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Why Apple Makes a One-Button Mouse

Posted by michael on from the behind-the-times dept.

IdiotOnMyLeft writes "There is a short article at Gear Live that tries to explain why Apple still sticks with a one-button mouse. It points out the fact that although it is perfectly possible to use a two-button mouse on a Mac for 7 years now, developers are forced to rethink their design approach and can't flood the right-click menu. No article of this kind would be complete without mentioning that users get confused with two buttons. There's a rumor that John Carmack once asked Steve Jobs what would happen if they'd put one more key on the keyboard."

2 of 1,271 comments (clear)

  1. Single button rules by sg3000 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Me? I use a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer for Bluetooth both at work and at home. I didn't have to install any drivers or anything. Just pair the mouse to my PowerBook (with built-in Bluetooth), and I'm done.

    Mouse button 1 = regular click
    Mouse button 2 = contextual click
    Mouse button 3 = not used because it's too easy to scroll with the wheel when clicking, but it used to be mapped such that when I clicked it and scrolled, the Mac screen would either zoom in or zoom out (really nice Quartz Extreme feature)
    Mouse button 4 = Expose show all windows
    Mouse button 5 = Expose show desktop

    My wife is the opposite. She prefers a single button mouse for her iMac and PowerBook. I bought her a multi-button mouse with scroll wheel for playing Jedi Academy. When she's done playing, she unplugs the multi-button mouse and plugs in her white Apple mouse.

    Apple's got the right idea. Ship a single button mouse to make sure that developers don't start hiding things in the contextual menu, but support multiple button mice out of the box with no need for drivers. The scenario Gear Live describes is pretty common: "left click or right click?" On a Mac, that statement doesn't come up.

    However, I'm sure some people will still complain about the single button mouse. Some people are just looking for nits to pick, and they're looking for excuses to deride Macs, though not necessarily reasons.

    --
    Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
  2. Re:Mice by SpamJunkie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    part of it is sheer torture (font handling, for instance)

    I'd like to know what is wrong with OS X's font handling. I assume you're comparing it to Windows. They both use a fonts directory, and they both work the same way: put a font file in the directory and it will be available to all programs instantly.

    The key differences being that in OS X you can organize your fonts into sub folders, you can use both Mac and PC fonts (even windows TTFs) and - the really big plus for multi-user machines - each user can install fonts that only they have access to.

    So what was it you preferred about Windows's font management?