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Apple Developing Two-Button Mouse
An anonymous reader writes "Always the innovator, Apple is rumored to be developing a two-button mouse! Personally, I don't think it will catch on. Two buttons will be way too confusing for your average user." A few users noted a related Slashdot story from awhile back that discusses why Apple has historically avoided the two-button mouse. The article also mentions a revision to the AirPort Base Station with built-in optical audio.
Why would Apple design a 2 button mouse? Is that not insane? Wouldn't it make more sense to design at least a 3 button mouse with a wheel? What would really be gained by simply adding a second button?
The Wheel from the iPod on a mouse?
I'm sure my girlfriend will appreciate how dextrious my fingers will get.
Slashdot gets sued for giving out trade secrets. Apple demands to know who leaked this information, which would have revolutionized the computer world as we know it.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I picked up an Apple Wireless Mouse and found that it was good enough for everything... except reading long pages. I'd rather have a scroll wheel than another button: the usefulness of the scroll wheel would far exceed having another mouse button.
Luckily, I have a lot of multiple button Logitech mice running around that I can use. But can anyone tell me how I can map f9 to the middle mouse button? Whenever I try, it just pops Expose open instead.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
Microsoft innovates the 1-Button mouse as a whole new line of efficiency.
Bill Gates says: "One mouse button ought to be enough for anybody."
Y'know what's really funny is that OS-X supports poly-button mice with wheel-scrolling ability, yet Apple don't (as yet) sell such a mouse. This has been good for those 3rd party vendors who produce asthetically-pleasing multi-button mice. Please, no flames about Control-Click, I'm a Mac user, yet respect the right-click.
Stuck down a hole! In the middle of the night! With an owl!
PC or no apple has long supported two button mice which is fine for me (as that's all one would ever want to use...) in fact my mac also has 5 buttons, two of which are hooked into the expose features and one I use in a more traditional (X) oriented fashion...
The issue is really with powerbooks which only support one button on the case trackpad- a major pain - will apple release a two button config with the new PB's as well? I hope so.
As as side note, I use (as do many others) a program called sidetrack, ( http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/sidetrack/ ) which allows you to place regions on the track pad to support up to an additional 4 buttons, and v/h scrolling on the edges of the pad. It works well- but takes a lot of getting used to (to avoid accidentally hitting the buttons) IMHO but it's better than nothing- however howabout a mod for the PB itself to have it on the HW, along with the two button mouse.
I wonder how Job's will keynote this. Not a guy who likes to say 'I was wrong'
This morning I woke up and the skies were coloured of sackcloth, and the sun coloured as blood, and there was this distinct crunching sound on the floor as I walked over a carpet of locusts, and there were these strange markings on the outside of my door.... now I know why.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Apple kept to a one button mouse for ease of us and to prevent user confusion. What the /. crowd seems to miss is that the mac is made for simplicity for the average joe who never used a computer. Most geeky folk who have a solid understanding of an OS will want as many buttons on a mouse as possible. For for people (like most of parents?) that are clueless navigating an OS with a two button mouse is confusing. While I was doing phone support for gateway last year I would have to explain the difference a right and left mouse click ever other call. It was like magic... at some point I would ask the customer to right on something for a menu and everytime afterwards when I would ask to click on a specific item they would then ask "is that a right click, or a left click"? After 3 times of this I would have to tell them click means left mouse button and right click is a right mouse button. I'm sure no apple support tech has had to deal with that. The mac version of a right click, being either ctrl + click or holding down the mouse button for 3 seconds to generate a menu, doesn't lodge an idea of different kinds of clicks in the users mind. I personally think apple should stick with a one button mouse and let the geeks buy a 2-5 button mouse (which has suported in the mac os since os 9) if they want.
jeez! you can't throw it all at a user a once! the only way is to scale out those big features incrimentally.
Yawn. My Logitech three-button wheel mouse works just fine in OS X and guess what the wheel does?
Um... if you rotate the wheel fast enough, would you get the joke that flew by at Mach 10 over your head?
You roll an 18 in Dex and see if you don't end up with a girlfriend.
Darthtuttle
Thought Architect
i take it I'm not the only one who thinks the ipod's scroll wheel interface was designed by watching women masturbate?
Try pushing that button while the computer is in the middle of writing to the disk. Then, after reformatting the disk and checking if floppy drive still works, you may have some idea.
Nerdiest Response Ever
I have to disagree here. I really can't stand the one-button mice on Macs (well, aesthetically they're nice, but from a usability standpoint they feel like they are forcing me to wear a mitten). On the other hand, I have never found a multi-button trackpad/ball/point on a laptop that I found even remotely usable. The nice thing about multi-button mice is that you are able to use one button with each finger. With a trackpad, you generally use both buttons with a thumb (I pondered the idea of placing the second button above the pad, but I have never seen an implementation of this concept), and so right-clicking is less ergonomic than control-clicking.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Please. Comparing the BSoD to an OS X grey screen of death is just wrong. When a Mac crashes, the screen fades to grey, and a translucent box appears telling you (in four languages, no less) that you need to restart your computer. The BSoD has far less class and style...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It keeps it safe, because you can 'accidently' hit the button on a PC case, which will cause it to spit out in the middle of reading/writing, causing a corrupted diskette. back to the topic at hand, A two button mouse is nice, but not necessary to run a Mac. You dont need two buttons to nagigate an OS (unless its Windows). And if it is really necessary to right click something on a Mac, I long gotten used to Control-Clicking, because my hands are on the keyboard more than the mouse. or my left hand is on the keyboard, and my right hand is moving the mouse.
And how much extra effort would it take to fix it? 10 or 15 minutes and a quick re-compile?
You've got to think corporate:
Memo from QA, 'Firefox compatibility'.
2 months later: Action Meeting decides to have report done.
2 weeks later: Meeting about report.
16 months later: Issue report request, 'Firefox compatibility'.
15 minutes later: Intern produces report.
6 months later: Meeting to discuss report.
3 weeks later: Meeting to discuss follow-up report.
2 months later: Action plan established.
1 week later: Action plan steering committee appointed.
3 months later: Action plan steering committee asks intern to recompile mouse drivers.
15 minutes later: Drivers ready.
I actually asked a girl at a club how she would rate me on a scale of 3 to 18. She said 17 so I pulled out a 20 sider and rolled. Then I said I passed my charisma check so you have to dance with me. It actually worked! That's what happens when you start the night with drinking and D&D before going to the club.
...Once you become a more serious Mac user you really do want more than one button on a mouse!
This is especially true if you need to keep multiple windows open and are running an image-editing or multimedia-editing program.
someone has to say it.....
That is just sad, truly sad.
1.) that you would make the comment
2.) that you would make it to a girl
3.) that you would have a D20 with you in a club
4.) that you would think this would work
5.) that this actually did
Did her moustache tickle?
Send whiskey and fresh horses!
Here is the story of how they got that cloverleaf symbol.