Apple introduces two-button mouse [MERGED] - Page 6

I have heard a report on MacRumors that after installing the Mighty Mouse software on older (not current generation) 'Books that the trackpad becomes scrolling enabled like they are now in the iBook and PowerBook. Can any of you who own both the Mighty Mouse and an older 'Book check your trackpad preferences to confirm this. It would be so cool if true.

i got other uses for my middle finger evil:

nah seriously, i agree. my middle finger is the scrollmaster beast now after using scrolly-mice for a few years now. even on tha mac

and you know what they say about people with a long (which finger was it??) finger...

i am not sure of the validity of this, but i had heard once that's it's less harsh on the mechanisms and belts/gears for a drive if you use the button and allow the drive to do its thing. yeah, the tray is supposed to retract at pressure, but, again, from what i heard, it's more of a precautionary thing to prevent it form being snapped off/bent/etc by accident.

I actually exclusively use the eject key on my keyboard. I can hit it with my mousing hand, grab the disc, and the tray is open by the time I get there. I just slap it in and hit the key again before resuming mousing position.

I'm a maven with those hardware keys though, volume and mute included.


Actually, here's a big question for all the wired eject key wanters... what type of mac do you want the eject key on? Desktop? Laptop? Both?

Well I have had a few days to think about this now and the shock has worn off.....

I switched to using mac in 2002 one of the main reasons was the one button mouse! i got tired of trying to figure out pro apps on the pc when you have right and click options on almost everything you could get lost even with a manual...... and i was already a computer veteran before owning my own pc so dont flame me,I liked the WYSIWYG and one button approach apple has.

I think the Mighty Mouse is a welcome addition to the mouse family at apple for those who likes things less Zen more wiz bang,but it should definatley not be standard!!!!!!!!!!!! let it be one of the drop down options on the build to order or option page in the store for those who want one,heck the people on those pages mostly are there because they want it the burger king way "their way" anyway so otherwise ship it one button or not, some of us only want blue tooth stuff anyway so just ship our macs and let us all decide on mice because obviously,by this thread mice are like assholes with opinions
everybody has one with many opinions on mice...

yeah i know the mighty can be set to act as one big button like the current pro mouse but I dont want a ball on mine "I LOVE THEBLUE TOOTH APPLE PRO MOUSE" its Zen flawlessness is simple and perfect like God or nature...

why oh windows worshippers multibuttoneers,why inch inch along and scroll scroll when you can grab the bar and drag it all the way down in one swoop
or hold down control and make multiple contextual choices!!!

seeeeeee..... many buttons doesnt make somthing easier,just makes it somthing more complex theirs more work involved so you think your doing somthing.

If they made these standard then they will also have to give in to all the people crying out for more contextual menus eventually so the OS will change to and then they will have really sold out! as some people are claim they have already and gone will be any Icon or thing that ever seperated mac from windows....... THINK ABOUT IT!

catman, i have used bluetooth apple pro wireless one-button mouse for a few months last year. that is the pinnacle of zen. heh

the logitech mouse and keyboard stuff is so-unzen with too much crap all over it. buttons, wheels, battery indicator, etc.

mighty mouse? hopefully it un-zen's gracefully

sometimes i get bored with zen minimalism and i wander over to the darkside. i may be buying my first AMD based setup today and try out this windoze xp pro. believe me, i've run the numbers ten ways till sunday and a new mac is not in my stars. need a peecee for work. and i WANT DESPERATELY to play half-life2. nvidia 6600gt 128mb yeah. bring it.

luckily they don't ban you from appleinsider for using PCs or multibutton-PS2-mice

edit: on the same note, playing almost any sort of game on PC or Mac with only one button is bloody insane.

So you actually DO all that stuff. I was just guessing before.

Back to the sane side. Mossberg from the WSJ gave it a bad, or so so review today. He wasn't thrilled. I e-mailed him a couple of questions. He takes a couple of days to respond, so we'll see.

Since his reviews of everything Apple for the last two years or so have been almost uniformly glowing, I'm inclined to take it seriously when he is not so happy.

stopped in the local apple store and tried out the new mouse. Loved the rollerball and how accurate it was, especially being able to go line by line or fast scroll. Very nice. But i didn't buy the mouse, I didn't like how the right click sometimes didn't register when I clicked.

Perhaps sometimes I had my left finger on the mouse, which i usually do. But it didn't always work for me, and I didn't like the placement of the squeeze buttons. I'll stick with my (gasp) microsoft intellimouse optical scroll with 5 buttons, works great.

but i did pick up a refurbed mac mini they had there in the back, 1.42gjz, 80gb, 512mb, for all of $449 with Panther and iLife05. thought it a decent deal (and I have tiger) and after install of Tiger it looks and works fantastic on this Dell 20.1" widescreen. Love it. Nice and bright. Well worth the trip to check out the mouse!

I have the same track ball. Does the ball stick? It does on mine no matter how I clean it. I changed it for another one, and that sticks too. I've had them almost from the beginning, and they stuck from the beginning. My Logitechs never have.

Mice bite sometimes. Is this a design flaw?

i have to say i do NOT like the fact that you can't force eject a stuck disc in a G5 with a paper-clip in hole technique like you used to, unless that "hole" is hidden behind one of the 800 holes on the front of my case. i know the "hold mouse button down during startup" is supposed to always work, and there's always open-firmware (well, at least until intel-based macs come around...), but sometimes nothing frees up a problem like the good ol' fashioned straightened paper clip.

it's an advantage, a light mouse, no batteries to worry about. It works better than any mouse I've EVER used. Perfect Apple, and the scrollball is more important than the right click.

At first I thought the Mighty mouse looked great; then I used one and was a bit disappointed by the side buttons and 'feel' of right-clicks. I bought one anyway, mainly for my wife to use with our iMac.


Having used it myself in more extended sessions I have to say that it has grown on me dramatically. The scroll ball simply feels better than anything else out there, the design is comfortable and beautiful, and with a little use the side buttons and right clicking become much easier.

I'm even tempted to pick one up as a replacement to my MS Intellimouse 4.0

I only post this for those of you sitting on the fence; the Mighty Mouse is better than originally thought.

I used one for the first time yesterday in compusa.

The scroll ball is the BEST scroll mechanism I have ever used. It really is heads an shoulders above using a wheel. However, the one at compusa was already getting grimy around the ball. I suspect a little alcohol and a cotton bud will clean it up tho'.

I set off the side buttons far too easily. I guess it is just a familiarity thing, and relaxing my grip might improve the rsi I get from using mice ( I use a trackball these days ).

On my mac the thing I most commonly right click is application folder in the dock. Testing it with the MM I got about a 50% success rate. Doesnt seem very attractive, but I would probably get better at that too.

Im very tempted to get it for the scroll ball, but in the end it falls down for one reason, it is still wired, and I just dont like using mice with wires.

This (click problem) seems to be common. We shouldn't have to get used to it. The fact that there have been so many reports about this being a problem means that Apple will have to go back and try to improve it quickly.

Apple being Apple though probably won't rush into that.

the click problem is one major reason i hated windows pc laptops for the past few years. whenever using a friend or colleagues' one i kept accidentally 'tapping' clicking the thingo when all i wanted to do with the trackpad was move the cursor around. if i wanted to click, well, that's what the actual *trackpad buttons* were for.

i know you can turn it off nowadays in most windows pcs but that was such a turnoff for me.

And this problem seems to be the opposite. It won't click when you want it to. Sometimes the right click comes out as a left click.

I think it depends on how much pressure is kept on the buttons when simply holding the thing. The problem might be solvable if Apple made it so that the amount of pressure required to "click" was adjustable. That way, both light and heavy handed people could get it to the level that would work best.

If that could be done with software, it would cost nothing.

If you right click and your left finger is resting on the mouse it will register as left click automatically. As most clicks are left this makes sense. If you want to right click you have to raise your left finger slightly. I do this most of the time naturally so this isn't a problem for me.

The scroll ball though is so amazing that it's worth that minor imperfection and the side buttons which are slightly awkward (esp as you can only have one side button)

Now that we have more (hardware) possibilities with the MM, I feel that the control panel could be improved. Why are the left and right sidebuttons for the same action ? Why is there only one scrolspeed for vertical and horizontal scrolling ? Automatic button-target mode (moving automatically to an 'ok' button) and so on ... ?
You could try this , but I would prefer that Apple build the extra features in themselves ...

Left and right are set to "Primary" to avoid confusion with users who aren't used to handling a two-button mouse - which is the right way to go by default. (Rather than forcing less advanced users to change their settings)

No, he's referring to the side buttons, and the reason they cannot be programmed individually is because it's almost impossible to only press one. It certainly isn't possible from the usual mouse holding position! It is easy to squeeze both though.

It's NOT supposed to be that way. You aren't supposed to have to lift your finger to right click. You don't ever have to do this with a properly designed mouse or trackball.

This has been one of the questions that's been going around on the forums. Almost nobody likes the idea of having to lift a finger.

That's why I proposed sensitivity adjustments.

Apple didn't get this just right, Let's admit it for once. Even the guys at the store in Soho admit that it shouldn't work that way.

It works for me most of the time. It may not be the way Apple intended it to be but I'm very happy with my mouse. The only thing I miss is the second side button like I had on my Logitech MX500

I'm posting a question and answer from an interview with John Gruber from Daring Fireball from Guidebookgallery.org.

http://daringfireball.net/

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/index


"And hot on the heels of the announcement of the Mighty Mouse, whats your opinion about it Apple catching up or leading the pack?

The scroll ball is terrific better than any scroll wheel Ive ever used. If you just think of it as a single-button mouse with a scroll ball, its a nice improvement over the Apple Pro Mouse. But the fact that you have to lift your fingers off the left side of the mouse to register a right-click (or vice-versa) is a serious design flaw, in my opinion.

I plan to write a full review of the Mighty Mouse in the next couple of days."

His opinion syncs up with the vast majority. Some may like it, but it is a flaw. Most of the time isn't good enough. It should be virtually always.

I finally got a chance to play with one... it was... odd. But then, I haven't used *any* mouse on a regular basis in three years (laptops only). To be honest, I found the scroll ball to be the weirdest part, while the slight lift of the left finger while right-clicking felt... natural. I guess I just always did it anyway.

(right-handed/lefthanded)
is it just me, but if my index finger is resting on the left mouse button, middle finger on the scrollwheel/ball, i wouldn't be able to really lift my fourth finger to right click without lifting both my index finger and my middle finger.

its like that test, rest both hands on a table, and try to lift each finger individually without lifting the other fingers, and some fingers like your index finger no worries, but others like the fourth finger is really hard to lift it high without lifting your other fingers.

hmmm the mighty mouse might have already shown up in AppleCentres in Malaysistan, i'll have to go play with one to see what the fuss is about. i found a decently priced wireless mouse/keyboard combo thing but it was M$ and i simply couldn't bring myself to buy one.

edit: i would buy a logitech keyboard/mouse wireless USB combo thingy but i absolute LOATHE all the other rubbish buttons on the keyboards. so frickin unnecessary.

Take off your brass knuckles before you use it.

I Used one! I used one! Pretty good.

Just to go completly off topic - I saw a dead possum this morning. It looked like it had fallen off a powerline, as there was a big blood spot on the ground, then a few feet away the possum was.

Stupid possum.

This post was going to have something in it, but i decided against it.

You don't need to lift the fourth finger, just the index and middle. It would only be a problem if you reversed the primary and secondary click and still used your right hand. Oh and most left-handed people have reasonably flexible fingers - I can move all independently.

heh... poor bloody possums
also, looks like my fingers are defective as i have learnt

this thread has now died a natural death

Not quite ... There's one more request for a next MM software update: faster mousetracking. With the current large flatscreens, it's just needed ...
So, crank up the tracking topspeed please, Apple !

By any chance are you a Windows switcher? Apple tracking is generally slower but has accelerated scrolling so that if you move the mouse faster it's faster. I find the tracking to be perfect on all mice on my computer - apart from logitech with their crappy drivers.

Should be a limit on thread posts - after six pages, we are talking about things that have been discussed and rediscussed.

Does no one (including me) have a life anymores?

Yeah, I can't believe it. Only us Mac users could possibly think that a crappy mouse is worth a thread like this.

It's not even as though multibutton and scrolling mice hadn't been supported for six or seven years now.

This certainly my last post to this thread.

Welp, mine broke already. It can scroll up, left, and right, and that's about it...

Gotta call AppleCare tonight or tomorrow and ask for RMA.

has anyone tried the Macmice.com two button scroll mouse. You can get it with bluetooth as well and it still has the apple look.

I've heard there are conflicts when using it with a bluetooth keyboard - to be honest the ball on the Mighty Mouse is the best scrolling device on a mouse, second only to the two-finger scrolling on my PowerBook.

When I was looking at the Mighty Mouse and that marvelous scrollball, the first thought that popped into my mind was to use it on the iBook/Powerbook line.
Hey, I mean wouldn't it be great to be able to scroll any way you like by having that little ball on top of your trackpad ?

Two finger scrolling (or sidetrack) is nice but it would really be great to have an actual scrolling device.

I think it's more convenient to just add a finger to the track-pad - I've got friends with scrolling strips next to the track-pad and that's much less convenient than the Apple solution. The current solution I find the best - it's too awkward to move your finger off the track-pad to get to a ball.