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Apple Applies For Rotary Mouse Patent
Dregs of Tar writes "According to an article at The Mac Observer, Apple has applied for a patent on an interesting new mouse idea. A rotary disc on the surface of the mouse can be pushed straight down as a mouse button, tilted forward or back to scroll vertically, and tilted side to side for horizontal scrolling. In other words, it's a rotary scroll wheel! Could it be so? Could we soon see Apple-branded, multibutton, scrolling mice?"
Sounds to me like it's just like a trackball, but for scrolling
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
No read your own title "Apple Applies For Rotary Mouse Patent"
Since quite a while IBM has some mice featuring a scroll/track-point device.
Although not really a 'rotary disc', it *is* a device which can be pushed as a button, and can be pushed/tilted in all directions for scrolling..
(See this one for example)
Sorry Apple, too late....
I think WTF is the perfect one word description of this product. I thought it was a joke when i first saw it, apple needs to get with the times and join us in the world of 5 buttons
I have to read slashdot at 9AM on a Sunday morning in order to get first post...
Anyhow--this mouse idea is great; as long as it's not too easy to accidentally push the wrong direction (like it seems to be on so many other rotary-button devices), it could be a major time-saver. Picture legions of cube-dwellers working on large spreadsheets. This has the potential of saving immense amounts of time...
Cool. A mouse with a trackball on top of it.
I think someone should make a mouse with a keyboard on top of it. That way you can type without every taking your hand off the mouse.
From the people with a 1-button mouse, who then moved to a NO-button mouse, we now have a mouse with an extra 4+1 directional button?!?1
it can become very confusing for the computer illiterate crowd. Ever tried to explain the difference between left and right click ?
But for power users, it's a different story. I have a thumb button on my mouse that I programmed to be the ENTER key, and it's be hard for me now to do without.
My point is, how can you design a mouse that is universal and "upgradeable" at the same time ?
Apple's approach of the problem sounds interesting though, and raise a question about what will the future of pointing devices be.
IBM allready has mice with a 2d nipple (glidepoint) on it for scrolling.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
Ok, let's just read that article one more time: It describes a mouse with a DISC, not a TRACKBALL. Also, I can't see any hint of the disc serving as a second mouse button in the patent description. This being Apple, that disc thingy will probably be the only control-element on the mouse. One thing that the article itself seemed a bit confused about, was whether the disc was ROTARY (i.e. something you rotate, as on an old telephone) or just a kind of cross-button with 5 directions (horizontal, veritcal, and down).
It's a rotary dial, like on the iPOD, or those old telephones.
Yeah, I have no idea what they were smoking when they came up wit that one. Although I'm sure all the apple zelots will crawl out of the woodwork to tell us why this is the greatest thing ever, and how having anything less would be like living in the stone age.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
... that Apples use a 1-button mouse?
Who doesn't like free music?
here is a link.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
I was wondering, but if this might be a two buttom mouse from apple, where would the first button go? I hope it's not around it because it'd be kind of annoying. With a usual 3 button scroll mouse the scroll wheel is in the middle and there's 2 other buttons to the side so you have 3 places for 3 fingers to sit comfortably. With this kind of mouse, there would be a spot for your pointer finger, and middle finger but your ring finger would be off to the side, kind of ackward. I dunno maybe I'm just seeing this the wrong way but it looks like a bad design.
There are a few PCS phones that use this type of button for navigation.
This would be a great tool for AV editing... I'm thinking Jog Control /w mouse capabilities... New macs already come with a decent entry level suite of tools, why not adapt the input method to bolster your strengths...
now if they could just get it integrated with the Logitech 3D mouse, use two and a la Instant Minority Report Action!
--
While the new Apple patent sounds like a good idea, I have concerns that if Apple doesn't design that unusual button correctly you're going to end up with a lot of unintended screen scrolling.
Given that later releases of MacOS 9.x and the current MacOS X releases support the full functionality of the two-button mouse with scroll wheel natively (e.g., compatible with USB-port mouse pointers from Microsoft and Logitech), Apple should just "bite the bullet" and get Logitech to build a scrolling mouse that complements the shape of the current Power Macintosh boxes and iMac machines.
A rotary disc on the surface of the mouse
are we going to do when we run out of space mouse space ????
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Radial discs for user input are not exactly a new idea; that said, they didn't take off in earlier incarnations.
Anybody remember Intellivision?
The #2 competitor to the Atari 2600, the Intellivision had a controller with a disc very similar to that described on this patent application (see the picture shown at the above link). The radial dial controller (along with a phone-like keypad and a couple 'action' buttons) was used rather than a joystick or a mouse.
The Intellivision controller is described at the bottom of this page, and the problems with it are aluded to in this video game history, notably that:
Unfortunately, the control discs are not a huge hit with players, along with the fact that their flimsy design leads to frequent controller breakdowns. Hardwired right into the system, this becomes a big problem for owners who have to slog the whole machine back to the dealer for repair.
I'd imagine Apple will avoid these mistakes; mice aren't integrated and I don't see why they can't insure higher quality. Personally, I found the disc an acceptable substitute for a joystick after playing with it a bit at a friend's house.
So I think there's a fair bit of prior art. I searched for 5 minutes for Intellivision and Coleco patents and found it described in
Patent 4,486,629, 4,470,012, 4,462,594, and 4,439,648. I didn't see that prior art cited in the Apple patent.
That said, the new patent does A) control scrolling actions rather than main-locus-of-control actions, and B) as the patent application says, "pressing down on the disc for clicking does not cause the disc to rotate" which seems like an advance to me over the Intellivision controller.
I guess the question comes down to: how well is the usability testing going?
--LP
P.S. For a Slash-based forum on post-PC UI issues, see Nooface.
That you had to lose your job at 9AM on a Sunday morning. You may think it's cold hearted, but myself and John decided that it would be best to give you a chance to hit the unemployment line on Monday morning. A fresh start, if you will. Don't worry, we cleaned out your desk and hired and trained your 22 year old replacement while you were on vacation. You, my fine feathered friend, are fired. And I'm going back to bed.
This wheel, might not have a 'clicking'. Remember that Apple's mice design is a 'no button' mouse, where you press down on the entire body of the mouse to perform a click. There should be no confusion as to how to click, just push down the entire mouse as you do now. Since a specific finger was never needed for clicking an Apple mouse, there should be no problem using those extra fingers for scrolling this little disk.
Because I always thought the Mac mouse was desinged for lemmings.
Bot Assisted Blogging
This is just a way for Apple to catch up to the multi-button mouse present, without seeming to cave in on the idea of one button superiority.
My mac enthusiast friends are already going to be talking about how this is actually better than all the 5-button PC mice.
The disc idea seems confusing to me though, since they are introducing multi-button functionality in what is still just one button.
Congratulations! Now we are the Evil Empire
The end of all things must be very near, very near indeed. Isn't there some prophecy somewhere that says something about this?
A mouse with a rotary dial on it could be an excellent peripheral for a digital hub computer if they pull it off well. This would make scrubbing forward and backwards through video or audio clips during editing a breeze.
Beyond rotating, you can also deflect the discs left/right or up/down for scrolling purposes. Being able to easily scroll in BOTH directions (not just up/down) would be a great feature for editing large photos.
Shades of Grayden
here
Looks like this will bring a tighter focus on mac gaming too, finally! All you PC-ers, prepare to get fragged!!
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
Speaking as an editor, if all of my clips start turning into dead people, I'm gone, FCP or no.
Would this system allow editing of video that *didn't* implicate you in a violent crime?
This is basically the IBM thinkpad's pencil-eraser mouse with a larger surface area and you can push on it to click.
Please, people, just see Apple for what they have become and where they'd like to go. The article is a good example. See the trees, they're all part of the orchard you're in.
No, should be Bill Gates patented farting. Then it would be /. worthy
Cripes.. the logitech cyberman had that but not as a stupid disc but as a nub or kind of tophat.
Let's patent technology that has been around nice to see apple is just as slimy as the rest of them.
I'm sure we'll all be pissed about the patent after we get finished discussing what an interesting idea it is. And the mousewheel is patented.
Why does this just sound like a hat-switch that you find on joysticks? Of course it's a neat idea to plop it onto a mouse. Personally I'd rather have one under my thumb. I think a lot of people are used to using hat controllers that way. Hell, how many FPSes on the PS2 are best played by using the analog sticks with your thumb? Same thing here.
What is music when you despise all sound?
Have you seen Trust's product lineup? A friend of mine bought this monstrosity from them the other day that had -- I kid you not -- the usual two buttons, two scrollwheels (one horizontal, one vertical; one was also a button), and another two buttons on the sides. That's a total of nine buttons, folks (counting the wheels as two buttons each). The Windows driver was about 60Mb.
It is a regular joke amongst our friends that it is only a matter of time before Trust made a mouse with a trackball on top of it, and that will be rapidly followed by a joystick mounted on top of a trackball atop a mouse. In the version 3, they'll add a four-way view switch button to the joystick and another half-dozen buttons to the bottom of the mouse. Version 4 will probably be wireless and integrate a toaster, oven and water cooler into the base of the charging cradle. You heard it here first.
You win again, gravity!
Is it that? A combination of a 4- or 8-way switch with a pushable button? I guess all makers of joysticks will be delighted. For G*ds sake, make that thing turnable too, that way you could control screen rotation or whatever along with everything else.
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
Power users can tell such simple things apart, such as left and right click. I did tech support for sometime and still do for my parents and close family friends. Most of them are mid 40's to mid 50's and it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to get those people to use two fingers, one for each button and to tell which "click" to use. It is beyond aggravating. I'm sure plenty of other frustrated tech support types can sympathize with you as well bud.
-Daedalus
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
I work as a musician and producer and a one button mouse is a right pain when working on the Mac. Although I love OS X and Logic, I would be able to work much faster if Apple would provide some kind of scroll wheel so I could nip around documents much faster.
Although it is hard to know before seeing a real mouse I think the fact that this could be both Vertical and Horizontal will make it better to use than existing scroll wheels. I love the transparent Apple mouse so this would be an excellent improvement...
Now the next step is to get the music software to support it.... So hopefully Apple ownership will speed that up too...
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
Okay -- 2 things.
First, the joke -- the apple mouse wasn't designed for lemmings... it was designed for Lode Runner, airborne (with RealSound!) and Dark Castle.
Second, and trust me on this, when Apple came out with a Mac with a mouse, it wasn't for blind follwers... it was like WTF is this? Where is the command line? Apple even packaged an audio cassette w/ the first macs to tell you how to use the mouse -- because the concept was new for 'consumer' computers.
I would think that it would be fairly stright forward to write a jitter sensitivity control so that when the mouse was moving, presumably smoothly and relatively quickly, that the widget would have one context, and another when it was bouncing over a small range of points near each other. What would that annoying result be? I suspect an oh-no-second or so of lag between when you start to move the mouse, and when the cursor moves on the screen, with an additional slider in the driver window.
Even though, I'm a pc user and am not particularly fond of macs, apple shouldn't bite the bullet. Three things might happen: The market will embrace it and there will be a couple of clones, it'll be revolutionary and people will wonder how we ever made toast without it or why we ever drank beer out of bottles, or someone will collect unemployment. Either way, I don't see how any of those things are bad for me.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
apple, just put another button and a scroll wheel on there, admit the other mice were stupid, and apologize to all the mac users forced to buy ridiculously overpriced art-boxes and then have to buy new mice for them. they finally get with the program, but decide to over-engineer the friggin' thing.
A jogdial, that Sony uses on some of their hardware.
I dunno, I learned both mac and pc at the same time. I actually had a 3 button Optical Lite Mouse on my 386 and a 1 button on a toaster mac.
:).
It seems ODD to me that ANYONE remotely intelligent and willing to figure things out would ever have that much difficulty adapting to a new interface. I learned two at once and neither killed me with "pushing the wrong button". Seems to be a coordination problem. In which case instead of idioticizing the hardware and software we should be educating the lusers instead. Who's with me?!
Personally, I will NEVER trade the 3 buttoner for a 1... the 1 button mouse is what KILLS me in everyday use and why macs serve only one purpose in my experience. To be reinstalled with Linux or BSD and put to use serving, that way I can webmin them from my nice 4 button 1 wheel logitech/logitech 108 key environment
Don't get me wrong, the mac hardware is great, it is the Mac OS and their input devices that SUCK. (the keyboard power on/off features is NEAT tho, as is the hold C or opt+alt+shift+del to start from cd (depending on architecture and age of mac in question)).
-Daedalus
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
I'd actually personally rather like to see a trackball with a secondary, smaller trackball integrated for scrolling and/or 3D applications.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
I can only see someting liek this being usable in a handheld or laptop design. You'd have to put two next to each other so you can coordinate the movements, but such a technique would allow you to scroll around a big screen quickly and accurately after a few minutes of practice.
If it required to hands to work it would preclude the use of another input device like a mouse or keyboard.
Just guessing here.
My poor brain is confused, and trying to read the patent application itself didn't help. It's rather dense. Nevertheless, paragraph 37 of it says . Note that this says horizontal or vertical. So that implies a rotary dial as a straight replacement for a wheel; OK, I can deal with that.
Paragraph 60. however, says and suddently it can do 2d scrolling, which a 1D wheel certainly can't. What gives? The diagrams page hates Galeon so I can't look at fig 10. Can someone shed light on this?
As for the ergonomics, I'm a little dubious. Isn't side-to-side motion of a finger actually quite bad for you? I though fingers had essentially one dimensional joints and were designed to move up and down and not much else. Roatating my finger in a 1-inch diameter circle feels a little uncomfortable to me. I do see their point about having to pick the finger up off a scroll wheel all the time, though; I've always had that problem with Sony jog dials, too.
You win again, gravity!
I think /. is exhibiting its usual hypocrisy and small minded groupthink once again. It is the mindset of nationalists and other "red team" folks everywhere. First complain about some politician, issue, company, etc. Then turn your head when the same or perhaps even worse by number of elements and degree of the elements is exhibited in a company, politician, issue, etc that is "on your side."
Observe the "War Protesters" whom would be better labled as "protesters of this particular war."
IBM already has some sort of j-key thing on some of their mice, so this would only be eye raising if it had some rotational movement too it.
Integrity and consistency is never a watchword of liberals
It seems to be the same technology as a joystick with the added function of making the downward (z) motion of the stick activate a switch.
Mecworks BLOG
You'd have to put two next to each other so you can coordinate the movements, but such a technique would allow you to scroll around a big screen quickly and accurately after a few minutes of practice.
/. nickname is quite fitting. :-)
You mean, like this?
Your
~Philly
is the same sized, single buttoned mouse but with a little jogdial on it, which is:
a) too small for verticle manipulation, and
b) an RSI magnet when used in the unnatural horizontal way.
I'm looking forward to it!
People ask instead "Why is there CURRENTLY a one button mouse?"
No. This rumor flares up before every macworld. After macworld, apple stays with the one button mouse. This has been a consistent pattern ever since 1984.
As for the patent. Intriguing? Yes. Garuantee that this will be a product? Hardly. Between 2001-2003 Apple has been awarded around 30 patents And has applied for about 30 more patents. Of those 60+ only a fraction will probably make it into future hardware.
Also news flash for the other peple trapped in the last century: macs are three button enabled too! just buy a three button mouse
I think while the new Apple mouse design borrows some of the concepts from the Intellivision controller, I worry the disc will end up being too small in size (especially given Apple's penchant for building relatively small-sized mouse pointers), which will cause unintended scrolling, especially if you have big hands and/or fingers.
This isn't like the iPod, where the disc controller is fairly large and easy to manipulate even with larger-sized fingers.
Control system volume and navigation - launch apps - use for timeline and frame by frame manipulation in final cut pro - use for TRON tank turrets and Centipede!
A lot like this device: Shuttle Express You can see the similarities.
This is one reason the Mac is great - I have been able to use lots of devices that I have investments in; in lots of different ways. T68i & Romeo is just one example.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Doesn't Mac know that everybody uses touch-tone now? These young wipper-snappers wouldn't know what to do with a rotary mouse.
Can companys come up with better stuff to patent then stupid shit. I know the didn't get it yet but they will. I mean they should come up with something to replace the mouse now that would be worth a patent not a damn improvement.
atto
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
At work I am having to use a free mouse that came with the computer system, despite my insistance that a decent mouse would add to productivity we have ended up with this completely and utterly useless peice of crap (which is why it's only a fiver I guess).
Ignoring the fact that as a normal mouse this is already pretty bad (sticky and clicky buttons and badly formed shape in the palm), that little blue thing on top? Pointless! I don't know what muppet designed this thing but it is utterly unusable, basically it is trying to be a trendy new type of scroll wheel or something. But, major point number one, it isn't a button and doesn't count as a third middle click. All it does is goes up and down, not like a wheel but just like a thing that you can push up or down or leave to spring back to the centre.
This might (might!) have been a decent design, although I'm still doubtful even then, but basically when you go to "scroll" down or up, no matter how careful you are just to tap it up or down, it almost always scrolls right to the very end of the document. They claim this is better than the mouse wheel somehow!
Anyway, slightly back on topic, if the Apple mouse is basically this but with horizontal scrolling too, then it's gonna be crappy. The Apple idea did conjur up in my mind the idea of a mouse with a track ball where the wheel is at the moment. Although perhaps complicating matters somewhat, it's also logical (in my mind, ha) so that there are two degrees of movement through the mouse (somewhat like moving your head whilst moving your eyes at the same time). This could (amongst other more pratical things) be pretty cool for doing the walking through Doom3 (for example) whilst at the very same time "looking" around freely using the track ball.
... I guess
We ARE talking about Apple users here. Better stick to the one button mouse or prepare for a flood of support calls asking about this "new-dangfangled" device.
The Apple / Bandai Pippin Controller had something similar to the trackball you are speaking of and it was/is the easiest to hold, most comfortable, game controller I have ever used. In fact, I use it with my Mac still -- with the ADB adapter and the USB adapter.
I would love for Apple to bring this down to wireless bluetooth mouse size. For now I like to use a Logitech Trackman Marble due to the fact I hate moving mice on the desk and the pippin controller.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
The image is this. Seems like they will soon file a patent for the touchtone version to.
There is nothing new or innovative in this design. Simply taking a scroll wheel and extending it in a 2nd dimension does not count as something worthy of a patent. Neither does a scroll wheel.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
A patent from a high-tech company that isn't some lame attempt to steal ideas from the past and/or something that was so obvious to everyone else that no one ever thought to patent it. I am so friggin sick of patents that blatantly try to subvert progress in the name of ripping off the community that this one from Apple actually comes as a breath of fresh air. I have no idea how useful this device will be but at least it appears no one else has ever built one before.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
It's called a hat switch. It's on lots of nice joysticks to control the direction you're looking. I've been after one to be put on a good mouse forever. If Logitech would put one on one of their corded MX models, I'd be in heaven.
There is definitely prior art. Take a look at the mouse component of this Saitek mouse/action pad bundle.
May we never see th
Anyone out there who's also a vintage videogame collector would instantly recognize this concept- it's very similar to the direction pad found on the Intellivision controllers. I quick Google / GoogleImage search will show what I'm talking about. The INTV's controller featured (along with a multitude of buttons which could hold overlays explaining their function in a particular game) a round, silver-dollar sized disc, which could be nudged in (IIRC) 8 directions. Granted, the INTV's disc couldn't be clicked as a button, but still, the similarities are interesting...
If you want to dislike Macs, pick a legitimate reason.
I agree 100% with the parent poster. You should complain about getting cheated on the price, or being forced to buy from a monopolist that also controls the OS, or having to pay too much for the case, or not being able to customize your own box, or having to get a shitty, slow processor, or having lousy application support, or having an OS that forces you to use a bloated, slow UI, or any other of the far worse things about Macs. A one-button mouse is so far down on the list that it's not worth mentioning.
Anyway, here is a link to patent application 20030076303. You can see the images from there also.
If you are going to discount all studies because some people can create or reference fraudulant ones, I'm not sure if its going to be easy to convince you of anything. Do you throw all of the scientific method out the window, or just the steps that prevent you from spouting off with whatever you want to say?
Apple's mouse button studies when they were developing the mouse weren't the four out of 5 dentists recommend (a sugarless gum (for their patients that chew gum)) type of studies developed by advertisers and marketing departments in order to sell a product. (Which sounds better than saying "20% of all dentists find all gum chewing detrimental to oral health") They are were studies by the product development groups to decide what type of system to build. (for the moment, lets leave out how a conclusion like "experts like multi-button mice, beginners like single button ones" means to someone trying to market this product to the k-12 market, and how that might be different than someone trying to market it to fortune 500 companies.)
Where I suspect that Apple might be misguided, is that they assume they were testing a closed system. They recent college grad they they tested during the development of the Lisa, might just be looking at early retirement today. They weren't testing a static system, they were testing a sample of the computer using population of the United States. Through their development of the mouse, they have significantly affected the system they were testing, and those 30 year old results may no longer be valid.
By the way, Apple's Mac OS X has nothing to do with the X Window system. Your mistakenly connnecting the two makes it difficult for me to take what you say seriously.
A true rotary mouse has been done, and patented:
http://www.merl.com/projects/rotmouse/
What I need is a mouse with a 2D scroll wheel on it, which itself has a little laptop nipple for scrolling within text-boxes inside the scrolled region of the window.
You make some excellent points. I've begun to think that general Macintosh opinion among the public lags about five years behind the reality. How many Mac users have heard non-Mac users rant about the fruit-colored iMac, a computer that's been out of production for years? On the other hand, even tech geeks in general are largely unaware of the BSD underpinnings or free iApps... all stuff that's come along largely since the advent of OS X and makes the Mac of greater value to geeks and casual users alike.
My guess is that in the year 2007 or 2008 the public will be saying "Did you know that Apple has a server box?" or "Did you know those new Apple laptops use 802.11g?" or "Hey, OS X shunts all the quartz compositing off to the video card! That's a neat idea".
I, for one, am tired of having to entertain anti-Mac arguments from people who are well-versed in the latest Wintel situation but haven't checked in on Apple in more years than you can count on a single hand.
www.macgamer.com
USB is just that, ie., I use a three button M$ brand scroll mouse on my Mac, works perfectly, USB truly is a wonderful technology. MM
Thing One: This idea sounds like the iPod interface placed on a mouse. Cool idea, if true,
Thing Two: Apple has had a number of reasons for sticking with one-button mice, as mentioned elsewhere: They're easier for novices to use, they're easier and cheaper to make, and they offer third-party manufacturers a revenue opportunity. Don't forget the "bad old days" when Apple made nearly everything itself. It caught hell for that until it adopted USB and VGA in '97-98. An Apple two- or three-button mouse would piss off vendors it doesn't need to antagonize.
didn't nintendo use these, like, 15 years ago?
Sitting Walrus Blog
Linux users get that from other people, and Windows users get it from Mac users (MacAddict or some other rag prints a list of flaws in Windows and years later, Mac users are still spouting it, even though it's long, long out of date). Constantly.
As for the rest of it:
"Did you know that Apple has a server box?"
Apple has sold servers forever and ever. The average Joe doesn't know about that, but also doesn't know that HP sells servers.
"Did you know those new Apple laptops use 802.11g?"
[shrug] This is not exactly a huge deal. You can get new PC laptops with 802.11g, and when 802.11g actually sees wide deployment, you won't be able to get one without it.
"Hey, OS X shunts all the quartz compositing off to the video card! That's a neat idea".
No, that's not a new idea. 2d video acceleration has been around since at *least* the 80s, and I would assume well before. Windows uses it and has for ages, XFree86 uses it and has for ages. Hell, even classic MacOS had support for 2d video acceleration -- it's the only reason you'd pay top dollar for the IIfx. The only reason you heard about hardware acceleration support in Quartz is because (incredibly) Apple shipped without support for (large chunks, if not all) of the support for hardware acceleration. That *should* have been there on release, and performance was so piss-poor that finally releasing an update with support was a big deal. The Quartz hardware acceleration fiasco was not something for Apple to brag about in the least.
May we never see th
Has this exact feature...came on my Aptiva (ugh) four or so years ago.
link
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!!
Sorry, I just had to do that...
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
What? You want text to add to that glorious title?
Stupid lame filter.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Like flight sim joysticks have, with the sole difference being that it's shaped differently.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
First off, it doesn't provide any tactile feedback-- you have to concentrate more when you use it.
Secondly, it always made my finger sore after prolonged use on client machines.
Third, I've seen too many machines where the trackpoint did not 'center' itself sufficiently after use, and the cursor would slowly drift-- VERY distracting/annoying while I'm trying to type!
There was an old controller available for the Super Nintendo that used this exact type of device instead of the traditional 4-way pad.
Take a look at the Magellan Space Mouse, which has an oversize twistable (analog) hat switch. (Granted, they didn't mount it on a mouse, but if mounting an existing device on a mouse makes it patentable, something is seriously broken with our patent system)
May we never see th
I've used an IBM mouse with a trackpoint-like controller in the middle that can scroll horizontally and vertically. Isn't that prior art? Or does making the trackpoint round make it somehow innovative and unique? I don't think so, but I've heard of worse approved by the USPTO. r4lv3k
(Even if it does make it patentable, it doesn't matter. The patent application doesn't claim that the device needs to be mounted on a mouse.)
Apple's claim is invalid.
May we never see th
Could we soon see Apple-branded, multibutton, scrolling mice?
I'd be happy to just to see an Apple-branded, multibutton mouse.
</obapplemousecomment>
(yes, I know they're available, but all display-model Macs I've seen to date have at most one mouse button, and some hardly seem to have a button at all... in other words, refer to my
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
It's closer to a combination of the two. Pushing DOWN on the wheel in any of the 4 cardinal directions scrolls. Pushing straight down would be another function, and spinning the wheel clockwise or counter-clockwise woulld be two other functions (scrolling through links, fields, cursor movement, etc.). And with the proper tension adjustment, I can't see slippage being a problem. That same tension adjustment would prevent rotary movement when pushing down. It looks like a rather ingenious design to me.
And here it is for cheaper
...and read "Apple: Apple Apples"? Oh well...
NeXT shipped their systems with two button mice so Steve Jobs is probably not so much of a one button mouse advocate as you think.
Go out and buy any one of a hundred multi-button USB mice and plug it into a Mac. The scrollwheel and contextual-menu buttons are supported out-of-the-box in OS X in all apps. Just because Apple don't ship a multi-button mouse does not mean that Apple don't support them.
Yeah they work great. This is exactly what I did for my mother-in-law, who is the biggest technophobe who will never understand computers you can imagine, and she thinks the second button and scroll wheel are great. And that is exactly why Macs should have a second button. It ain't complicated, the rest of the world seems to deal with them fine, and they have clearly obvious benefits for usability. Frankly having just the one button makes Macs harder to use which is ironic considering their legendary ease of use elsewhere.
Actually the biggest problem to me is that I don't want to lug a separate mouse around with a laptop. Powerbooks only have one button next to their trackpad and you can't expand it. (and I'm not a fan of trackpads to begin with) I'm not about to start lugging around an extra piece of hardware for something that should have been built in to start with. This is the only thing about the Mac laptops I do not like and cannot get around. One button just isn't enough to do some things efficiently and I've been a Mac user (not exclusively) for about 15 years.
It's also fair to point out that without a source on that observation, this is just your opinion. I know a ton of Mac people - practically all of my friends - and they love the optical mouse. There's more than a 'few high-up (?) die-hard UI (?!?) people' (that statement doesn't make any sense at all actually, it's not a UI issue, and who's high up? Some nameless Apple industrial designers?)
I've done extensive user testing for multi-button apps before. The earlier poster who mentioned the difficulties getting older computer-illiterate people to understand and adapt to these conventions is right - it is nearlyimpossible. It's very easy to forget, but when you've spent coutless hours in a UI lab watching Random Person stumble through what you consider to be the most trivial tasks... trust me. There's a very, very good reason for the 1 button mouse.
And not just one - an oft-overlooked fact is the right/left dominance thing. Lefties like to use their mice on the left side of the computer. It's important that your primary 'click' is your index finger. Swapping mouse sides can potentially swap your primary click - which you can re-map of course (computer expert that you are), but then your manuals are all wrong when they say left-click, right-click, etc.
Mac mice have never had an issue with left/right-handedness. (Also note that many creative types are right-brained, thus left-handed. This is important to some.)
The point is that you should *not* have to run out and drop *more* money to get another peripheral to make your spangling new Mac not suck. Apple had a (tenuous) reason to not include a second button...up until they introduced context menus triggered by *control-clicking*. At this point, they're just being stupid.
Oh spare me. The cost must be in the neighbourhood of $5, a vanishing percentage of the overall expense. The Apple keyboard is forced on you too, no one seems to complain about that. It makes more sense to me to include the simplest mouse by default from the original company, and people can drop the $30 for a multibutton mouse if they feel like it.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Reminds me of the Joyboard.
But I bet you can't sit and meditate on this one.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
That's an A tag. HREF is an attribute.
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
OK. Under the "What is claimed is:" section, we see:
...so they want it to be both a rotary scroller and a 4-directional controller. Or at least they want to cover both in this patent.
16. The mouse as recited in claim 15 wherein the rotation of the rotary dial causes the displayed data to move across the viewing area of the display screen.
...
18. The mouse as recited in claim 17 wherein side to side manipulation of the disk corresponds to horizontal scrolling, and wherein forwards and backwards manipulation of the disk corresponds to vertical scrolling.
my pentax digital camera already has such a button on it.
Has no one mentioned that this patent goes almost hand in hand with the current Mac rumors regarding implementing "piles" of documents to replace, somewhat, file folders on the desktop. Think how easy it would be to shuffle through a "pile" of documents with this new mouse! Anyway, that's just rumor talk.
Prior Art
I read it as rotisserie mice and then came the next logical step rotisserie chicken?wtf?....man I must be hungry.
I have one of these 4-way buttons on a Compaq laptop.
It's not a new idea. Besides it's just a joystick sans stick.
I like the scroll wheel better since I can change scrolling up and down faster.
I don't want to scroll left and right because typically no one puts any information a little to the right or left.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
While my reference here seems like a dodgy geocities site, his references are pretty good and you can also do a more extensive search.
The left-right brain thing is on a par with the also incorrect but popular theory of taste sensitivity areas on the tongue. Check this and this for a debunk of that one too.
Sorry for ranting, but it's too early to read this tripe!
As many of us here on ./ I hate M$, but I must admit that there is a (actually: the only) product of that evil that I love - it's Microsoft Trackball (opticall). It's perfect: 3 buttons, mid-button is a scroll-wheel, and there is a trackbacll in the right position of the right size and exactly sensitive as I like.
As for Apple, I've never saw any mouse from Apple that I don't hate. I doubt that the rotation of that single button will save their reputation of a mice manufacturer.
Less is more !
You can get a 802.11b card for your Dell and still come out less then $700. On price watch they're only $29.
And besides, I prefer smaller laptops. Like 10". Sony stopped making the SR series*, so my next laptop will probably a fujitsu lifebook. Apple's are just to big.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
...but not completely novel. Seems like a combination of a mouse and a Palm Tungsten 5-way navigator. (In fact, I don't think Palm exactly invented that, either.)
Yes, yes, it is a rotary wheel thingy... but from the patent itself, you click forward on the disc to scroll one way, and click back on it to go the other way... I once had a 'scroll' mouse that didn't have a scroll wheel, but instead had a rocker button of the same ilk as this is suggesting... it was PAINFUL to use (I don't mean physically), the beauty of the wheel is the ability to get nice, fine scrolling control over it, at whatever speed you want... a quick flick to scroll quickly, or slowly does it while you're reading... when you've just got a button, you loose all speed control, and instead are limited to the same scroll speed all the time... humph.
Also, the concept of rotating the disc around on the mouse sounds like a great way of getting RSI... Just try rotating your finger in such a manner on top of your mouse now... and imagine doing that for any length of time... the forward and backward 'flicking' of a current mousewheel seems a lot more comfortable to me.
Also... why don't you just buy a USB scrollwheel mouse and use it with your Mac, it'll work.
Aw crud, you are quite right. I didn't quite get this when reading the article. Someone mod the parent comment to this one up.
From the patent which I'm scanning through now: "As such, the rotary dial 44 can be continuously rotated by a simple swirling motion of a finger, i.e., the disc can be rotated through 360 degrees of rotation without stopping. Furthermore, the user can rotate the rotary dial 44 tangentially from all sides thus giving it more range of finger positions than that of a traditional scroll wheel as shown in FIG. 1"
It's not radial like Intellivision, it's rotating like an old phone (sorta).
--LP
I've been using an ALPS Glidepoint touchpad in place of a mouse. The best US$10.00 I ever spent on the Mac. The ADB adaptor cable that has two ADB jacks on it was the second best US$10.00 I ever spent on the Mac, but I digress.
So, first off, I don't need to wave my hand or arm about to move the cursor. I use my fingertip. The pad has three buttons. The top button is programmed for a doubleclick. Bottom left button is a single click. Bottom right button is programmed to send a "SPACE" signal, just like hitting the space bar.
As Eudora, iCab, Opera, I.E. and NewsWatcher use the spacebar to page down, who needs a scroll wheel?
"But what if you want to scroll UP, huh?" I hear you cry. Remember that bottom left button. I just move the cursor/pointer to the TOP of the vertical scrollbox. Should I need to scroll up, I just hit that button with my thumb and page up that way.
"OK, but what about when you're using a text editor, eh? You can't be using that spacebar thing then, can you!" No, I use either the page up/down, home/end or cursor keys. Again, no scroll wheel needed.
The same driver for the Glidepoint has worked perfectly on my Mac IIsi under System 7.5.5/7.6.1 and all the way through a Performa 630CD, Performa 6300CD (PowerPC, baby!) and now on the PowerMac 5400/200 I'm currently using. That's some pretty good hardware/software compatibility.
Frankly, I can't stand to use a mouse these days. What a primative way to move the pointer around the screen! I suppose that I really should see about getting another one or two of these things as backups.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
10", 2.6 pounds or something like that. All the trimmings, including firewire. Ad-on wifi, though.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
who knows, with a little bit of force feedback it could spin and change colour like that lovable wait cursor
So you have three mouse buttons. But can you type "èçæõ" using your default keyboard layout?
This is pure speculation, but it seems like a rotary scroll wheel would be a nice way to scroll through piles. Could work like this:
1. click or mouse over pile to activate scrolling function;
2. twirl scroll wheel to page through documents in pile;
3. click again to select or open document.
What Apple is really up to is combining this this this and this so that when Photoshop 8 comes out, we will actually be able to use it.
A distinctive mark, characteristic, or sound indicating identity
Please tell me its a joke.
/. can add the final steps as "distribute tapes on amazon", "???" and "profit" here :)
n " modes. Obviously this LART however is designed for "postal" techies and should therefore contain only the following signs on fire modes "single", "burst" and "I-brake-for-nuclear-holocaust".
We're supposed to be dealing with users of intelligence AND reflex here. At first it takes 1 cycle of brain activity (wow, a WHOLE thought!!!) to decide between left and right click. If after 1 week it does not become reflex, feel free to purge the test subject and procure a new one.
(** locks and loads, getting ready to purge a series of test subjects of his own **).
HINT: Keep a high caliber LART handy. And make the AR process VERY painful, videotaped if possible. I'm sure someone here at
Once the fear is struck into the heathen lusers they shalt knoweth fear and thy will shalt be done!!! Either that or you'll have to AR a few more, keeping in mind that the high caliber LART should definitely be multimode, with a single shot Apple LART variety, otherwise with clearly labelled "so-slow-grandma-with-a-glock-shoots-faster" and "holy-shit-thats-faster-than-a-vulcan-gattling-gu
-Daedalus
PS - Someone mod kangarooski as funny please.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
http://www.spymac.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo= 27110
The patent system has a concept of "broad" and "narrow" patents. Broad ones can cover a wide range of different applications of the patented technology. They range from there to a narrowness where aspects of a specific product design that will likely never be infringed upon unless a competitor makes an identical ripoff of a product are patented.
For example, John Doe invents a "wheel" and patents it.
Henry Ford invents a "car" which uses four "wheels" in its design. Henry can patent his new invention.
Later, Lee Iacocca invents a "car" which has "wheels" that are 78.321 inches from center to center lengthwise and 48.92 inches from edge to edge on the axle. Also patentable (Well, maybe not in this specific case, but you get the idea as far as narrow vs. broad patents.)
The original patent on the "wheel" can expire, but the subsequent patents will still remain valid.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
...do you not understand?
It's a dial. It rotates. Of course there are moving parts. A rotary dial with no moving parts is commonly referred to as 'stuck'.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
Has anyone making comments about rotary telephones actually SEEN one, or are you all twelve years old?
A rotary telephone is MUCH more akin to the Intellivision's controller than to a jog dial (like on the iPod, or the mouse in question)... i.e., you rotate it, it's sprung, it springs back.
"It's not radial like Intellivision, it's rotating like an old phone (sorta)."
It's also "sorta" rotating like a grapefruit, i.e., not really "sorta" at all. It's "sorta" like a turd, in the sense of "sorta" meaning "it's made of atoms".
Grrr.
Woooow that's almost another button. Next thing you know they'll be trying to add a second button. Might confuse some folks.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
.... perhaps. But the Apple Macintosh was founded from day one on the premise of making things easier and more elegant for the user, not three-button hell. Mac apps were designed from the ground up to function with one just one button, with a command key for modifier or the option of keyboard shortcuts for power users. For many this can work a good deal faster and more accurate than a popup right-click.
Also keep in mind that the main reason Apple is not only still on the map but the most talked about comp company today is that they make it a point to do something different instead of sticking to the "long-established"
It was Apple who did the bold and different by chucking out outdated I/0 such as parralel, serial, and floppy. It took the iMac to make the USB something other than a pair of unused ports in the back of your machine. It was Apple that created the MP3 player that not only had the most elegant user interface, fastest transfer rate, but could even boot up your Mac in a pinch!
If Apple were to do as you suggest and stick to "the already long-established" they might as well be Microsoft.. or IBM.
Why is everyone here so negative? Horray for Apple for getting some new stuff out there! Who cares if you guys don't like it? Why don't one (or all of you) go out and invent your own makes-everybody-happy ubermouse?
! !!!!
Why am I even bothering to log in anymore? All I do is read complaints from people who are never satisfied. Well, if you can't beat 'em, join em.
Check this out...Apple's idea sucks! Screw those punks and their sell-out style! Rotating disc? How 'bout rotating this! *grab grab*. 'Scuse me while I go use another companies' third-party POS mouse before I even see the finished Apple product! I'm gonna switch to Linux 'cause OS X is too pretty and I want a OS that is ugly and hard to use so I can look cool in front of all my friends... aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrghfggghggurgle...ppphhhlphhhpppt
Warm fuzzies, everbody! Not cold pricklies! Jesus.
Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time is enemy action.
So that's why Apple made the round mouse originally?
Yeah, but it wouldn't be multi-buttoned... because Apple knows we cannot wrap our minds around more than one button...
- Danny
This is quite similar to Kensington's TurboRing trackball. Apple's putting a ring on the top of the mouse. You can move the mouse XY as usual and turn the ring to scroll things. The Kensington TurboRing put a ring /around/ the trackball to do essentially the same thing. So this isn't a new or unique idea, save for it being on a mouse instead of around the trackball. The TurboRing, now discontinued, did this 5 years ago. Once again, Apple's bringing up the trailing edge of technology
Basicly a jog-wheel that functions as a d-pad; which means 2 analog directions and 4 digital.
The real problem here is implementing this or any other multidirectional system on a mouse so it's not cumbersome, especially if Apple plans to keep the "no-button" design.
Too many zeros, not enough ones
Odd, we already have this capacity. I have a trackball and use uControl to accomplish exactly what they're patenting. Pretty handy actually.
But I still only paid $999 back then for the thing. I can plug in up to 128 USB devices if I want to, and a 4 way hub is only $20 or something. I've worked with a scanner, webcam, and mouse all plugged in at the same time.
:(
The lack of ethernet is irritating, but the newer version of the SR had built in ethernet, wifi and a 1024x768 screen. (discontinued, sadly
And keep in mind it's smaller then an iBook, which is important to me.
For a 'modern day' comparison, check out the fujitsu lifebook. Probably my next laptop, built in wifi and, impressively, a CD-ROM drive. And 12 hours of battery life. They have an even smaller one with a touch screen.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I needed a server, I got a mac, I killed mac os, put on BSD and yellow dog and never looked back. It sure is nice not to have a graphics server slaughtering my cpu power and ram. It is even nicer not to have a built in monitor. Hence why the desktop non toastermac units are wonderful. I have several and they work like a charm. I dare anyone to find a faster performing desktop unit at 400 mhz than a mac. There is no intel based 400 mhz unit that even comes CLOSE to comparing to a mac... and for the price there is damn near nothing out there PERIOD. (That's to shut up anyone who brings up SPARC or MIPS stuff (those are out of end user price range).)
-Daedalus
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Sorry to all you germans but the comparison is necessary, and it seems that the gene pool needs thinning. Those too STUPID to adapt SHOULD die or suffer, much like the dog sitting on a nail yelping. If it is not "painful enough" the dog will not move. That is the way of the universe. That which is weak should be removed. Period. Not by force. It should simply have support removed... if it cannot stand on its own, it will wipe itself out. That simple. We are not for socialism or any form of group help government, but we are also against letting the weak fend for themselves with minimal support... that in itself is hypocrisy. Humanity is becoming a weak race, but we remain warmongers and conquerors (until we run into an alien race, try to study them by killing a few of them, and they retaliate and turn us into lab samples of "primitive carbon/meat based life").
:)
The same goes for stupid users. If they are SO stupid as to NOT understand the SIMPLE difference between right and left, then they should be allowed to die of their own ignorance by drying their hair in the bathtub with a blow dryer or to pay a tech support company excessive fees to be taught how to HOLD a freaking multi button mouse.
If they can drive a car (2 to 3 pedals, several control stalks, steering wheel, at least 40 buttons for controls other than the multifunction stalks, automatic shifter or manual shifter, and all those blinky status lights with no text, they can operate all that fine but can't use a MOUSE?!) how the HELL can they NOT handle a mouse?! And these are the same people who will tell you they can do various flavors of calculus... right, and they can't tell the difference between their left and right fingers? And they don't posess the dexterity in one hand to actually HOLD the damn mouse and click TWO buttons???? C'mon that's pitiful.
-Daedalus
PS - besides, the mouse is the least of their worries, most of the ppl who have mouse button problems are the same uninformed morons who don't even know what a window is, or that their case isn't their hard drive and their monitor is NOT their computer, and that turning off their computer and their hard drive is not how you reset your computer. But who am I to argue with the majority of humanity. After all... if we recall IQ tests, the "average" refers to the majority. And the average is LOW!
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Ok, very nice. It's just you made it sound like you installed Yellow Dog Linux because it supports 3 button mice and Macs don't. My problem with your post is that Macs DO support 2 and 3 button mice. But, I'm sorry, I guess I just misunderstood :)
You don't get it do you?! Technically speaking I'm asking that people be EDUCATED AND TAKE TIME TO BE EDUCATED in such SIMPLE concepts as TWO FUCKING BUTTONS!
:)
If they can't take the time, they should not be using computers. 2 buttons on a goddamn mouse is NOT difficult. It isn't. They should try pure commandline if they think 2 buttons is tough. And personally I found apple's interface on any mac os MORE difficult since 2 buttons are more easy than Ctrl / apple/option click. That's my opinion. I know the rest of the world differs. That's their loss
-Daedalus
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
so people that use a mac cant grasp the usage of a three button mouse?
;)
that explains everything.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.