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Review of Apple's "Mighty Mouse"
hanser writes "Ars Technica is running an in-depth review of the new Apple "Mighty Mouse." From the review: "As it turns out, Apple blew the description of its "aural feedback" and "touch sensitivity" out of proportion and led most of us to believe that 1) there was some sort of speaker built into the mouse with synthetic mouse sounds coming out of it, and 2) the shell might be solid-state touch-sensitive like our beloved iPod wheels.""
I'm still acclimatizing to x86, next you'll be telling me that all macs will ship with windows.
Nothing sucks like a Vax, nothing blows like a PowerMac G4
Apple, possibly the most innovative computer company on the planet. Yet, the multi-buttoned mouse is 10 years too late and its not even wireless. Whats up with that?
Another review at DetroitMac: http://detroitmac.com/index.php?content=mightymous e
Also, I forgot to mention that the mouse very much does have a speaker built into it, but the only sound I've heard it make is a clicking as you spin the scroll ball. It's almost like the iPod scrolling sound, but a lot quieter. It's impossible to hear in a normal, noisy office, and in a quiet room it's easy to mistake it for the standard ratcheting sound made by the wheel in almost all other scrolling-type mice. The ARS Technica article seems to have overlooked or simply not noticed this.
maybe some people don't want bluetooth. for my desktop machine i have no problem with a wire. i would rather deal with that than needlessly waste batteries.
i am sure there will be a BT model coming, and that will be nice for laptop users.
If the author of this review had even bothered to read the information on the Apple website, he would have found that there are no sounds associated with the mouse.
Then what, pray tell, is the meaning behind this?
Now Hear This
Mighty Mouse even sounds as good as it feels. The audio feedback built into Mighty Mouse provides an aural sensation that responds to your movements. When you scroll or click, Mighty Mouse produces subtle sound effects based on your actions.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The "innovative" virtual button design is great for letting people use it as a single-button or multi-button mouse, but the consequence is that it doesn't do everything a normal multi-button mouse can do. Namely, it can't click both the left and right button at the same time, and register them as a (left+right) click. Instead, (according to the review) it just gets registered as a left click. Additionally, people who rest their fingers on the mouse buttons are going to be annoyed, because they have to lift their index finger in order to right-click.
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If the author of this review had even bothered to read the information on the Apple website, he would have found that there are no sounds associated with the mouse.
From the Apple website: "Mighty Mouse even sounds as good as it feels. The audio feedback built into Mighty Mouse provides an aural sensation that responds to your movements."
It is also obvious by simply looking at the mouse that it is not "solid-state touch-sensitive like our beloved iPod wheels."
From the Apple website: "Thanks to a smooth top shell with touch-sensitive technology beneath, Mighty Mouse allows you to right click without a right button. Capacitive sensors under Mighty Mouse's seamless top shell detect where your fingers are and predict your clicking intentions."
Also, one of the small features I love about Macintosh is the ability to plug your mouse into the keyboard, therefore getting rid of the need for a long mouse cord. Sounds like a guy who doesn't work on a Mac very often.
Um, what's your point? He didn't say this was a problem, he just noted it as one of the features of the mouse and that this was typical of Apple mice.
Sheesh.
A couple of years ago, I bought my wife a wireless Microsoft Intellimouse for her Mac (OS 9, since upgraded to X).
Prior to her getting that on the computer, I (windows user) would go crazy with the lack of 'right-click' whenever I used her computer. She had no idea what I was talking about whenever I would start cursing and cussing, complaining, "god-damn stupid one-button mouse! I don't want to hold down the ctrl key!" (She was still using the hockey puck at the time)
Now it is great to hear her do the same thing whenever she gets on someone elses Mac. She starts complaining about how stupid it is, and where the heck is the right-button, who thought of this stupid system, and why don't they add another button...etc. etc..
And all the while, the other person (who owns the computer with a single button mouse) sits there wondering what the heck my wife is talking about.
Long story short...why the hell did it take them so long?
No reason to lie.
Umm, the things that were "blown out of proportion" were things that people didn't want. Solid state mouse buttons with no tactile feedback would be awful, and a speaker would be annoying. You know they'd get all clever and make it go "moof" instead of "click". And then some third party would start selling "click tones" featuring Crazy Frog! No thank you.
Yes, absolutely. They are just working away happily, with no idea what they are missing.
Just like we all did before the Internet (what would we need that for?)
Or, just how we did before electric lights. (time to go to bed!)
Just like we did before automobiles (I've got a fast horse!)
Yes, you could easily argue that people can be just fine, dandy, and happy when don't even know what they are missing.
But once you have it, it is very hard to go back.
No reason to lie.
It's not a complaint, just a comment. Many people on Ars and the internet in general threw a fit when it came out that it did not have Bluetooth, so it was merely an acknowledgement of that.
Do you really think the invention of a second mouse button is up there with the automobile or the lightbulb?
Please, it's a mouse button. If a person is comfortable with a single mouse button, let them use it. Just like if someone prefers a different layout to their keyboard instead of qwerty.
Amen to that. I was thinking of getting the BT mouse, but I realised I had little use for it on my desktop. The fact that the mouse connects nicely into the keyboard makes the wire clutter a moot point IMHO. Also it's nicer not having to deal with replacing batteries and also doing without some extra radiation, even if it is small.
Well, he's a she, for starters. Did you even look at the review? ;)
As for the short cable:
1) Many Mac users don't have Apple keyboards with USB hubs in them
2) iBook users have their USB ports on the left. Awkward for right handed users
No FT, No Comment
The second mouse button wasn't "invented". The first mouse ever had three buttons. Only Apple thought they'd have to dumb it down to one because they thought their users couldn't count farther or whatever. It's not "different", it's just stupid. Everyone with half a brain can cope with at least two mouse buttons.
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Ok, so I had a biiiig problem with the regular Mac Mouse. The reason is because a very common activity with a mouse is to drag and drop. Specifically on Macintosh operating systems, you have to click on the menu, hold the click and drag the mouse down through the items till you get to the one you want. THIS IS FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE WITH THEIR MOUSE. I sat there watching a 4 year Mac veteran trying to use the menus with their stupid ass mouse and they missed like every other click. It's designed to fail. Basically, the only way you can scroll all the way down in a long menu is if you pick the mouse up. BUT THE WHOLE FUCKING THING IS A BUTTON. So you have to pinch it by the two stupid ass ridiculously small side things and hope to god you can hold it's weight between your index and pinky for long enough to move it back up your desk so you can continue scrolling back down the menu. WTF^2
So this new "mouse" if that's what you people want to call this abomination, has introduced the world's dumbest feature. The two side things that were your only hope of getting to the bottom of that horrid menu are now BUTTONS. WTF^4?????
So now, not only is the whole damn thing a button but you can't ever pick it up off the fucking desk to drag and drop an appropriate distance. USABILITY? What is wrong with you people?
Check out the Logitech MX 500 for a real mouse.
It's not even "marketing language" or whatnot... Apple didn't blow this out of proportion, the Slashdot summary did. I read the summary, and thought, "Wow, that's pretty crazy!" Then I RTFA (sorry, I'm not really a frequent slashdotter), and I couldn't figure out where the person writing the summary got their crazy ideas.
I'm pretty sure Apple's description of the mouse explained how it actually works, and somebody misunderstood something (or maybe only read part of it) and started making random assumptions.
annoyed, because they have to lift their index finger
Ok, we have DEFINATLY gotten too lazy when lifting a finger has become too much to ask of us.
You can't take the sky from me...
That sounds like my experience getting stuck using Windows boxen after learning shortcuts for my Linux desktop. X11 for *nix supports pasting with the middle button and I get frustrated with the Windows Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V system whenever I have to use it. God forbid I ever have to use a single-button mouse.
Sorry, my karma just ran over your dogma.
I think the most important feature of this new mouse is that it works like a single button mouse in the default configuration.
Last month, my wife was on the phone with her mother providing tech support. I'm not exaggerating when I say that she said "NOT THE RIGHT BUTTON, MOM!" about 20 times. The context menu was coming up, and the selected action (default) was not the one needed.
Her mom is not stupid, but she does hit the wrong button on her mouse. To her, there's no difference -- they both click.
The Mighty Mouse will work fine for people who just want the simple click-n-go interface. Also, since the default configuration is to not have a right button, it forces developers to "keep it simple, stupid".
Power users (e.g. your average Slashdot reader) can benefit from multiple buttons -- and go to the preference panel to enable the additional functionality. Some intermediate level users may even learn about the "power of the right click" by seeing & exploring the preference panel -- good for them, too!
This is what I like about Apple -- creating solutions that work for a wide range of users.
-ch
Not that ironic - MS doesn't actually make those peripherals, they are re-badged from other OEMs.
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The weird thing about this mouse is the side buttons. My Apple Wireless mouse has the same design (little semicircles of plastic on the side), although obviously they don't do anything on my mouse.
Were those put there as a specific design element that could be used later for this mouse, or was that a total coincidence? I always thought that design was weird.
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I think they missed one important dot on that diagram.
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For $41 I can get the Logitech MX1000 laser mouse.
It uses a real laser (as opposed to a red LED and a camera) for tracking, has an ergonomic design, is wireless, has a recharging stand, battery indicator, 8 buttons (left, right, forward, back, "tasks", scroll up, scroll down), and a up/down/left/right tilt wheel.
I use this thing for everything from Photoshop to Counter Strike, and it is BY FAR the best mouse I've ever used, corded or not. Never jumps around. Is incredibly accurate. Extremely comfortable. Battery lasts a very long time. It's just great.
Can somebody tell me why I would want the Apple mouse? Oh... ya... because Apple made it. My bad.
at amazon. cheaper than getting it from apple.
In my personal experience, it appears that most non-geek people "turn off" their brains when computing and subconciously decide that they won't exert any (and I mean ANY) effort to figure out a problem.
There are fundamental differences between using a mouse and driving a car, and using a keyboard and putting on shoes that I think are also woth mentioning:
Try to explain these to an inexperienced user and you'll get as much of a blank stare as when talking about the difference between left and right mouse buttons.
It amazes me (okay, not really) that there are so many holier-than-thou attitudes here disregarding the 'two mouse buttons are too confusing' argument. I guess they fail to realize that the world is full of people, and not everyone is as knowledgeable, skilled, smart, dexterous or experienced as themselves.
Many people here would do a lot for their awareness of this reality by reading The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman.
Consider the possibility that there are other reasons for a particular engineering design than the one you can think of off the top of your head. RSI, for instance.
Or consider that other people work differently than you do.
Or have other preferences.
It's not useful to have a preference and then call everyone with a different set of requirements a moron. I'd have to call you a moron for not using a trackball, for instance, but that's not helpful
My God, it's Full of Source!
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It did have three buttons, which had, essentially, the following functions
select
move
activate
Which Apple confusingly replaced with "click" "drag" and "double click."
Personally, I'm so glad that most sane people have chosen to use multiple buttons. Can you imagine what it would be like if we had to "click twice in rapid succession" the way Apple would have us do? Or "hold down a button while moving?"
Give me my "activate" and "move" buttons anyday. Let those crazy Apple users "double click," I want no part of it.
"Only Apple thought they'd have to dumb it down to one because they thought their users couldn't count farther or whatever"
Actually, Apple made the decision to use one mouse button based on extensive user testing. The short summary is that it's very natural for people to point at and tap things, but not natural at all for people to have to decide which finger to use. So when novice users try to use multi-button mice they have no problem moving the pointer and clicking, but they have a terrible time picking between multiple buttons. By using one button, Apple eliminated the single largest cause of user confusion with mice, which is smart.
For anyone who is familiar enough with multi-button mice not to be confused, it's easy enough to buy and plug in a multi-button mouse. And since the OS and all applications support multiple mouse buttons, it all works just fine.
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