Yet again a clever proof of concept. He’s basically created a “magic shoe” for the Magic Mouse that allows the mouse to be used while charging. It works. But it’s pretty obvious from the implementation why Apple never chose to go down this path. It’s design and aesthetics are okay from a mouse-in-a-shoe perspective, but Apple (at least with Jony Ive at the helm of the design team) would never have allowed this to be labeled as an Apple product. It’s too large, bulky, and reminiscent of mouse designs you can get from many other vendors for $29.99.
Apple would have designed a more compact solution.
It's not much of an issue on a laptop (most Mac users) because you can use the trackpad. It mainly affects desktop users where you have to stop using the computer while it charges.
It takes a couple of hours to charge fully to last a couple of months so to get a few hours charge, a couple of minutes plugged in then charge fully at the end of the day isn't a big deal. Using a mouse while it's plugged in is awkward and people would probably do that if they had the choice.
It's not just about being able to use the mouse when it is dead. There is also interference as an issue. We have our offices in Times Sq. and have quickly moved all of the "Magic Mouse"s that we own out of service. Why, you ask? Of course employee productivity is affected if they are unable to use their computer because they forgot to plug in their mouse, or maybe they did plug it in, but the dock that they use with their laptop doesn't provide charging power unless the laptop is homed into the dock.
In any case, the power scenario is one thing, but now we use decent quality Logitech Mouse(s) that cost 50% of a Magic Mouse and can still use a dongle or Bluetooth and they have a charging port on the front side (like the Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad I might add). It isn't all about charging, like my Magic Keyboard in my office, I keep everything plugged in almost all the time because when I disconnect, if it is a particularly bad day, then the mouse and/or keyboard lag because of signal interference.
If you wanted to defend your design like that, saying "why would people ever need to use it while charging," then why do the Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad both function over the hard-line while charging? Obviously Apple recognizes that this is necessary functionality, they just have a total corporate blindspot when it comes to the Magic Mouse.
I, for one, am glad that almost no product includes it anymore, and those that do I can opt for the a trackpad instead.
It's not just about being able to use the mouse when it is dead. There is also interference as an issue. We have our offices in Times Sq. and have quickly moved all of the "Magic Mouse"s that we own out of service. Why, you ask? Of course employee productivity is affected if they are unable to use their computer because they forgot to plug in their mouse, or maybe they did plug it in, but the dock that they use with their laptop doesn't provide charging power unless the laptop is homed into the dock.
In any case, the power scenario is one thing, but now we use decent quality Logitech Mouse(s) that cost 50% of a Magic Mouse and can still use a dongle or Bluetooth and they have a charging port on the front side (like the Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad I might add). It isn't all about charging, like my Magic Keyboard in my office, I keep everything plugged in almost all the time because when I disconnect, if it is a particularly bad day, then the mouse and/or keyboard lag because of signal interference.
If you wanted to defend your design like that, saying "why would people ever need to use it while charging," then why do the Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad both function over the hard-line while charging? Obviously Apple recognizes that this is necessary functionality, they just have a total corporate blindspot when it comes to the Magic Mouse.
I, for one, am glad that almost no product includes it anymore, and those that do I can opt for the a trackpad instead.
Because the time it took you to type that thoughtful piece is longer than the time it would take you to charge a ‘Magic Mouse’ to keep in service for the rest of the day.
People have a problem with that because they seemingly want to have a problem with it.
The problem is that I forget to charge my mouse and only know when the computer warns me that I'm low. Typically, this is in the middle of the day while I'm doing work. Not being able to plug in and continue forwards is a PITA. Flipping the mouse over and charging means that I have to stop what I'm doing until charged. Not feasible.
The problem is that I forget to charge my mouse and only know when the computer warns me that I'm low. Typically, this is in the middle of the day while I'm doing work. Not being able to plug in and continue forwards is a PITA. Flipping the mouse over and charging means that I have to stop what I'm doing until charged. Not feasible.
Really? Not feasible? You’re so intensively busy that you can’t spare two minutes to charge the mouse enough to finish your day? Really? You can’t get to the bathroom, have wee and get back to your desk in two minutes. Takes even longer if you wash your hands properly. It took you more than two minutes to read this thread and respond here.
You can’t spare two minutes of your day to correct your own error? You could’ve looked in Bluetooth settings on your Mac at any time to check your mouse’s battery level. If constant mousing is so mission critical, you’d think you’d have already established a fail-safe procedure to charge the mouse every night or at least every weekend to assure you’d never run into a critical two-minute road block in the middle of your busy, busy day.
Why is there no debate on the fact that the mouse is ergonomically horrible? I have regular hands, average size guys with average hands for my 5' 9" height. The natural position of my index finger when I'm holding the Magic Mouse is down the center of the mouse. So I'm constantly getting the right mouse click instead of the left. I have to remember to move my index finger to the left every single time I want to click, or I have to try to hold the mouse angled to the right under my hand. Both of these are unnatural angles.
When your aesthetic takes priority over the user's ability to use it, you've got some serious design ego going. Same as with the charging. Oh, no! Someone, somewhere, might see you using the mouse with the wire plugged in! Horrors! How dare you use it for your convenience!
If the designer of the "shoe" only needed to fix the charging, he could have gone much smaller. But he was also trying to fix the ergonomics. Sadly, no one makes a mouse with the hand gesture functionality, which I've really gotten used to.
Why is there no debate on the fact that the mouse is ergonomically horrible? I have regular hands, average size guys with average hands for my 5' 9" height. The natural position of my index finger when I'm holding the Magic Mouse is down the center of the mouse. So I'm constantly getting the right mouse click instead of the left. I have to remember to move my index finger to the left every single time I want to click, or I have to try to hold the mouse angled to the right under my hand. Both of these are unnatural angles.
When your aesthetic takes priority over the user's ability to use it, you've got some serious design ego going. Same as with the charging. Oh, no! Someone, somewhere, might see you using the mouse with the wire plugged in! Horrors! How dare you use it for your convenience!
If the designer of the "shoe" only needed to fix the charging, he could have gone much smaller. But he was also trying to fix the ergonomics. Sadly, no one makes a mouse with the hand gesture functionality, which I've really gotten used to.
Agreed! I don't use any Apple input devices (except for my MacBooks). They are pure form over function and suck! I tried to like the mouse, I really did. But ran into the same problems you mentioned and ended up using an IBM mouse & Logitech keyboard. Both are mediocre at best and yet FAR superior to any current Apple offerings.
The problem is that I forget to charge my mouse and only know when the computer warns me that I'm low. Typically, this is in the middle of the day while I'm doing work. Not being able to plug in and continue forwards is a PITA. Flipping the mouse over and charging means that I have to stop what I'm doing until charged. Not feasible.
Really? Not feasible? You’re so intensively busy that you can’t spare two minutes to charge the mouse enough to finish your day? Really? You can’t get to the bathroom, have wee and get back to your desk in two minutes. Takes even longer if you wash your hands properly. It took you more than two minutes to read this thread and respond here.
You can’t spare two minutes of your day to correct your own error? You could’ve looked in Bluetooth settings on your Mac at any time to check your mouse’s battery level. If constant mousing is so mission critical, you’d think you’d have already established a fail-safe procedure to charge the mouse every night or at least every weekend to assure you’d never run into a critical two-minute road block in the middle of your busy, busy day.
Or, Apple could just put the damn charging port on the front of the mouse like every other damn manufacturer and we wouldn't have to put up with these interminable questions and compromises at all.
Does it not bother you that no other mouse has this problem, only Apple's? That no other mouse requires you to check the bluetooth settings battery level every day? That no other mouse requires an overnight fail-safe routine to ensure you're able to keep using a mouse during the day? Are you even listening to your own questions and how ridiculous your apologism sounds?
It's an absurd design choice, and one that should have been fixed a long time ago. Hell it should never have happened in the first place, critical thought was absent in that design session.
The problem is that I forget to charge my mouse and only know when the computer warns me that I'm low. Typically, this is in the middle of the day while I'm doing work. Not being able to plug in and continue forwards is a PITA. Flipping the mouse over and charging means that I have to stop what I'm doing until charged. Not feasible.
Really? Not feasible? You’re so intensively busy that you can’t spare two minutes to charge the mouse enough to finish your day? Really? You can’t get to the bathroom, have wee and get back to your desk in two minutes. Takes even longer if you wash your hands properly. It took you more than two minutes to read this thread and respond here.
You can’t spare two minutes of your day to correct your own error? You could’ve looked in Bluetooth settings on your Mac at any time to check your mouse’s battery level. If constant mousing is so mission critical, you’d think you’d have already established a fail-safe procedure to charge the mouse every night or at least every weekend to assure you’d never run into a critical two-minute road block in the middle of your busy, busy day.
Or, Apple could just put the damn charging port on the front of the mouse like every other damn manufacturer and we wouldn't have to put up with these interminable questions and compromises at all.
Does it not bother you that no other mouse has this problem, only Apple's? That no other mouse requires you to check the bluetooth settings battery level every day? That no other mouse requires an overnight fail-safe routine to ensure you're able to keep using a mouse during the day? Are you even listening to your own questions and how ridiculous your apologism sounds?
It's an absurd design choice, and one that should have been fixed a long time ago. Hell it should never have happened in the first place, critical thought was absent in that design session.
Ah, but this question of what should bother a person is my whole point. The tiny inconvenience of plugging your mouse in for two minutes on the rare occasion it hits zero while you’re using it is not commensurate with the fury that stirs among a few wide-eyed angry people every time the opportunity to complain about it arises here.
Being diverted for a couple of minutes is among the smallest of first-world inconveniences that should yield mild, unremarked annoyance at most, yet here we are.
The Apple Pencil requires a similar amount of time to recover when it bottoms out. The original had to be plugged in, either to the port on the bottom of the iPad, or with an adapter to a lightning cable. I’ve never tried using it while it’s plugged in to the wire, so I don’t know if it would work while plugged in. It’d be weird if it does. The current, improved design only charges by magnetically attaching it to the side of your iPad, so you definitely have to stop whatever you’re doing to charge that one. Where is the rage about that giant inconvenience?
For that matter, the MacBook Pro, iPad and iPhone all are briefly unusable if you wait until they hit zero before recharging. Sure, you can leave them plugged in once you get back up and going, but you’ll be dead in the water while these devices restart for longer than you’re inconvenienced while charging a Magic Mouse enough to finish the day.
So no, I’m not bothered. I am baffled, however, by why anyone would be so bothered by such a mild inconvenience.
In fact, I think no one really is bothered by the inconvenience. Sometimes the issue isn’t really the issue.I think they’re just bothered by an aesthetic design decision that they would make differently. But since it’s much harder to insist in absolute terms that you’re right and someone else is wrong about an aesthetic design choice, it’s the inconvenience that’s cited, even though outrage over the occasional diversion of two minutes is demonstrably silly when compared to all the other things that create a similar or even longer diversion.
The problem is that I forget to charge my mouse and only know when the computer warns me that I'm low. Typically, this is in the middle of the day while I'm doing work. Not being able to plug in and continue forwards is a PITA. Flipping the mouse over and charging means that I have to stop what I'm doing until charged. Not feasible.
Really? Not feasible? You’re so intensively busy that you can’t spare two minutes to charge the mouse enough to finish your day? Really? You can’t get to the bathroom, have wee and get back to your desk in two minutes. Takes even longer if you wash your hands properly. It took you more than two minutes to read this thread and respond here.
You can’t spare two minutes of your day to correct your own error? You could’ve looked in Bluetooth settings on your Mac at any time to check your mouse’s battery level. If constant mousing is so mission critical, you’d think you’d have already established a fail-safe procedure to charge the mouse every night or at least every weekend to assure you’d never run into a critical two-minute road block in the middle of your busy, busy day.
Or, Apple could just put the damn charging port on the front of the mouse like every other damn manufacturer and we wouldn't have to put up with these interminable questions and compromises at all.
Does it not bother you that no other mouse has this problem, only Apple's? That no other mouse requires you to check the bluetooth settings battery level every day? That no other mouse requires an overnight fail-safe routine to ensure you're able to keep using a mouse during the day? Are you even listening to your own questions and how ridiculous your apologism sounds?
It's an absurd design choice, and one that should have been fixed a long time ago. Hell it should never have happened in the first place, critical thought was absent in that design session.
Ah, but this question of what should bother a person is my whole point. The tiny inconvenience of plugging your mouse in for two minutes on the rare occasion it hits zero while you’re using it is not commensurate with the fury that stirs among a few wide-eyed angry people every time the opportunity to complain about it arises here.
You mistake annoyance and bafflement at a bizarre design for fury. You've written more words in this thread than any other single person by a significant margin. Should I categorise your response as furious and wide eyed? Why do you care so much?
Being diverted for a couple of minutes is among the smallest of first-world inconveniences that should yield mild, unremarked annoyance at most, yet here we are.
People don't expect to be inconvenienced by products that they spend money on, especially when other similar products have no such inconvenience. Shocker.
The Apple Pencil requires a similar amount of time to recover when it bottoms out. The original had to be plugged in, either to the port on the bottom of the iPad, or with an adapter to a lightning cable. I’ve never tried using it while it’s plugged in to the wire, so I don’t know if it would work while plugged in. It’d be weird if it does. The current, improved design only charges by magnetically attaching it to the side of your iPad, so you definitely have to stop whatever you’re doing to charge that one. Where is the rage about that giant inconvenience?
The magnetic attachment is where it's stored. It charges every time you store it. People don't encounter this issue nearly as much because the design works. And even if the issue is encountered, the fact that you don't have to go and find a cable, and it doesn't prevent other operation of the iPad (we all have fingers) probably mitigates it a fair amount. It's a very different scenario.
For that matter, the MacBook Pro, iPad and iPhone all are briefly unusable if you wait until they hit zero before recharging. Sure, you can leave them plugged in once you get back up and going, but you’ll be dead in the water while these devices restart for longer than you’re inconvenienced while charging a Magic Mouse enough to finish the day.
You can use any of those devices while plugged in. When you get the battery warning you can plug it in and continue as you were. Hell you can use them permanetently plugged in if you want. That's the entire issue with the Magic Mouse! You literally cannot use it at all while it's charging because of its goofy design. You've got so wrapped up in whatabouts that you've missed what the issue is.
So no, I’m not bothered. I am baffled, however, by why anyone would be so bothered by such a mild inconvenience.
People are bothered by every inconvenience. No one likes being inconvenienced. Baffled that you're baffled.
In fact, I think no one really is bothered by the inconvenience. Sometimes the issue isn’t really the issue.I think they’re just bothered by an aesthetic design decision that they would make differently. But since it’s much harder to insist in absolute terms that you’re right and someone else is wrong about an aesthetic design choice, it’s the inconvenience that’s cited, even though outrage over the occasional diversion of two minutes is demonstrably silly when compared to all the other things that create a similar or even longer diversion.
Yeah, they're bothered by that too. It's a stupid design and stupid design bothers people.
The problem is that I forget to charge my mouse and only know when the computer warns me that I'm low. Typically, this is in the middle of the day while I'm doing work. Not being able to plug in and continue forwards is a PITA. Flipping the mouse over and charging means that I have to stop what I'm doing until charged. Not feasible.
Really? Not feasible? You’re so intensively busy that you can’t spare two minutes to charge the mouse enough to finish your day? Really? You can’t get to the bathroom, have wee and get back to your desk in two minutes. Takes even longer if you wash your hands properly. It took you more than two minutes to read this thread and respond here.
You can’t spare two minutes of your day to correct your own error? You could’ve looked in Bluetooth settings on your Mac at any time to check your mouse’s battery level. If constant mousing is so mission critical, you’d think you’d have already established a fail-safe procedure to charge the mouse every night or at least every weekend to assure you’d never run into a critical two-minute road block in the middle of your busy, busy day.
Or, Apple could just put the damn charging port on the front of the mouse like every other damn manufacturer and we wouldn't have to put up with these interminable questions and compromises at all.
Does it not bother you that no other mouse has this problem, only Apple's? That no other mouse requires you to check the bluetooth settings battery level every day? That no other mouse requires an overnight fail-safe routine to ensure you're able to keep using a mouse during the day? Are you even listening to your own questions and how ridiculous your apologism sounds?
It's an absurd design choice, and one that should have been fixed a long time ago. Hell it should never have happened in the first place, critical thought was absent in that design session.
Ah, but this question of what should bother a person is my whole point. The tiny inconvenience of plugging your mouse in for two minutes on the rare occasion it hits zero while you’re using it is not commensurate with the fury that stirs among a few wide-eyed angry people every time the opportunity to complain about it arises here.
You mistake annoyance and bafflement at a bizarre design for fury. You've written more words in this thread than any other single person by a significant margin. Should I categorise your response as furious and wide eyed? Why do you care so much?
Being diverted for a couple of minutes is among the smallest of first-world inconveniences that should yield mild, unremarked annoyance at most, yet here we are.
People don't expect to be inconvenienced by products that they spend money on, especially when other similar products have no such inconvenience. Shocker.
The Apple Pencil requires a similar amount of time to recover when it bottoms out. The original had to be plugged in, either to the port on the bottom of the iPad, or with an adapter to a lightning cable. I’ve never tried using it while it’s plugged in to the wire, so I don’t know if it would work while plugged in. It’d be weird if it does. The current, improved design only charges by magnetically attaching it to the side of your iPad, so you definitely have to stop whatever you’re doing to charge that one. Where is the rage about that giant inconvenience?
The magnetic attachment is where it's stored. It charges every time you store it. People don't encounter this issue nearly as much because the design works. And even if the issue is encountered, the fact that you don't have to go and find a cable, and it doesn't prevent other operation of the iPad (we all have fingers) probably mitigates it a fair amount. It's a very different scenario.
For that matter, the MacBook Pro, iPad and iPhone all are briefly unusable if you wait until they hit zero before recharging. Sure, you can leave them plugged in once you get back up and going, but you’ll be dead in the water while these devices restart for longer than you’re inconvenienced while charging a Magic Mouse enough to finish the day.
You can use any of those devices while plugged in. When you get the battery warning you can plug it in and continue as you were. Hell you can use them permanetently plugged in if you want. That's the entire issue with the Magic Mouse! You literally cannot use it at all while it's charging because of its goofy design. You've got so wrapped up in whatabouts that you've missed what the issue is.
So no, I’m not bothered. I am baffled, however, by why anyone would be so bothered by such a mild inconvenience.
People are bothered by every inconvenience. No one likes being inconvenienced. Baffled that you're baffled.
In fact, I think no one really is bothered by the inconvenience. Sometimes the issue isn’t really the issue.I think they’re just bothered by an aesthetic design decision that they would make differently. But since it’s much harder to insist in absolute terms that you’re right and someone else is wrong about an aesthetic design choice, it’s the inconvenience that’s cited, even though outrage over the occasional diversion of two minutes is demonstrably silly when compared to all the other things that create a similar or even longer diversion.
Yeah, they're bothered by that too. It's a stupid design and stupid design bothers people.
I’ve written all this here because, honestly, the furor amuses me. You can note my own lack of fury by checking to see just how many times I’ve referred to the “damn charging port.”
People can dislike a design. That’s why is great there are other options you can choose, if you like those better.
Clearly a lot of people are fine with the Magic Mouse’s design, because Apple keeps making and selling them while also continuing to retain a very high customer satisfaction rating that its competitors wish they could have. Apple isn’t putting “the damn charging port on the front of the mouse like every other damn manufacturer” because they’re doing fine selling their own design. The company has actually achieved a lot of success specifically by not doing things like every other manufacturer. That’s sort of a core thing for them, not being just like everybody else.
In this case, they made a wireless mouse that they think is best used wirelessly. It has a rechargeable battery. A very short charge time will keep you going for the day. A full charge will keep you going for weeks or longer. That seems to do just fine for a lot of folks. If it didn’t, they’d have changed it.
The problem is that I forget to charge my mouse and only know when the computer warns me that I'm low. Typically, this is in the middle of the day while I'm doing work. Not being able to plug in and continue forwards is a PITA. Flipping the mouse over and charging means that I have to stop what I'm doing until charged. Not feasible.
Really? Not feasible? You’re so intensively busy that you can’t spare two minutes to charge the mouse enough to finish your day? Really? You can’t get to the bathroom, have wee and get back to your desk in two minutes. Takes even longer if you wash your hands properly. It took you more than two minutes to read this thread and respond here.
You can’t spare two minutes of your day to correct your own error? You could’ve looked in Bluetooth settings on your Mac at any time to check your mouse’s battery level. If constant mousing is so mission critical, you’d think you’d have already established a fail-safe procedure to charge the mouse every night or at least every weekend to assure you’d never run into a critical two-minute road block in the middle of your busy, busy day.
Or, Apple could just put the damn charging port on the front of the mouse like every other damn manufacturer and we wouldn't have to put up with these interminable questions and compromises at all.
Does it not bother you that no other mouse has this problem, only Apple's? That no other mouse requires you to check the bluetooth settings battery level every day? That no other mouse requires an overnight fail-safe routine to ensure you're able to keep using a mouse during the day? Are you even listening to your own questions and how ridiculous your apologism sounds?
It's an absurd design choice, and one that should have been fixed a long time ago. Hell it should never have happened in the first place, critical thought was absent in that design session.
Ah, but this question of what should bother a person is my whole point. The tiny inconvenience of plugging your mouse in for two minutes on the rare occasion it hits zero while you’re using it is not commensurate with the fury that stirs among a few wide-eyed angry people every time the opportunity to complain about it arises here.
You mistake annoyance and bafflement at a bizarre design for fury. You've written more words in this thread than any other single person by a significant margin. Should I categorise your response as furious and wide eyed? Why do you care so much?
Being diverted for a couple of minutes is among the smallest of first-world inconveniences that should yield mild, unremarked annoyance at most, yet here we are.
People don't expect to be inconvenienced by products that they spend money on, especially when other similar products have no such inconvenience. Shocker.
The Apple Pencil requires a similar amount of time to recover when it bottoms out. The original had to be plugged in, either to the port on the bottom of the iPad, or with an adapter to a lightning cable. I’ve never tried using it while it’s plugged in to the wire, so I don’t know if it would work while plugged in. It’d be weird if it does. The current, improved design only charges by magnetically attaching it to the side of your iPad, so you definitely have to stop whatever you’re doing to charge that one. Where is the rage about that giant inconvenience?
The magnetic attachment is where it's stored. It charges every time you store it. People don't encounter this issue nearly as much because the design works. And even if the issue is encountered, the fact that you don't have to go and find a cable, and it doesn't prevent other operation of the iPad (we all have fingers) probably mitigates it a fair amount. It's a very different scenario.
For that matter, the MacBook Pro, iPad and iPhone all are briefly unusable if you wait until they hit zero before recharging. Sure, you can leave them plugged in once you get back up and going, but you’ll be dead in the water while these devices restart for longer than you’re inconvenienced while charging a Magic Mouse enough to finish the day.
You can use any of those devices while plugged in. When you get the battery warning you can plug it in and continue as you were. Hell you can use them permanetently plugged in if you want. That's the entire issue with the Magic Mouse! You literally cannot use it at all while it's charging because of its goofy design. You've got so wrapped up in whatabouts that you've missed what the issue is.
So no, I’m not bothered. I am baffled, however, by why anyone would be so bothered by such a mild inconvenience.
People are bothered by every inconvenience. No one likes being inconvenienced. Baffled that you're baffled.
In fact, I think no one really is bothered by the inconvenience. Sometimes the issue isn’t really the issue.I think they’re just bothered by an aesthetic design decision that they would make differently. But since it’s much harder to insist in absolute terms that you’re right and someone else is wrong about an aesthetic design choice, it’s the inconvenience that’s cited, even though outrage over the occasional diversion of two minutes is demonstrably silly when compared to all the other things that create a similar or even longer diversion.
Yeah, they're bothered by that too. It's a stupid design and stupid design bothers people.
I’ve written all this here because, honestly, the furor amuses me. You can note my own lack of fury by checking to see just how many times I’ve referred to the “damn charging port.”
People can dislike a design. That’s why is great there are other options you can choose, if you like those better.
Clearly a lot of people are fine with the Magic Mouse’s design, because Apple keeps making and selling them while also continuing to retain a very high customer satisfaction rating that its competitors wish they could have. Apple isn’t putting “the damn charging port on the front of the mouse like every other damn manufacturer” because they’re doing fine selling their own design. The company has actually achieved a lot of success specifically by not doing things like every other manufacturer. That’s sort of a core thing for them, not being just like everybody else.
In this case, they made a wireless mouse that they think is best used wirelessly. It has a rechargeable battery. A very short charge time will keep you going for the day. A full charge will keep you going for weeks or longer. That seems to do just fine for a lot of folks. If it didn’t, they’d have changed it.
Lol, sure. It's an enviable feature and Apple USP that the Magic Mouse has this design inferiority to every other wireless mouse. You got it.
The problem is that I forget to charge my mouse and only know when the computer warns me that I'm low. Typically, this is in the middle of the day while I'm doing work. Not being able to plug in and continue forwards is a PITA. Flipping the mouse over and charging means that I have to stop what I'm doing until charged. Not feasible.
Really? Not feasible? You’re so intensively busy that you can’t spare two minutes to charge the mouse enough to finish your day? Really? You can’t get to the bathroom, have wee and get back to your desk in two minutes. Takes even longer if you wash your hands properly. It took you more than two minutes to read this thread and respond here.
You can’t spare two minutes of your day to correct your own error? You could’ve looked in Bluetooth settings on your Mac at any time to check your mouse’s battery level. If constant mousing is so mission critical, you’d think you’d have already established a fail-safe procedure to charge the mouse every night or at least every weekend to assure you’d never run into a critical two-minute road block in the middle of your busy, busy day.
Or, Apple could just put the damn charging port on the front of the mouse like every other damn manufacturer and we wouldn't have to put up with these interminable questions and compromises at all.
Does it not bother you that no other mouse has this problem, only Apple's? That no other mouse requires you to check the bluetooth settings battery level every day? That no other mouse requires an overnight fail-safe routine to ensure you're able to keep using a mouse during the day? Are you even listening to your own questions and how ridiculous your apologism sounds?
It's an absurd design choice, and one that should have been fixed a long time ago. Hell it should never have happened in the first place, critical thought was absent in that design session.
Ah, but this question of what should bother a person is my whole point. The tiny inconvenience of plugging your mouse in for two minutes on the rare occasion it hits zero while you’re using it is not commensurate with the fury that stirs among a few wide-eyed angry people every time the opportunity to complain about it arises here.
You mistake annoyance and bafflement at a bizarre design for fury. You've written more words in this thread than any other single person by a significant margin. Should I categorise your response as furious and wide eyed? Why do you care so much?
Being diverted for a couple of minutes is among the smallest of first-world inconveniences that should yield mild, unremarked annoyance at most, yet here we are.
People don't expect to be inconvenienced by products that they spend money on, especially when other similar products have no such inconvenience. Shocker.
The Apple Pencil requires a similar amount of time to recover when it bottoms out. The original had to be plugged in, either to the port on the bottom of the iPad, or with an adapter to a lightning cable. I’ve never tried using it while it’s plugged in to the wire, so I don’t know if it would work while plugged in. It’d be weird if it does. The current, improved design only charges by magnetically attaching it to the side of your iPad, so you definitely have to stop whatever you’re doing to charge that one. Where is the rage about that giant inconvenience?
The magnetic attachment is where it's stored. It charges every time you store it. People don't encounter this issue nearly as much because the design works. And even if the issue is encountered, the fact that you don't have to go and find a cable, and it doesn't prevent other operation of the iPad (we all have fingers) probably mitigates it a fair amount. It's a very different scenario.
For that matter, the MacBook Pro, iPad and iPhone all are briefly unusable if you wait until they hit zero before recharging. Sure, you can leave them plugged in once you get back up and going, but you’ll be dead in the water while these devices restart for longer than you’re inconvenienced while charging a Magic Mouse enough to finish the day.
You can use any of those devices while plugged in. When you get the battery warning you can plug it in and continue as you were. Hell you can use them permanetently plugged in if you want. That's the entire issue with the Magic Mouse! You literally cannot use it at all while it's charging because of its goofy design. You've got so wrapped up in whatabouts that you've missed what the issue is.
So no, I’m not bothered. I am baffled, however, by why anyone would be so bothered by such a mild inconvenience.
People are bothered by every inconvenience. No one likes being inconvenienced. Baffled that you're baffled.
In fact, I think no one really is bothered by the inconvenience. Sometimes the issue isn’t really the issue.I think they’re just bothered by an aesthetic design decision that they would make differently. But since it’s much harder to insist in absolute terms that you’re right and someone else is wrong about an aesthetic design choice, it’s the inconvenience that’s cited, even though outrage over the occasional diversion of two minutes is demonstrably silly when compared to all the other things that create a similar or even longer diversion.
Yeah, they're bothered by that too. It's a stupid design and stupid design bothers people.
I’ve written all this here because, honestly, the furor amuses me. You can note my own lack of fury by checking to see just how many times I’ve referred to the “damn charging port.”
People can dislike a design. That’s why is great there are other options you can choose, if you like those better.
Clearly a lot of people are fine with the Magic Mouse’s design, because Apple keeps making and selling them while also continuing to retain a very high customer satisfaction rating that its competitors wish they could have. Apple isn’t putting “the damn charging port on the front of the mouse like every other damn manufacturer” because they’re doing fine selling their own design. The company has actually achieved a lot of success specifically by not doing things like every other manufacturer. That’s sort of a core thing for them, not being just like everybody else.
In this case, they made a wireless mouse that they think is best used wirelessly. It has a rechargeable battery. A very short charge time will keep you going for the day. A full charge will keep you going for weeks or longer. That seems to do just fine for a lot of folks. If it didn’t, they’d have changed it.
Lol, sure. It's an enviable feature and Apple USP that the Magic Mouse has this design inferiority to every other wireless mouse. You got it.
You’re welcome to your opinion, of course, but continued sales and use of that design suggests that a sufficiently large number of people are not in agreement with you that it is inferior “to every other wireless mouse.” It’s fascinating how the free market tests out such hypotheses in the real world.
My Apple Watch chirps at me at 50m to the top of the hour to remind me to stand up and go get a snack. So maybe a MM that wants me to put it down and walk away while it is charged once a month for 2 minutes is good exercise too.
a sufficiently large number of people are not in agreement with you that it is inferior “to every other wireless mouse.”
It is evidently inferior. There is no advantage to the Magic Mouse's charging port location, and clear advantages to the positioning that near enough every other mouse uses. If there was any advantage then I daresay you'd have brought it up, but you've said nothing of the sort, and repeatedly admitted that it is an inconvenience. If anyone agrees with you that it's not a design inferiority then they're just as wrong and confused as you.
Your appeal to the free market is meaningless. People don't buy mice for the charging port, there's many other factors that decide that. It can very well feature a bad design element and sell well and be popular. Windows is popular.
a sufficiently large number of people are not in agreement with you that it is inferior “to every other wireless mouse.”
It is evidently inferior. There is no advantage to the Magic Mouse's charging port location, and clear advantages to the positioning that near enough every other mouse uses. If there was any advantage then I daresay you'd have brought it up, but you've said nothing of the sort, and repeatedly admitted that it is an inconvenience. If anyone agrees with you that it's not a design inferiority then they're just as wrong and confused as you.
Your appeal to the free market is meaningless. People don't buy mice for the charging port, there's many other factors that decide that. It can very well feature a bad design element and sell well and be popular. Windows is popular.
It’s a wireless mouse, meant to be used wirelessly. The port is on the bottom so it’s out of the way when you’re using the mouse. That’s the advantage. But I wrote that upthread a long time ago.
You say “people don't buy mice for the charging port,” but you and others seem to suggest you’ve bought other devices so you can use your wireless mouse with a wire sticking out of it.
I’d agree that’s not a great reason to pick a mouse. Enough others also think that, and keep buying the Apple mouse. Yep. That’s about it.
It only takes a few minutes to get 8-9 hours of charge using the port on the bottom. The complaints about the location were always inane.
Wrong. Twice. My magic mouse charges slowly so it takes more than 'a few minutes.' I've also come down to work on my computer only to find the mouse dead with no warning. Beyond that, Why should my work be interrupted at all because of Jonny's bumf*ked design decision? There is zero reason. Zero. Z-E-R-O that the charging port needs to be on the bottom.
The amount of Fanboy apologizing for this abomination is always inane.
It only takes a few minutes to get 8-9 hours of charge using the port on the bottom. The complaints about the location were always inane.
100%. It’s never been an issue for me. The BENEFIT of the charging port being in the bottom is nothing ever gets stuck in there. If it was on the back or front you wild over time get dirt, skin and lint stuck in the port.
What's hilarious to me is that the critics seem to think that the placement of the charging port is either some kind of mistake or a form-over-function decision to not have a visible hole mucking up the sleek design.
The reality is that the port was put on the bottom of the mouse quite intentionally, because it's a wireless mouse, and Ive didn't want users to leave it plugged in, using it as if it were a wired mouse. The OG Magic Mouse had to be flipped over to swap out the batteries. It doesn't take much longer than that maneuver to get a day's charge on the rechargeable one.
It's not hard to imagine the next iteration won't have a port at all, and will simply charge via a watch charger and/or an iPhone MagSafe wireless charger. You won't be able to use it while it's charging that way, either. Whatever will people do?
What is hilarious to me is that Ive fanboys seem to thing that the placement of the charging port was to prevent accumulation of debris in the charging port when it was clearly a for over function decision to not have a visible hole mucking up the sleek design.
IF, as you assert, "Ive didn't want users to leave it plugged in, using it as if it were a wired mouse" it would have been because that would ruin his perceived aesthetic beauty of the design. What we end up with is a design which looks horrible and is completely non-functional when charging.
Using it as a wireless mouse is literally its intended function.
Do you get this worked up about not being able to drive your car while you're filling up the fuel tank? I've got news if you're thinking about driving an EV...
*sigh* another response that just doesn't get it. I suppose if you're still breathing the smoke that Jonny blows out of his arse then it addles the brain a bit.
The wireless keyboard can be used while plugged in. Why aren't you bitching about how piss poor of a wireless keyboard it is since you can actually use it while it's charging?
here's a news flash for you - every wireless device needs to charge. Even an EV. The tiny difference that you don't seem to comprehend about an EV is that it actually drives miles away from the power source while a wireless mouse stays inches away so there actually is a real and legitimate use case for keeping the mouse plugged in while you use it. Now if that gawdawful cord offends your sensibilities too much then fine, you can walk away and not work while it's charging so you don't have to be bothered by its presence but I prefer to use my devices to get work done.
Comments
It's possible to get L-shaped USB-C cables:
https://www.amazon.com/USB-Cable-6ft-High-Speed-Compatible/dp/B0C7GCQVC6
It's not much of an issue on a laptop (most Mac users) because you can use the trackpad. It mainly affects desktop users where you have to stop using the computer while it charges.
It takes a couple of hours to charge fully to last a couple of months so to get a few hours charge, a couple of minutes plugged in then charge fully at the end of the day isn't a big deal. Using a mouse while it's plugged in is awkward and people would probably do that if they had the choice.
In any case, the power scenario is one thing, but now we use decent quality Logitech Mouse(s) that cost 50% of a Magic Mouse and can still use a dongle or Bluetooth and they have a charging port on the front side (like the Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad I might add). It isn't all about charging, like my Magic Keyboard in my office, I keep everything plugged in almost all the time because when I disconnect, if it is a particularly bad day, then the mouse and/or keyboard lag because of signal interference.
If you wanted to defend your design like that, saying "why would people ever need to use it while charging," then why do the Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad both function over the hard-line while charging? Obviously Apple recognizes that this is necessary functionality, they just have a total corporate blindspot when it comes to the Magic Mouse.
I, for one, am glad that almost no product includes it anymore, and those that do I can opt for the a trackpad instead.
When your aesthetic takes priority over the user's ability to use it, you've got some serious design ego going. Same as with the charging. Oh, no! Someone, somewhere, might see you using the mouse with the wire plugged in! Horrors! How dare you use it for your convenience!
If the designer of the "shoe" only needed to fix the charging, he could have gone much smaller. But he was also trying to fix the ergonomics. Sadly, no one makes a mouse with the hand gesture functionality, which I've really gotten used to.
Does it not bother you that no other mouse has this problem, only Apple's? That no other mouse requires you to check the bluetooth settings battery level every day? That no other mouse requires an overnight fail-safe routine to ensure you're able to keep using a mouse during the day? Are you even listening to your own questions and how ridiculous your apologism sounds?
It's an absurd design choice, and one that should have been fixed a long time ago. Hell it should never have happened in the first place, critical thought was absent in that design session.
For that matter, the MacBook Pro, iPad and iPhone all are briefly unusable if you wait until they hit zero before recharging. Sure, you can leave them plugged in once you get back up and going, but you’ll be dead in the water while these devices restart for longer than you’re inconvenienced while charging a Magic Mouse enough to finish the day.
People don't expect to be inconvenienced by products that they spend money on, especially when other similar products have no such inconvenience. Shocker.
The magnetic attachment is where it's stored. It charges every time you store it. People don't encounter this issue nearly as much because the design works. And even if the issue is encountered, the fact that you don't have to go and find a cable, and it doesn't prevent other operation of the iPad (we all have fingers) probably mitigates it a fair amount. It's a very different scenario.
You can use any of those devices while plugged in. When you get the battery warning you can plug it in and continue as you were. Hell you can use them permanetently plugged in if you want. That's the entire issue with the Magic Mouse! You literally cannot use it at all while it's charging because of its goofy design. You've got so wrapped up in whatabouts that you've missed what the issue is.
People are bothered by every inconvenience. No one likes being inconvenienced. Baffled that you're baffled.
Yeah, they're bothered by that too. It's a stupid design and stupid design bothers people.
People can dislike a design. That’s why is great there are other options you can choose, if you like those better.
Your appeal to the free market is meaningless. People don't buy mice for the charging port, there's many other factors that decide that. It can very well feature a bad design element and sell well and be popular. Windows is popular.
My magic mouse charges slowly so it takes more than 'a few minutes.' I've also come down to work on my computer only to find the mouse dead with no warning.
Beyond that, Why should my work be interrupted at all because of Jonny's bumf*ked design decision? There is zero reason. Zero. Z-E-R-O that the charging port needs to be on the bottom.
The amount of Fanboy apologizing for this abomination is always inane.
*sigh* another response that just doesn't get it. I suppose if you're still breathing the smoke that Jonny blows out of his arse then it addles the brain a bit.
The wireless keyboard can be used while plugged in. Why aren't you bitching about how piss poor of a wireless keyboard it is since you can actually use it while it's charging?
here's a news flash for you - every wireless device needs to charge. Even an EV. The tiny difference that you don't seem to comprehend about an EV is that it actually drives miles away from the power source while a wireless mouse stays inches away so there actually is a real and legitimate use case for keeping the mouse plugged in while you use it. Now if that gawdawful cord offends your sensibilities too much then fine, you can walk away and not work while it's charging so you don't have to be bothered by its presence but I prefer to use my devices to get work done.