviewer is ideologically constrained to say good things about any hardware out of Cupertino that does'nt offer danger to life and limb.
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
--
--
We have fought the AC's, and they have won.
I own a e button Logitech optical mouse and it is *sweet* (especially for it's list price $29.99).
;)
E button? Does that mean it has 2.718281828 buttons?
=================================
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
The mouse won't work on surfaces that pass through or reflect light, such as glass tabletops or mirrors. Otherwise, the sky's the limit.
Try to find something on your desk that doesn't reflect light, I dare you...
Okay, so some of you might have a singularity in your office, but I don't...
---
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
1. Any modern mouse needs a wheel. I got so used to scrolling pages (code, web pages, email) with my index finger, I feel positively handicapped when a mouse doesn't have a wheel. Of course, the sensitivity and speed need to be set up correctly for it to feel right, but whizzing up and down in a document with the hand on the mouse and without dragging scroll thumbs is a breeze.
2. The whole one-versus-many buttons argument is moot. For the ones that have never used more than one button for extended periods, a single button is all that seems to be required. For the ones that are used to right-click for context menus (the most logical and time saving application of the right button IMO), going to one button is handicapping. The orignal thought behind the three button interface in XWindows seemed logical enough, except they had a more cumbersome idea of how editing should work, and the use of the two right buttons has been historically inconsistent anyway. I think Windows has finally gotten it right enough. Going to a Mac and first having to select an object, then moving up to the menu for its properties, or alternatively command-clicking, can be a pain. There are tons of computing activities that can be done very efficiently single-handedly with a context menu, my favorite being browsing the web and right-clicking on pictures to save them.
3. While Sun's optical mouse was primitive by the new standards, it WAS an optical mouse. If all Apple claims is that they are the first to bundle an OPTICAL mouse, they're plain wrong, period. They have to qualify that statement to be correct.
4. Let's give Microsoft credit for that technology, shall we? I haven't read the Apple blurb, but if they don't mention MS anywhere, they're being two-faced. Then again, Apple is hardly disappointing in that respect. I'm sure someone will come out and claim that it wasn't really Microsoft who developod the technology (probably Xerox, right?). Even if that were true, they marketed the first commercially available product, so Apple is an also-ran in any case.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
Okay, I use a Sparc10 a lot, and calling that disaster of a mouse a breakthrough is an insult to, uh, lots and lots of stuff. viz.
1. It requires a special pad. If you lose the pad you have a serious problem. If you damage the pad you have a serious problem. If the pad is not big enough you have no other option. If you want a picture of whatever on your pad you're out of luck.
2. If you rotate the pad 45 degrees or more, the mouse fails to work. I find it absolutely amazing that a company like Sun that makes such hot-ass stuff would ship a mouse that fails to work if the pad is rotated. Of course, Sun, in their infinite wisdom, failed to put any grip stuff on the bottom of said pad just to ensure that I get a nice break every 15 min. to re-align my mouse pad.
3. Who here hasn't had to walk over to a rack-mount with a keyboard and bring a binder for a mid-air mousepad? Does Sun make binders for their optical mice?
4. The mouse itself is shaped like a paperback. Very ergonomic... if you're a robot.
5. The buttons are a half centimeter wide. Is Sun getting kickbacks from the Very Narrow Button Company?
If the Sun optical mouse is a "technological breakthrough" then I'm hooking up with the unabomber...
2 1337 4 u!
As I was reading your comment and stroking my mouse, though, I thought of something: Why not put the wheel in a thumb-accessible position, at about a 45 degree angle to horizontal? You could turn the wheel by opening and closing your thumb grip, which is about the most natural hand movement I can think of (for humans, anyway.)
The funny thing is, the MacOS interface has been ripping off Windows features more and more in recent versions... Almost any feature that is activated by a right-click in Windows, is activated by a ctrl-click or cmd-click in MacOS... er... 9, is it? Context menus are a notorious example. It's a real pain.
MSK
You are? Works great in Solaris with Netscape...
In this behavior model, the focus is on avoiding the learning process. Vast amounts of time, energy, and ranting are expended to prove that any solution, no matter how incomplete or ultimately limiting, is better if it does not require any "learning" by the user. A bonus is awarded if the non-learning solution is "cute".
[set sarcasm = 1]
I am eagerly awaiting the moment when schools stop teaching writing and speaking, (both of which are legacy technologies long obsolete) and issue the kids with picture flash cards.
In this clearly superior GUI communication model, kids will hold up a picture of a toilet when they need to use the bathroom, or a picture of a Big Mac when they are hungry. After all, kids are very busy little people, and there is no need to waste their time on obsolete learning!
[set sarcasm = 0]
Your wallet stays open. Our source remains closed. We are MSFT
People are saying that the mouse is horrible for gaming, since there's only one mouse button and no wheel.
And they're right. It IS horrible for gaming.
Can't Quake3 without a wheel, moving your left hand to switch weapons is certain death.
I know that when I go to my friend's house and he has a Logitech 4-button mouse I just can't immediately figure out how to use it.
And why should you? That's your friend's mouse. Do you think he's uncomfortable with it?
A penny for your thoughts.
A witty
Nope. My mouse has 3 buttons, and two wheels (vertical and horizontal). I wouldn't mind having more (on the opposite side, or thin ones under the main ones), if they performed special functions.
But then, that's me. I'm not exactly the person Apple is aiming for.
Sticks are for vehicles that can steer their vector in more than one dimension. Cars cannot, thus the wheel. It also allows for finer control. Trust me, you wouldn't want to drive a responsive car with a stick, just like you wouldn't want to play Gran Turismo with the DualShock gamepad. (you'd do much better with a NeGcon)
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
They're not saying such things about you. They're saying that the majority of their users only need one button. You're obviously not one of their users, so that doesn't include you. They're also saying that they've done usability testing, and most people who don't use computers are confused by multiple buttons. You have computer experience, so that doesn't include you either. If you think Apple is wrong, do a similar study and show us your results.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Since the whole mouse is the button and is "clicked" by applying pressure... how sensitive is this? Is the sensivity adjustable. I'm sure that i grip the mouse pretty hard at times and wouldn't really want to be clicking everytime that i grab the mouse.
The mouse is also a breakthrough in technological design.
Ummm...how? I used my first optical mouse in...1993. Apple will be the first company to bundle an optical mouse with all its desktop systems.
Nope. Sun was selling optical mice with the SparcStations LONG ago.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Microsoft licensed the technology from HP, who may or may not have a patent on it. HP is liecensing it to everyone under the sun (MS, Logitech, Apple, etc.)
The upshot is that all new Macs will come with an optical mouse.
Too bad it doesn't look ergonomic.
Plus, I want a wheel and another couple of buttons.
Overall... its better than the hockey puck. Now all I need is someone to convince me to use a Mac instead of Windoze or Linux
Please take some time to investigate the product(s) before you spew BS. (That'd take all the fun out of
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
The only thing that was displeasing about the Sun mouse was that you HAD to use their mousepad. Otherwise it totally rocked! Always perfectly smooth movement, no gumming up the works.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
If you're going to nit pick, almost all mice have been optical for a long time. Most mice have two perforated disks (on for each axis) that spin between an IR emitter and detector, hence making them optical. These new mice from microsoft and apple ARE a technological innovation, just a poorly described one.
No, a car does not need two pedals. Imagine a single pedal. When it is not pressed, the car is stopped, and as the driver pushes the pedal, the car gains speed. Want to slow down? Just let up on the pedal a bit. Want to come to a rapid stop? Just let the pedal out all the way.
Amazing magic tricks
Oh, and as long as I'm dissing Apple and praising the Borg, how about windows you can resize from any edge? There was a great shareware control panel called Stretch that gave the Mac interface this capability (one of the few things Microsoft got right and Apple got wrong, wrong, wrong),
I have to totally disagree with you on this.
resizing from any edge is mildly convenient in rare cases, but it is a deal breaker in others given the crappy interface design of windows.
With the whole application window as a container for the document windows thing. ex. go live cyberstudio, commnet, hotline etc.
Quite frequently the titlebar of a document window(you know the only place you can move the window from) gets pushed up above the visible area of the containing application window.
You are now totally SOL since you can't move the window any more. With the Mac, you can move the window from any edge which is much more important.
---CONFLICT!!---
The wheel hurts to use! When I first sat down at a windows machine set up with one of those things I thought it was kinda neat and I used it in IE, but at the end of the day my wheeling finger definately hurt. So, now all I use it for is middle click. Having gotten into SunOS as my first unix, I'm definately biased in favor of three button mice.
Start Running Better Polls
Ummm... have you tried clicking the wheel? I don't understand why you need 4 buttons in X windows - anyway, X thinks of the wheel as your 4th and 5th buttons - you should be able to not map those and have a 5 button mouse!
Anyone know of any way to get this to work with a PC? It's USB, so i'm sure it's possible... I don't have enough money to get a full Mac system right now so I'm gonna start with the mouse ;)
-colin
-Colin
The first thing I do when I setup a new mac is to throw out that irritating and stupid one button mouse. Don't they fucking get it? one button mice stick.
What next? Three button keyboard?
And what the hell was that round puck thing on RS6000 systems in '88-89? It didn't have a wheel and wasn't optical. It had two knobs that jittered underneath it... was that a friction sensor or something?
And technically, I think old vector style mainframes with light pens were "FIRST". In college I had to learn CAD on a mainframe with a vector display, lightpen and a palette of knobs. The light pen selected objects or line segments and the knobs adjusted various properties (I never got to use one b/c only three of the terminals had them).
Talk about an ergonomic nightmare! Not only was it impossible to tell the difference between selected lines and non-selected lines b/c of contrast (which got worse with more lines to draw), but holding your hand in front of the screen made my shoulders sore.
---
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
In The Humane Interface, he notes not only the reasons, but notes an oversight on his part which would have made a multi-button mouse reasonable.
yeah.. I bet CNN can get slashdotted..
Since over half of the people buying iMacs are new users. Apple is catering to the new-user market so they are concerned with ease-of-use.
It's little details like determining how to cater to new users that saved Apple's ass.
The only annoying part is the blue lighted logitech logo which is bright enough to put an eerie glow into my room at night.
I don't know where he got it, but I can't find it on logitech's web site right now.
Maybe I'm wrong about this, but doesn't Logitech now have an optical mouse out? Seems like maybe there's more competition than some people thought......
"Life ain't interesting till you blow something up" --Anonymous
Does anyone find the intellimouse explorer uncomfortable? I got one for my birthday a few months ago and I had to go back to my logitech mouseman. My hand just felt cramped after a few hours on the intellimouse. After a few weeks I just couldn't bring myself to use it. Recently I found the new(er) logitech optical wheel mouse. For $30 bucks this thing rocks. Simple, 3 buttons and a wheel and doesn't make my hand seize up. Let's hope the apple mouse doesn't suck as bad as the intellimouse.
- Everything that you like, sucks.
I'm using one right now, and I can feel the knuckle of my index finger and the muscles on that side of the hand moving every time I use the wheel.
I don't have any problem, but my hands are pretty big and I use the MS optical intellimouse, which is known for pretty good ergonomics.
Windows is designed with two buttons in mind, and that makes it nearly impossible to do tasks like getting properties without a two button mouse.
Actually, Windows is designed with one button in mind; it's just more efficient to use the second button. You can always get properties by selecting and then going to the menu (just like the Mac).
One way Windows is superior to the Mac however is that all applications can be used without a mouse. One way the Mac really stinks is in the area of keyboard traversal. Sometimes it's much more efficient to be able to not have to reach for the mouse. Yes, some Mac applications have keyboard shortcuts for common functions, but Windows has it built into the low-level GUI.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Rob Malda is my personal savior. He can be yours too.
--Ask a silly person, get a silly answer.
Sure, you can live without them, but would you want to?
Hitler only had one nad. That might've been what made him mad.
Apologies to the females here, for whom the above analogy certainly does not apply, unless they use buttonless mice.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
>However, Apple continues to use the one-button
>mouse for a single, overriding reason:
> ease of use.
Why don't they come up with a null-button mouse.
That would increase the ease of use a lot.
Let the Computer decide what to do...
Logitech already has made them :)
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
Logitech's had an optical trackball (the Trackman Marble) for years now, a wonderful little number that I don't think has ever gotten the recognition it deserves. I'm admittedly behind the times in that I don't use one with a wheelie-dealie on it, but this is the only pointing device I'll use with my computers anymore.
Not only that, but everyone I've introduced to the Trackman Marble has adopted it as their exclusive pointing device of choice. They're easy to use, you never have to worry about a surface to use it on, and they're amazingly easy to clean.
The next pointing device I buy will probably have to be linked directly to my brain in order for it to merit me getting rid of my Trackman Marble.
- 3 PCI slot towers
- puck mice and tiny keyboards
- braindead install utilities for Rhapsody
If you'd bothered to read Apple reviews before making your generalization about the reviewers, you might not have misspoken.... It'l play games just fine.
This one from Good Systems Inc. works great for me!
M$: "We're #2!"
Okay, you don't like a one-button mouse. So? Buy a 3rd party aftermarket mouse; a decent one can be had for US$60, and that's a damn fine mouse.
/.'ers bemoan Apple for shipping propietary hardware while pissing and moaning about shipping a mouse to their own personal liking? Am I seeing a contradiction of some sort here?
Why is it that in the same breath, many
----
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
That's from the original post.
Given that statement, I was not addressing the Mac specifically... the mouse world in general.
Argue with Noctrnl... I'm just following the thread. The one you obviously didn't even pick up on. Writing this from a Mac, are you?
I have a "Zero Policy" tolerance.
I have a "Zero Policy" tolerance.
*/
If msft had a patent (I'm not sure), Apple may have gotten rights to it via the 'Steve & Bill summit' a few years back.
Remember that one ? Its the one where msft parked $150M at apple and everyone kissed and made up. Somewhere in the midst of all that 'mutual admiration' I seem to recall a patent cross-licensing agreement between red and blue.
- just another cosmic ray -
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
Background: At the computer labs in the school I went to, they kept a tight hold on those mice. You had to give them your ID, and they returned it when you returned the mouse. Apparently they had a rash of thefts. To which I say, they ARE nifty toys ;-) Oh, and the help desk people used to come to me for any Sun questions. What the hell made them think I knew anything?!!?? Of course I did, but that's irrelevant.
me: this mouse you gave me doesn't work.
"help" desk: did you try cleaning it?
me: I wiped it off, yeah, and I wiped off the mouse pad. still nothing.
hd: did you clean the ball?
me: there is no mouse ball.
hd: well, that's the problem then. it needs a ball.
me: no it doesn't. it's optical.
hd: where did you get that?
me: from you. less than a minute ago.
hd: oh, it must be broke.
me: okay then. Can I have a new one?
hd: no.
me: why not?!?!
hd: you broke it.
me: I didn't have a CHANCE to break it. I just got it.
hd: then why didn't the person before you say it was broken?
me: Because they broke it
hd: I don't believe you.
me: Fine. You don't have to. Just give me my id back.
hd: I can't do that.
me:(growling) and why not?
hd: Because you broke it.
repeat this for another 15 minutes or so. sigh.
Bad things often happen to good people,
It is up to them to see that they remain good.
LOL... great plot idea for a geeky takeoff on a james bond movie.
- j a c r -
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
The problem is that Apple has done nothing revolutionary... again.
Amazing magic tricks
People are saying that the mouse is horrible for gaming, since there's only one mouse button and no wheel.
I'll say the near-opposite. The fact that there's no wheel follow's Apple's classic strategy -- simplicity.
Does no one hate Microsoft for making the mouse as complex as it is now? I know that when I go to my friend's house and he has a Logitech 4-button mouse I just can't immediately figure out how to use it.
One button is simple. It's cool.
That's because there's no real choices in ANYTHING on a mac
In that case, then how do you explain Apple's web-based Configure-To-Order system? Many of Apple's products can be ordered in hundreds of different configurations directly from the web to the factory.
Pete C (developed part of Apple's CTO system)
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
yup, two of them, both with wheels. One has two real buttons and the other has the additional thumb button. I believe that for both the wheel can act as a 3rd button.
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
http://www.contourdesign.com/
They make both right and left handed mice.
And the new pro mouse is meant for either hand.
Fair enough, it's a tasty-looking bit of kit - Apple have definitely got an edge over everyone else as far as style goes, I have to concede - but how much is this going to penetrate outside of the Mac market? I don't see too many of those institutions who've shelled out for all those iMacs foaming at the mouth at the thought of paying $60 a unit for these things...
Likewise, I don't believe too many people are going to chuck in an Intellimouse for one of these. A whole-surface button sounds kind-of cool, but if the sensitivity is shot like a trackpad, it's only going to be a pain in the arse.
It'll look nice with the Cube, though, I guess.
Hmph. Maybe I'm just disappointed 'cause I'd been hoping that the surface of the mouse would be mappable. So you could be working in P*shop and lean back on the ball of your palm rather than hit a Ctrl modifier key to add to a selection... that would have tasted very nice...
Speaking of which, has anyone found any better photos of this thing?
Once again Apple chooses to forsake the rest of the PC using populace by stubbornly adhering to its begrudginly minimalist one-button design. Since my first days as a computer user neither I nor any 'normal' person has had any excessive problems with the traditional two button design, perhaps even finding it easier. Left click actions, right click menus (or vice versa)... that's not too hard to comprehend. I've used one button Apple mouses, and found them consistently annoying and irksome.
Of course there is also the problem that the new mouse appears to be aiming to sell on mainly asthetic value. It costs more than the overpriced wireless MS mouses (the one thing MS always gets right, if you ask me) and yet it keeps the cable. I guess the optical sensor is an innovation from the so called 'puck' (another obvious asthetically based selling point) but still I'd expect better of a long standing company like Apple. I guess Apple doesn't fancy its customers to be above buying based on looks and feel alone (function be damned, right?). Shame on the reviewer too, for he seems to be too absorbed in the attractive design judging by how he shills Apple's latest halfass job.
Emerson Willowick: Thinker, Writer, Human Being.
BTW, I have one of these things (IntelliMouse Explorer), and the bundled drivers don't support the two side buttons. I downloaded the latest drivers, and the side buttons still don't work. Anybody know what I'm doing wrong? (Yes, this is on a Windows box.)
--
--
We have fought the AC's, and they have won.
Well, Mr. Gore (the reviewer) says that the mouse even works on the palm of one's hand. But I know my palm, at least, is not a flat surface. So clearly the mouse works even if the sensor is not right up against whatever surface you are using. Which makes me wonder: How far away from the non-reflective/translucent surface can the mouse be? Could I wave it about in the air a foot over my desk and still have it work?
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Are there any, currently, that don't, besides purely optical ones?
I have a couple of old Hawley mice that use metal brushes instead. Anyone happen to know the interface for these? (They have a DE9 with an AUI-style slide lock.)
X-rays are light, but it's irrelevent, since Hawking radiation isn't in the x-ray range of the spectrum. That, and it's a theoretical device used to explain the absence of microscopic blackholes more than a useful artifact to look for in the sky.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
I agree with others that while I love the wheel, and use it all the time, it's a hand killer.
I think what would be better (and useful to those with one button) is a small control area on the screen that you could click on, and drag to scroll up/down - by moving the mouse right/left you could control how fast the screen scrolled by. I don't think it would be annoying to have the mouse cursor stay still while you scrolled because unlike things that move the mouse for you, you would be the one "pinning" the mouse in place and could release it any time.
You could even embed such a control somewhere in the scroll bar, in order to maintan the current space occupied by scrolling technologies.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The way the Sun mice worked, an LED reading across a gridded metal surface, is nearly the same as the way current high tech mice work.
Take a logitech; it has, inside the standard case, two spoked wheels; when an LED gets broken by a spoke, the mouse has moved. In a very similar way, the Sun optical mouse happens to detect the LED reflection getting broken by the grid on the metal mouse pad. In this way, the Sun optical mouse technology has been in use in PC mice for very many years.
That in mind, the newer Apple and M$ mice *are not* in the same category. It's a very different principle, and instead use a CCD type mechanism, if I recall correctly, for it's tracking.
Bye!
GPL Deconstructed
really--I've got a sun 'type 5' optical mouse, and associated reflective grid mousepad, sitting on my desk right now.
I just love constantly picking the mouse up and putting it back in the center of the mousepad.
PHB: My mouse is at the edge of my mousepad, and I still can't get the cursor to the edge of the screen.
Techsupport: have you tried rebooting your machine?
PHB: Yes, twice.
Techsupport: it looks like you will need my $800 mousepad 'upgrade'
PHB: OK
--- Scott Adams
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
Interested in the Colorado Lottery or Powerball games?
check out http://colotto.com
The neat thing about all these USB peripherals that Apple is making is that those of us who are too poor to afford decent Apple computers could conceivably use their mice on our intel machines. Of course, it would not have occured to anybody who has had to use a hockey puck mouse. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't want to make any mouse with more than one button.
I saw a hockey puck mouse being sold sepperately in a CompUSA that was in the middle of a vast suburban wasteland stripmall farm. I would have considered buying it as a hockey puck, but I don't think it's durable enough. It most definitely would not work as a street hockey puck, and I have a feeling that one well-placed shot for the goal would have sent the thing shattering into a million translucent pieces that would be hard to spot on ice. Maybe there are some Canadians with thoughts on using this device as a hockey puck.
Lets not forget that one of the real great interface "wins" that Windows 95 had over 3.1 was the utilization of the second mouse button. A side-effect of that is it encourages users to poke around at things that aren't made readily apparant.
Mice like this and MS's initellimouse are nice, but why not move one step forward and use a track ball? Better yet, use an optical track ball. There's no need for mouse pads, which saves on desk space, none of that lift and drag that you have to do with mouse pad style mouses (mice?), and the chicks dig it. Who could ask for more?
What?!! You mean Microsoft didn't originate the technology behind one of their products? I'm shocked,yes shocked, that this could happen! (Ok, ok, I should have known.)
You can do all the context menu stuff by dragging:
A Command+click in IE 5 will open a link in a new window, which is very quick and useful, and faster than choosing a context menu item. I use that all the time.
#1, where is your sence of humor
#2, No the world isnt' that stupid that you have to restate the obvious as if it were a profound fact.
it's a simple fact being laft handed means you have to be a conformist because you live in a right handed world. no one is askign to re-write the books just simple stating that left handed people are an neglected group of folks. no we dont' complain like everyone else but hey it nice to make a point, be it a joke or other wise. look i'm typing with both hands how profound, tomorrow I may hold my coffee with my right hand. jeeze man. my whole family is left handed (pops had strong genes) so left handed issues come up all the time, my cousin turns paper upside down when he writes not to mention having people watch you becuase you turn you hand crooked to write.
so go away
In Windows land, this is already possible with many different implentations. Basic theory is that you do some special click (like both left and right buttons, a middle button, or some sort of key-click), and the entire mouse turns into a scroller. Move the mouse up, and the window view scrolls up. Or the mouse is used to "drag" the open document, like in BeOS' NetPositive, and the document moves in the opposite direction.
--
The contrast was especially annoying because I was also using the AT&T Bell Labs Blit workstation, which comes with the One True Mouse. It's red, it's almost-half-spherical, and the buttons are on the front (Not the front of the top, but the vertical front side.) It was made by some company in Switzerland. It felt perfect, let my hands be in a natural relaxed position, and didn't cause wrist strain while pushing the buttons. The original had a metal ball; it was followed by a cheaper version with a plastic ball that didn't work as well and needed cleaning more often, but it still was the right shape and felt right.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Yes, this will be ultimate "Point and Grunt" technology. Apple users will have also "short grunt" and "long grund" along with "double grunt", and windows users also will have "low voice grunt" and "high voice grunt". The only downside of this technology is that it is shown by research that it causes extensive hair growth over all the body and uncontrollable desire to climb the trees and eat bananas. Scientists are working to control that effect. "Grr-grr!", says the lead researcher of Apple Point-n-Grunt Research Lab.
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
Stretch solved the latter problem quite simply: holding down the Option key let you move the window by holding any edge. There might be a similar workaround in Windows but who the hell cares.
(By the way, that "moving the window by any edge" capability in MacOS only came along with the new "fat" window frames with the Appearance control panel in OS 8.)
I, a troll? I didn't even mention the introduction of Appearance themes (with no actual Themes made available)! Oops, now I did.
Simpletoneity, n. -- The phenomenon of many people all doing the same stupid thing at the same time.
Well, I personally don't care, since I'd better use CP/M on Z80 than Mac anyway. I regard all Mac system to be designed with low primates in mind, not humans. I just wonder how Mac users tolerate when Apple claims that they are unable to figure a concept that causes no problem with any 4-year-old I saw. I guess that is just mental burp of some high Apple manager that is now too invested in this idea to back up, so no matter how bad it is for the users, "usability studies" always will show he's right. After all, most of mentally damaged people don't have a good employment and aren't too rich, so it's easy to promise them some cash for participation in a little usability test...
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
How long is the mouse cord? I'd like to get one for my home PC but the tower is down on the floor, and I don't have USB on my keyboard or monitor.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
That depends on what you call a black hole. If you just count the stuff within the event horizon, as I think is customary (I'm not sure there is one true definition), then you're wrong. Nothing escapes from there. The radiation comes from just beyond it. Then again, maybe you knew that and just didn't expect anyone to nitpick (on Slashdot? What were you thinking?! :-)
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
Xerox, on the other hand, used optical mice whose pads are quite easy to replace, since they're just a black-and-white dot pattern. In case anyone has one of these around and doesn't know you don't need the original pad, this will do:
%!PSy0 s y1 { x0 s x1 { 1 index sq } for } for
showpage
Logitech already has an optical mouse, Microsoft's been having competition already. http://www.logitech.com/cf/products/productovervie w.cfm/55
Apple thought of that. Those two pads on the side freeze the mouse when you pick it up. They are in the natural place to put your fingers when doing so (they also hold the button down if it is, so you can do a drag wider than your desk)
Erm, anyone got a nice flat mousepad sized black hole?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
When I first saw the pic of the top, I said to myself "that looks like a sandal," so I dropped the link in with my IRC buddies and they agree that it looks like a piece of footware from the top.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
A 4 page review of apple's new mouse... must be a slow news day over at CNN.
I sure hope it does. Apple products are so pretty. http://www.ridiculopathy.com/article_detail.php?nu mber=00001
I don't know if there's any sort of flaw in the IntelliEye technology (which I understand Apple licensed from Msft), but I have horrible problems with my IntelliMouse Explorer. The left mouse button 'clicks' when I don't press it, and frequently double clicks when I do. It also has occasional problems detecting movement on the black keyboard extender surface on which I rest it. I hope Apple's doesn't have these same difficulties. On the other hand, I love the two buttons on the left side. I use them as substitutes for the forward and back buttons of the browser. A one-button mouse like Apple's would seem way too limiting after having this feature. In fact, when I use a normal two-button mouse I frequently find myself squeezing the left side, trying to press these nonexistent buttons. It's surprising how quickly you can get accustomed to using them.
"Looks like Microsoft may finally have some competition for the optical IntelliMouse."
...just my 2 cents, err I'm a Mac user, make that 1 cent :)
As the Apple mouse has only one button is not suitable for a PC or Linux on PPC for that matter. However it is a very comfortable mouse, I played with it at MacWorld.
Contextual menus
IIRC, the first use of extensive contextual menus in an application was Netscape 2 where it actually made sense. Their workaround for the mac was to make you hold down the signle button for a second, to reveal the "right click" menu. This is an inconvenient alternative. The Mac way of doing things at the time would have been to make all objects, every little graphic, selectable and you'ld choose an action from a menu in the main menubar. A Palette indexing every object on the page would have been another Mac-ish way of providing right menu functionality. (Think CAD apps)
To date, the browser is the only application that I wish I had two mouse buttons on my Mac and it is the only application I really appreciate having more than one button on my PC running Linux. (I like mac keyboard shortcuts for copy & paste) Windows feels like it forces it on you.
Scroll Wheels are great, but...
I'ld like to see a keybord integerating a scroll wheel so I don't have to shift my hand to far to get to it. I could it see it replacing my PageUp, PageDown, Home and End keys.
--Aaron Greenberg
Oh, and as long as I'm dissing Apple and praising the Borg, how about windows you can resize from any edge? There was a great shareware control panel called Stretch that gave the Mac interface this capability (one of the few things Microsoft got right and Apple got wrong, wrong, wrong), but it was incompatible with the Appearance Control Panel (introduced, and made mandatory, in OS 8).
And frankly I don't give a flying f%&* how my mouse looks with the lights off, either.
Simpletoneity, n. -- The phenomenon of many people all doing the same stupid thing at the same time.
Double-clicking in a properly-designed GUI is done when activating one or more elements from a list. Single-clicking selects, double-clicking "does more".
Whoa there, Tex. Let's take a moment for a reality check. A user interface is a mode of communication, and in the case of GUI's, it's a largely gestural mode of communication.
Germans (and I presume other Europeans) seem to like counting beginning with the thumb; Americans begin with the index finger. Some tribes in Papua-New Guinea indicate tens by placing their fingers on the opposite forearm. Schoolchildren trained in finger math reckon ones on the right hand and tens on the left. Some Chinese speak Mandarin, but many people in Borneo speak Malay, while the bulk of Peru's rural population speaks Quechua in utter disregard to the peculiar dialect of Spanish spoken in the urban centers.
It may be that endless flamewars are fought over which of these modes is "better", but those people are just as silly as those who debate about the correct number of buttons on a friggin' mouse and how many times you have to click to select a paragraph.
The simple fact is that it's all arbitrarily learned behavior and, within reasonable limits, any initial learning curve is irrelevant in the face of the bizarrely crotchety resistance to any deviation that develops in people once they've learned one convention. It's the same instinct that has spawned wars over languages and custom since the dawn of time, but reduced to the level of infinitesimal trivia.
Frankly, I don't give a rat's patootie for the [1|2|3] button mouse debate; I want an affordable version of one of those twenty-button pucks that comes on high-end digitizer tablets so I can do some real work with my mouse, but I'm not suggesting anyone else do likewise 'less you feel like it. If, for some reason, you feel compelled to let other people dictate the details of your life for you, forget mice and 1) take public transportation, 2) recycle more, and 3) refrain from buying products with excess packaging, or 4) anything else that actually matters.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
The mouse cable is short because it's only meant to go from the mouse to either the left or the right side of the keyboard. Mac keyboards have always had a spot for the mouse and joystick to plug into.
... it's good stuff.
... the apps are better, even though I'm using the same ones ... the audio ones are more mature, for sure. Things the OS provides for free, like QuickTime or PostScript fonts or color management, make my work better. I spend less time and effort on stupid tasks that the computer should really know how to do, and more on creativity. Out of the box, the Mac knows how to display almost every image, audio, or video file type you can find (and a freeware called SoundApp does all of the other audio types). When I want to add hardware, it's always plug and play and then it works (I've added two PCI cards, 4 or 5 FireWire devices, 10 USB devices, 256MB of RAM and over 200GB of hard drive space without having to do more than drag a driver file into the System folder and restart). Formatting a disk takes three seconds. I like recording my actions as AppleScripts instead of writing batch files. You can move apps around (or rename them!) and they still work. You learn a few key shortcuts and you're rewarded by being able to use them in all of your apps. You don't get a daily dose of "you're stupid" when you try something that "should" work but doesn't.
... so what? I only buy the good ones. It really isn't a bunch of zombies buying whatever Apple makes. Lots of people make a Mac last for three or four years, so they don't buy unless the new one is really good. Apple had a near-death experience a while back before NeXT bought them (ha ha) but their shit is just great now. Compare their product line from 1996 with what's expected in 2001. It's like a whole new company, and that's the point. A PowerMac G4 Cube with a Cinema Display and Mac OS X is a hell of a thing.
> And could some one please explain to me how
> otherwise rational people can have such feelings
> for a corporation?
I'm going to take your question as sincere, because I used to wonder that same thing before I got a Mac.
The short answer is "Because their products are really, really good." They really are. There is nothing like the iBook, especially when paired with AirPort. The battery lasts forever, it runs cool, it's as rugged as a tank, and the display is beautiful. It's great stuff. There's nothing at all like iMovie except iMovie. A friend of mine who can barely run a browser and email without help made 20 minutes of rambling camcorder footage into a 5 minute QuickTime movie and put it on the Web for free with iTools. I didn't help and he didn't read the manual. Quiet machines with no fans
The long answer is that I get at least twice as much work done on my Mac than I did on the Windows machine it replaced, and I enjoy the work much, much more. My work is better as well
I messed around with computers in the old days, but I don't have time for that now. When I need more hard drive space I just plug on a drive. It's not interesting to me to play Jerry Pournelle anymore. I don't want to worry about which drive letter Windows thinks is the CD-ROM today, or wonder if I can really drag an image from one app to another. I just want it to work, so I feel gratitude towards Apple for selling me a system that does work for about 10% more than a generic PC. You can't do the kind of work I do under Linux or BSD, so it's Mac or Windows. I LOVE not having to use Windows anymore, just like lots of Linux users love not having to use Windows anymore. How can you put a price on that?
The only really bad thing you can say about the Mac is that one app can crash and take down another and/or the whole system. But they're going to go public beta with the version that fixes that in September or so, and they'll put it out for real early in 2001, so the time for complaining about that is long past.
> willing to admit that Apple is capable of and
> has actually shipped bad product in the past?
Oh, sure
> I'm going to take your question as sincere, because I used to wonder that same thing before I got a Mac.
It is sincere. I am just always surprised by the emotional reaction of people to corporations.
> The short answer is "Because their products are really, really good."
I don't think it's giving away anything to people who know my login that I've worked at and for Apple several times. We all laugh when we hear blanket statements like that, and then reminisce about the GeoPod, PowerTalk, and the Performas. Happy days, happy days.
And honestly, Microsoft actually has some very good things about their products too.
My point is, we should not embrace corporations as an emotional choice. This is irrational thinking fostered by the beneficiaries of the corporate entities in advertising campaigns. We should consider corporations for what they actually are, a legal contrivance used to facilitate undertakings with some degree of risk.
As for your anecdotal arguments, I believe that every task undertaken by some free human must have something cool about it, or the person would not have spent the effort. It's our job to find out what's cool about it so we understand what the other guy is talking about. I like AppleScript too. I just wish that there were as rich a vein of scriptable apps and shells on the Mac as there is for VBScript on Windows. Or that I didn't have to resort to MPW every time I want to emulate a linux shell script. But those things don't dissuade me from enjoying BBEdit. They just remind me that I'm lucky some indiviual out there is the driving force behind my favorite text editor, and if he ever sells BareBones to some big entity and leaves, I will have to readjust my expectations until I know how I like the work of the new owners. Not the company, but the people who run the company.
That would probably screw over any local IRDA stuff...
Yeah, but Amiga had that ages ago - Guru Meditation. While building the system, whenever something would crash the designers would sit on this weird hinged surf-board looking thing where the idea was to sit as still as possible and nut out the problem. They left "Guru Meditation" in the error message - if only all PC users chilled when something went wrong.
Apple and Microsoft aren't the only ones. Logitech is shipping their padless optical mouse. It looks to be a nice mix of design: Two buttons and a scroll wheel, but not as bulky as the IntelliMouse.
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
Apple's new mouse overcomes this problem, so hopefully M$ will redesign their optical mouse to make it useable for lefties!
Good job, Apple!
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
What you forget is that this mouse was designed for Macs and Macs are designed for 1-button. You don't NEED more than one button in MacOS and lots of Mac zeal^H^H^H^H enthusiasts LIKE one button.
Personally, I use a logitech 3-button mouse because I do things that require the use of a 3-button mouse and find it to be a bit faster for certain tasks. However, if they didn't exist, I'd get along fine.
Andrew
I used optical mice on Sun 3's and Sun 4's, and those are ooold computers. But they aren't exactly desktop machines. And besides, they track too slowly for me. That's one thing I like about a mouse ball, they handle velocity a lot better.
;)
You can tell they aren't desktop machines because they have three buttons, too; Apple should be ready to release *that* new and innovative technology in no less than five years from now, if ever--it's just too dangerous and confusing.
I should probably mention here that my girlfriend loves the mouse she has on her PC--it has three regular butttons, two scroll balls, and a thumb button--and she uses them all.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
With Windows, you've got:
Single click: select.
Double click: open.
right click: menu.
The big problem they have is that they're moving their OS towards integration with the web paradigm that uses a single click for 'open', which I suppose is the same way you work with buttons (and therefore most dialog boxes).
Obviously, with the whole 'number of mouse buttons' debate, you've got a trade off between immediate usability for the novice and power. However, as using computers becomes more and more vital for living in the (admittedly first world) twenty-first century, I think people are more prepared to spend a little more time learning how to use something. We no longer need to convince people that learning to use a computer is something they have to do.
Therefore I'd suggest that more than one button is probably the way to go. It gives your more things you can do without touching the keyboard. As for how you use those buttons, well, that's a whole 'nother argument...
cheers,
Tim
This is good. I liked what I saw when the Macworld Expo news was coming out. I own a e button Logitech optical mouse and it is *sweet* (especially for it's list price $29.99). The sensor response is great and the no cleaning thing is a no-brainer.
I do wonder about the clicking by pressure point. I've brainwashed my hands into thinking clicking by fingers is correct but some seem to question whether this is ergonomically a good thing or not. Well, I can say from experience that using a mouse for hours without a break (Quake) is *not* a good thing. I'm not sure whether this would fix that problem or even alleviate it, but I'm sure I'm already dis-obeying ergo-guidlines by not taking frequent 5 minute breaks.
Anyways, I'm so glad we're getting mroe optical mice. Now my question is: When will we be seeing WIRELESS optical mice. I'd snatch those up in almost a hearbeat.
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
My Logitech Marble Trackman FX (lovely piece of hardware) has four buttons and you can choose one to use to turn movements on the ball to scrolling documents. Very very handy on long webpages.
The only problem I have with the trackball is that my 16 month old daughter has taken a liking to taking the ball out (it's held in by friction only) and hiding it. I would say it's slightly less accurate to use than a mouse but a heck of a lot more comfortable
Rich
Err.. guys.. There already is a competator to
the MS Optical mouse.. it's been out for a while now.
The Genius NetScroll optical.
Has 5 buttons, and a wheel, and works on the same principle as the MS one.
It even has support in XFree86 4.x for all the buttons and wheel natively!
Here is a picture I snapped of a mouse with a number pad on the back. The pic was taken the last time I bothered to go to a local "computer show" (read: Snake Oil Salesdrone convention)
IR blows. Line of sight is a pain in the arse. RF is the way. I have a Logtech RF cordless mouse - it rocks. Now if it could just be optical, with a USB connection for the receiver...
Just this morning I saw the new mouse in a new Apple commercial. It shows the mouse zooming all over a surface to a rock song. It then says "Now standard on all Macintosh computers". I have to say, this matches the Microsoft mouse extremly close, but Apple has gone just one step farther by throwing it in with all computers.
--
Scott Miga
suprax@linux.com
The current mouse has no buttons. Anyone who wants twice as many buttons can use the same model. :-)
:-)
Ok, technically it has one big button that covers the whole area of the mouse, but real power-users should just go and get two of 'em and plug 'em in side by side or with one for each hand. It's not like you're exactly maxing out your USB bus at the moment. Again,
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
You want a different color in your MS intellieye mouse? Do what i did, I went to radio shak and bought a blue LED and replaced the red one, and it works great.
:)
I've got the only Blue Light Intellieye in existance
I am that that is, not that that is not, that is.
I'm certainly going to want an aftermarket mouse
when I get my G4 and start running X on it.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Single click: Select
Double click: Activate
Right click: Menu/Options
Methinks you've been doing something horribly wrong (flame deleted on second thought) with your mouse if you're not sure when to click what or how many times. I'm really confused as to how you think the right click was a replacement for the double click.
My MacOS experience: where I should be right clicking, I click and hold and then the menu appears.
So simple it's stupid. Macs are for people that want their computer to be as simple to use as their toaster, too bad it ends up being just as flexible.
Yes I agree the only thing I miss about multiple buttons on a mac mouse is that I die to easily in Quake 3. Other than that... no big diff. I get by with two buttons in BSD on the PC...
That's because there's no real choices in ANYTHING on a mac. No options, no choices, none of the things apple likes to put in their ads.
Only if Apple's new mouse works well with one of the M$ operating systems, which of course, it doesn't.
mice had balls!! Not like these pasny mice we see today.
If you are interested in Apple products, one button is all you need. This is by design from the begining to help newbies. If you dont like using only one button go get a Logitech Mousman scroll (4 buttons all programmable and scrollwhere), they're cheap.
As for serial mice, where exactly are Mac users going to plug those in?
For those who really HAVE to have more buttons, Apple have conveniently put 101(ish) of them on a big flat thing nearby. With the aid of some rubber bands and a rollerskate, you can easily have a 102 button mouse that's about as well thought out as your argument.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Four-year-olds don't have any trouble with three-button mice. Four-year-olds don't buy computers.
I used to do tech support at an ISP. When running through the basic Dialup Networking configuration, I used to say "Right-click on the icon and go to Properties." Then I realized that this was confusing to half the people I spoke to; they would left-double-click instead. I started saying "click with the right mouse button on the icon, then click with the left button on Properties." Once I started saying it that way, I only had trouble with a few people.
If you don't believe that people can be that incompetent, then maybe you should get out more.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
My first "computer" professional experience was on a Quadra 800 AV with dual monitors while in the military as a photographer and graphic artist (yes, it was the best job in the military... period.)
This is where I first learned about SCSI, Ethernet, Photoshop and Painter.
Your post brought back a lot of great memories.
Although I am a lover of *nix (particularly Linux), I am still as productive on a Windows (9x/NT) machine as I am on a *nix machine as I am on a Mac machine.
So I would never consider myself a Mac Junkie or a Linux geek.
I just like computers.
P.S. I cannot wait to get my hands on a G4 with MacOSx.
ChozSun [e-mail]
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
I work at my college's computer center helpdesk. Believe me, there are plenty of people who have no concept of cause & effect. :)
______________________
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it!"
On a personal note, I think if Apple had only put a couple of more buttons on and a scroll wheel, I probably would have forsaken my Intellimouse Explorer to get one. While the functionality is still there with a one-button mouse (you have always been able to use keyboard modifiers: Ctrl-, Shift-, Command-, Option-), it's not as convenient. Plus that scroll wheel, and the ability to map macros to buttons is a huge plus in the Intellimouse.
<wishful thinking>When's there gonna be an apple-branded multi-button mouse?</wishful thinking>
If these optical mice are like the ones I'm familiar with on Suns, they have one fatal flaw: Mouse requires a certain kind (reflective) mousepad. I can't wait till a business converts its 100 computers to M$ optical mice, then one disgruntled employee, on his way out, swipes all the mousepads.
Why the hell is this an innovation? Logitech makes: Corded ball mice Cordless ball mice Corded Optical mice Cordless Optical mice And they kick ass... So where's the innovation?
"Recta non toleranda futuaris nisi irrisus ridebis"
"Recta non toleranda futuaris nisi irrisus ridebis"
Not a new idea. Here [PDF] is the best no-button mouse to-date and it's been around since '97. Reckon it has Apple beat??
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
Actually, according to Bruce Tognazzini, (the founder of Apple's Human Interface Group), they had working scroll wheels in 1989 (I'm guessing at the date, www.asktog.com has reached its daily quota)
I would imagine that it would've broken the surface of the mouse, so it was scrapped due to asthetics. Not that I blame them, but I would like to be able to switch out to a two button, scroll mouse for $5 in the Apple Store.
I wish I had a bewolf cluster of these mice ...
Seriously folks, why does this thing have a cord. Optical + wireless would rock + five buttons would rock.
timbu
Personally I'm waiting for a wireless padless-optical mouse with two buttons & a rollerwheel. But how many times a day will it require a change of batteries? :)
A penny for your thoughts.
A witty
"Looks like Microsoft may finally have some competition for the optical IntelliMouse."
...considering there has been a better designed, more functional, and cheaper optical mouse available from Logitech for some time now, not to mention the optical mouse that Sun distributed for use with the Sparc stations, i'd say Apple's a little late getting in on the bandwagon!!
:)
Reminds me of the days when some sad nerds claimed that the amiga (68000 @ 7.1 mhz, excellent audio/visual hardware) was not as good as the st (68000 @ 8 mzh, no hardware/software), despite the fact that there was nothing the st could do that the amiga couldnt.
Is there an option for making all the buttons just trigger the same event or something?
a.
As for the one button argument, might I raise the existence of the "Contextual Menu API". Swear to God, that's what they named it, "ContextUAL Menus" (my emphasis added). It requires an Option click OR a Right click from a multi-button mouse. Yup, it's from Apple. Yup, it's in the MacOS. Yup, it's been around since System8 (Yeah, I know, but let's face it SystemN vs. MacOS N. The first is the cool tech way of saying it, the second is the big corporate think way. You choose your favorite.) So there's a part of the Macintosh OS that cries out for the second button. There's no wheel. There's no option for a wheel.Yeah, I know, Apple traditionally doesn't support the wheel in their mice. And International Buggy Whip doesn't usually include an automatic transmission in their buggy whips. Way to go, fellow Luddites. The button and shell is one big block of Lucite. And so far, I have heard at least a dozen people complain that this perspiration-inducing configuration makes the mouse way too slippery. I even read about one guy who pasted a piece of terry cloth over the mouse so that it wouldn't be so slippery. Of course, I know that true Mac fans are superhuman specimens that don't need to perspire. Score one for the Mac elite. The cable is too short for many folks. The cable is too short. I mean, THE FREAKING CABLE IS TOO SHORT. Good thing accounting is there to save 2 cents per unit, otherwise someone might actually enjoy using the product. For a company that prides itself on their user interface savvy, making a cable too short for comfortable use would be as stupid as, say, hypothetically, making a perfectly round mouse too small for most adults' hands and then shipping it with even their high-end products. I know, it's a silly example, nobody would ever do anything that dumb. Price is a problem. The new Apple mouse is more expensive than an equivalent mouse from another large company that has been out for many months. So, if only you were willing to wait, and give up some features, you could buy a similar optical mouse for a higher price. Umm, yeah. And the most important and most highly praised feature of all; at least it ain't the ridiculous hockey puck that all the G3 and iMac owners were stuck with. Wow. Great. Thanks a lot Apple. So are all you Apple fanatics (And could some one please explain to me how otherwise rational people can have such feelings for a corporation? Microsofties, you can provide an answer to this one as easily as any Apple fanatic.) willing to admit that Apple is capable of and has actually shipped bad product in the past?
The first I saw of the MS "IntelliEye" (sounds like "Intel a Lie") was when a friend visited from Canada. Wierd feeling to fall in love with a product from a company you hate!
He said that MS had a patent on it so, if I wanted it, I would have to make a pact with the devil to get one. A month later they appeared on the shelves here in Japan and I did just that.
A week later I noticed essencially the same technology but from a Japanese maker. I plan to buy one just to compare, but what gives? Does Microsoft really have a patent on this?
It's all USB, should just be an issue of drivers.
-josh
That said I have to confess the Hockeypuck mouse isn't too bad IF ONE USES IT AS INTENDED. Instead of resting one's palm over the body of the mouse the Hockeypuck mouse is meant to just be manipulated by fingers, your hand arched down so your delicate tendons aren't stretched. I know folks who use the hockeypuck that way, one of them a Techwriter and they looove it.
As for the single button - the reality is that most users are completely unaware that there even is a second button on their mouse. Several years ago we ran a mouse-tracking app at a company I worked at and discoved that 90-some percent of our users (all Windows) never used the right button in the month we ran the tracking (though they racked up an amazing number of mouse-miles.) Sure gamers, unix folks, and geeks (slashdotters) will use it but frankly J. Random User doesn't care all that much.
In the case of Apple's OS there really isn't all that much need for a second button. They've engineered the OS so that one never *needs* to take their hands off the keyboard (REAL geeks don't need no steenkin mouse!) and for point-and-click the single button covers all of the basic needs. For advanced stuff yeah it's a pain to use the modifier key but at that point one can get a new mouse rather then throwing it at the vast majority who'll never use it.
Apple has always been big on usability testing & Steve Jobs is not one to be held back by tradition. I expect Apple will continue with single button mice 'till the day that their testing shows that they'd be better-served with a double-button mouse. That day they'll undoubtably ship it - either as a BTO or standard across their entire line.
Personally I'm waiting for a wireless padless-optical mouse with two buttons & a rollerwheel. Logitech is releasing one any day now and assuming they deliver usable drivers I'll be purchasing a few.
In the meantime let Apple ship single-button mice. It works well with their OS, seems incredibly low maintainence and it's one less thing to distract the not-power users with.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
From the review, I got the understanding that the entire TOP of the mouse was a 'button'... how do you avoid accidentally clicking it all the time>
---
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
OK, I can understand Apple only having one button, as misguided as it is. But why not include a wheel? I can't imagine living without a scroll wheel, and that would not add more confusion.
Probably the usual Apple Not-Invented-Here syndrome.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
But you forget, thats one BIG button.
:-)
and to some, SIZE does Matter.
"I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines." - Mr. Furious, Mystery Men
There's no question the new mouse is gorgeous and well built, but as a long time "power mouser", I would never go back to a single button mouse.
Apple should bundle the one button mouse with Macs to meet the needs of new users, and sell a second model designed for power users. Apple's relentless obsession with simplicity sometimes blinds them to the needs of more experienced users.
CmdrTaco's girl friend likes Macs so now we hear every little thing that comes from Apple. It's a mouse. Optical or not, it's used to click on stuff.
;-)
I suspect hid girl friend to be an evil Apple spy hired to corrupt his Linux mind
PCXL Forever!!!!
-- Life is short. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. ~ Robert Doisneau
I'm getting quite tired of this "Sun had optical mice back in the early fourteenth century" thread.
The Sun optical mouse (which I've used since 1990) is NOTHING like the new "optical" (actually CCD camera) mice.
The Sun optical mouse contains an LED which shines onto a reflective, gridded mouse pad, and is detected by a simple light detector. This means that you have to use the (slippery, glass-like) mouse pad, and you have to move the mouse in the same coordinates as the mouse pad (since the mouse pad itself is gridded). I tend to move my mouse in a slightly diagonal (top left to bottom right) motion, and it's annoying that I can't just slightly change the orientation of the mouse--I have to move the whole pad.
The new Microsoft (and presumably Apple) mice use CCD cameras, which means that they don't require some easily-cracked-or-dented, hard-to-replace mouse pad.
The bigger problem is probably that we use the term "optical mouse" for both mouse systems, when they really don't have that much in common.
two corrections...
click-hold: basically only implemented in browsers, not the macOS in general, nor the finder (unless you count click-and-a-half for zooming through folders).
menus: since macOS 8 menus have been "sticky." you are referring to system 7
in fact a whole lot of postings here indicate people who haven't used the macOS since those less colorful days - or have never used it at all! No wonder this thread is unable to have more than 16% of its posts moderated to 2 or higher....
--------
Yeah, I'm a Mac programmer. You got a problem with that?
-- thinkyhead software and media
Clearly the new mice are not the same technology as the old optic mice of the late 1980s.
But byond two diffrences (old mice needed specal mouse pads but the mouse + pad = less than normal mouse, new mouse needs no pad = more than normal mouse + recomended pad) the new mice don't seem very diffrent to me.
Optic mice died in the early 1990s. If Microsoft didn't release the new optic mouse and left it to say Kraft or Apple it may not have gone over so well.
(People seem to accept anything Microsoft as new and unique)
BTW 10 years is a long time to rember something. I doupt very many people at Microsoft rembered the optic mice 10 years preveous..
For those who use this new technology and see how cool it is. This "new inovation" was obsolete 10 years ago.
So rember kids.. just becouse some random expert calls it obsolete dosn't mean he knows what he is talking about...
Now I'm gona go look for some old 1980s style optic mice... Naa screw that I want a touch pad...
[Bonus points for anyone who sees the irony in the last line]
I don't actually exist.
Preveously on Geeks In Space:
"We learned that it's Augest"
"Apparently people take vactions"
For the next month the news will be giving us this sort of stuff. Once summer is over the psycopathis will go back to being psycopathics.
In the mean time we are going to hear about neat products as PR firms know to submit content when the news is slow.
Politicians too.. and this is a political year so get your BS shealds up...
I don't actually exist.
Microsoft, Logitech, and now Apple have optical mice. I know MS and Logitech have infrared mice as well. Why don't they release a mouse with both of these capabilities? I'd love to own one, and I'm sure that a lot of other people would too.
Colin Winters
But when can i get one that will go well with my carpet and my drapes?
"I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines." - Mr. Furious, Mystery Men
I just keep wondering what really are those people that cannot understand 2-button mouse. I saw 4-year-old child figuring how to use 3-button mouse in 1 minute. Just how those people that can't manage to dress, to tie shoelaces, to manage to get the pants off and back on when they go to the restroom? Don't they need help in figuring out which of the openings in the head to use to insert food?
Apple really must hate its users when it says the can't figure out 2-button mouse. I would never buy from the company that publicly says such things about me.
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
"I also prefer the single-button design because, as a lefty, I don't like having to mess with flipping the mouse button functions.
This has to be the dumbest review I ever read. sure mice suck when it comes to being a lefty, but griping about the few mice that let you switch button functions is completly moronic. At least come up with legit reasons for crituiqing the mouse. Iber the reviewer didn't even use the damn thing. Wait till the real reviews show. This isn't much different than the touchpads and a lot of reviewers thought they sucked. Including me.
That's odd. I thought there were just 5 - blue, orange, green, pink, purple.
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
Do you get that this mouse was made for inclusion on desktop Macs? All Macintosh keyboards have two USB ports (old keyboards have ADB), one on each side of the keyboard, for a leftie or rightie to plug in their mouse, so the cable only needs to go from the mouse to the keyboard.
... either it's not crap or there are a lot of people whose computing needs are not met by homemade Linux boxes, or both.
PowerBooks have USB on the back, and iBooks only on the left hand side (good for lefties, but right handers would need an extension). Making the mouse work for the portables would require that all the desktop users have a couple of extra feet of cable getting in their way (the whole mouse cable sits on your desk, because it only goes to the keyboard). It's to Apple's credit that they didn't do this, especially when USB extension cables are like $3 each and you can choose the right length. This is a mouse for their desktop machines.
> why oh why do people still buy this crap?!?
Well
-Dead Lesbian Witches! Think about it!
Double-clicking in a properly-designed GUI is done when activating one or more elements from a list. Single-clicking selects, double-clicking "does more". A list can be a sequence of textual icons, a window full of icons, or any other grouping. The interesting thing is how quickly newbies (at least those who haven't been previously scared by Windows) pick up on that mechanism whether or not it's explained to them, because it's designed to mesh with the whole concept of icons and lists - and with the one button mouse. The only overloading of double clicking on the Mac is the behaviour in text strings, where one click selects a point, two clicks selects a word, and three selects an entire line, but this doesn't seem to cause confusion (perhaps because selecting text is fairly modal in the minds of users).
One assumes your criticism here is supposed to be directed at Apple's one-button mouse used with the system and OS it's bundled with, but making an argument that one button isn't enough (or double clicks are evil) based on the Windows implementation is pointless. Get a little broader exposure before you go on your next rant.
-- Life is short. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. ~ Robert Doisneau
Hey, if Mac can get the number of mouse clicks to one for everything, why can't they get rid of all mouse clicks? I love being able to program a keyboard to move and activate the pointer in fvwm2, and really love freaking out my coworkers when I switch (or pan) virtual desktops with a quick ctrl-alt-right arrow or something. Or is the keyboard going to be classified "legacy" like that stupid3.5 floppy drive?
I disagree that Windows and Unix require more mouse buttons. They just allow the use of them to access time saving features (and yes, I know Macs can do this too. One of the first 5 button mice I saw was on a friend's Mac).
I guess I just favor utility (or atleast the option of utility) over appearance.
note: using <sarcasm> put legacy in quotes... weird.
-----
Planning to be moderated ± 1: Bad Pun.
Umm...hate to break it to you the "IntelliEye" mouse is not a MS invention, its a HP invention. MS licensed it from HP, so did logitec and Apple.
I've got a Logitech optical. Works with the red light and all just like the Microsoft. Fewer buttons though...but 3 and a wheel is all i need. Works like a dream in X.