Apple Releases Multi-Button "Mighty Mouse"

TheRaven64 writes "Hot on the heels of the announcement of x86 Macs, Apple announced a multi-button mouse, known as the Mighty Mouse. It appears that the entire surface is touch-sensitive, allowing the mouse to be programmed as a single-button, multi-button or scrolling device."

Comments

oh thats brilliant....

[AviLazar]

no not really, considering my fingers rest on my mouse (ever so lightly). Now a touch mouse? Bad enough that touchpad on my dell laptop always gets hit by the underside of my thumb.
Just make a freaking normal mouse people.

Re:It isn't touch sensitive, I think

[TomHandy]

When you tell people to RTFA, maybe you might want to do so yourself? Hell, it's in the opening bolded paragraph:

"And with touch-sensitive technology concealed under the seamless top shell, you get the programability of a four-button mouse in a single-button design. "

There's a little feedback

[pjcreath]

It sounds like the clicky noises on the iPod don't do it for you, but they at least did the same thing here. In small print on the side of the design page, it says that "a tiny speaker inside Mighty Mouse produces button-clicking and Scroll Ball-rolling sound effects."

Not quite as good as tactile feedback, but definitely better than none.

Re:Apple Innovates Again

[Taevin]

I have the same Logitech mouse and I have to say that it is a very good mouse. Perhaps it's not quite as "elegant" as the Apple one (for some), but it's still good looking and fits your hand well. To the others that are saying "omfgz wtf do you need 11 buttons for lol!!1", it's not as many as you might think. Left click, right click, 3 for scroll wheel (up, down, click), 3 right above the thumb groove, a button forward of the scroll wheel that by default scrolls up rapidly when pushed/held, one rear of the scroll wheel that does the same, and one just rear of that that switches programs. Thats a total of 11, all programmable, system wide or application specific (in Windows although I'm guessing you could do the same in Linux with imwheel or xmodmap or something). By the same standards, the new Apple mouse has 8: Left click, right click, left side button, right side button, and 4 for the ball (at least).

So maybe you don't need all those buttons but it's not like they are in the way. They are still very useful to have to map things to (just like Apple is touting).

OH I get it, you're just Mac/Apple fanatics. When Logitech does it, it's a big monstrosity. When Apple does it, it's sleak, elegant, and advanced.

You DO have tactile feedback

[Lepton68]

You click the mouse same as the old one, by pushing down on the whole mouse until it clicks - tactile. The mouse senses what side of the top your finger is on, giving you a left and right click. You can also click the scroll ball on top of the mouse for a third button - tactile. And you can squeeze the sides for a fourth button - tactile. All these are programmable, and the ball scrolls 360 degrees.

Re:You don't get it do you?

[Morgahastu]

Originally, yes. But now most apps depend on control clicking on things instead of right clicking.

My writeup

[ZackSchil]

My writeup for this article (submitted nearly 4 hours ago) was a bit more detailed so I might as well post it as a comment.

As if we needed yet another sign of the impending apocalypse, Apple announced today that they will be selling a multi-button mouse. The aptly-named "Mighty Mouse" features two top buttons (actually, one that's a touch sensitive panel to determine which side of the mouse has been clicked), a secondary button that is activated by squeezing the sides of the mouse, and a clickable, bidirectional scroll ball. It also contains a small speaker to give user feedback when clicking or scrolling. The mouse is programmable from the Mac OS X Mouse Control Panel and will retail for $49. It has not yet been bundled with any Macs and is not available as a build-to-order option. It is, however, PC compatible.