The teardrop ADB Mouse II Stephen EdmondsThis may be the most ergonomic mouse Apple’s ever made.A few years later, Apple updated the ADB mouse with a new plastic shell that gave it a teardrop shape, with a bulbous back side. Apple commonly mistakes additional buttons as additional complexity, but holding down the control key and clicking, or long-clicking, is not simpler and more intuitive than clicking a right mouse button. If we had one finger on our hands rather than four, our hands might be simpler, but our interactions with the world would likely be more complicated. For some reason, Apple’s reluctance to have more than one mouse button would plague its design ethos for ages. It came first with the Apple IIGS, then later to the Mac.This is where Apple should have introduced a second mouse button. This was, for the time, a legitimately good mouse, with superior ergonomics.There was a feature to adjust the click force, but the differences were so hard to notice that Apple dropped it on future mice.Nothing actually clicks on this mouse—there’s just fake clicking sounds from a speaker inside. Being able to click anywhere on the mouse isn’t really a feature people need, and the force of pressing down the entire mouse body often moved the pointer a little bit, causing you to miss what you were clicking on. Apple’s answer was to remove all the buttons and make a one-button mouse where you click down on the entire mouse body.It sure made the mouse look good, but in practice, it was a step back in usability. Ergonomically, it was a bit on the small side and didn’t fit either a claw-grip or palm-grip style very well.By this time, the rest of the computing world was using two-button mice with a scroll wheel, and fans insisted that Apple adopt this norm. It’s pretty when it’s new, but it becomes a mess of scratches in short order.Worse, it had a ridiculously short cord that was prone to failure. It was the most ergonomic and well-designed mouse (for its time) that Apple has ever produced.And you could even get it in an awesome matte black color!Unfortunately, this mouse, first released in 1993, would be the last one Apple makes to which I would give a grade over C-.Apple’s first optical mouse, the Pro Mouse was at least not round, though it followed the questionable “transparent case” design motif of the Power Mac G4 Cube.It’s Magic Mouse…not so much. It boggles the mind that anyone at Apple actually used this and said, “yeah, ship it!” Magic Mouse AppleIt sure is pretty, but it’s hard to hold, and gestures are useless.Apple’s Magic Keyboard is fantastic. So you had to lift one finger first and then tap the right side of the mouse with your other finger. And while this was the first Apple mouse with a right-click function (even though its operating system had useful control-click menus for ages), it was almost impossible to actually get it to work.The mouse would only right-click if there was no touch sensed on the left mouse button area.
The symmetrical front-to-back slope doesn’t fit the contours of one’s hand. Swiping and pinching on a stationary trackpad is fine, but it just isn’t a great interaction on a device made to glide effortlessly across your desk.The ambidextrous nature of the shape is appealing, but it otherwise doesn’t offer good ergonomics for a mouse. It’s almost impossible to make use of them without accidentally moving the mouse around. Gestures sound like a good idea, but they’re impractical on a mouse. How Apple can address its mouse problemApple’s trackpads are smooth, precise, intuitive, and a joy to use. Compared to the responsiveness and precision offered by the best mice, Apple’s first-party pointing device feels downright sluggish. Leif Johnson/IDGHas nobody at Apple ever used other wireless mice?Even if you get past all that, the fundamental experience of using a Magic Mouse isn’t as good as most third-party mice. Simply putting this port along the front edge would let you use your mouse like a traditional wired mouse while it charges. Just ask your keyboard designers! We need a left and right buttons. Nothing beats the actual tactile sensation of moving parts with proper travel and bounce. In the off chance that Apple wants to make its first great mouse in a generation, here are a few simple suggestions.Bring back real buttons: Give us real, physical buttons that travel and click. If I thought Apple cared about mice at all anymore, I would imagine it was embarrassed. Is there quicken for macStrange then that its mice feel so sluggish and unresponsive by comparison. For a mouse to have good contact with a relaxed hand it needs to be thicker than the Magic Mouse, especially near the back end.Obsess over latency and tracking performance: Apple works so diligently to bring down latency on its touch screens and the Apple Pencil, because it recognizes that creating that sense of immediacy makes using your technology feel magical. Don’t reinvent the wheel, just make the best damn wheel on the market.Make it fit our hands: Left/right symmetry is a fine design goal (and left-handed users will thank you), but front/back symmetry just doesn’t match the shape of our hands. Simple up-and-down scrolling with a nice fat wheel feels good, works in every application, is discoverable and intuitive, and doesn’t make the mouse move around like touch gestures do. As with all input devices, tiny delays between our physical movement and a reaction on screen are felt before they are seen, and the chief goal of Apple’s mice should be to feel amazing—like you’re directly connected to your computer.
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