The reason the charging port is on the bottom is due to the original removable battery option. The charging port is in the same location as the latch for the removable battery cover. That allowed Apple to save $$ by keeping the industrial design almost identical between the two different versions.
That's ok then. I'm perfectly happy to accept suboptimal design if it contributes to Apple's bottom line.
Then contribute to your own physiological health by taking the damned 15 minute break to charge it if it happens to need it.
The charging port location is about the least worst thing about it for me, I hope they redesign it from every atom up.
It feels weird having to hover a finger to properly right click, and there's no simultaneous left/right click which is a bit more esoteric but some apps can use.
The sensor and wireless stack are just abysmal now though, they never updated it in all the refreshes from the 11 year old sensor, it feels bad and skippy and once you use a good mouse you realize you weren't bad at aiming at fine targets, the mouse was. Check Rtings on the Magic Mouse 2 if you think that's dramatic.
Agreed, and I'd like them to redesign it with gaming in mind. While I love the Magic Trackpad for most uses, it's a bad option for first person shooter style games, and the Magic Mouse also is pretty bad for that purpose.
While it's true that the current Mac user base might not be hugely into games (due to self-selection bias), improving gaming is probably the number one most important thing for Apple to do in order to expand Mac marketshare. They've already done a lot with the M-series chips, Metal, and porting tools, but a pretty easily addressed barrier is the gaming ergonomics of the pointing device.
The reason the charging port is on the bottom is due to the original removable battery option. The charging port is in the same location as the latch for the removable battery cover. That allowed Apple to save $$ by keeping the industrial design almost identical between the two different versions.
That's ok then. I'm perfectly happy to accept suboptimal design if it contributes to Apple's bottom line.
Then contribute to your own physiological health by taking the damned 15 minute break to charge it if it happens to need it.
5 to 15 minutes once every three months to recharge whoop-de-do…..
The reason the charging port is on the bottom is due to the original removable battery option. The charging port is in the same location as the latch for the removable battery cover. That allowed Apple to save $$ by keeping the industrial design almost identical between the two different versions.
While the the charging cable goes in the same location as the previous battery chamber, that was NOT the primary reason for the charging cable located so you couldn’t keep using while charging.
The main reason is cables then and even now have a rating for amount of flexing stress on the area from cable going into the connector at the end of the cable — and at the intersection of the receiving and inserted connectors.
Wired mice often failed at the connection point as an eventual end of life. And intermittent failure is hugely frustrating and gets increasingly worse.
Imagine that Lightning cable or USB cable not ending up charging your mouse, or your phone or losing data transfer or corruption. That’s so exasperating! Ugh!!
With the advent of quick charging, Apple added a reliability factor for both the mouse and not incidentally, the cable that might also be used for other mission critical work.
5 minutes to get a day’s charge is seriously not a problem* as I had anticipated. I greatly appreciated the break even when working through the night and furiously trying to get a design job ready to send a PDF proof, or NCAA sports photos ready to submit to one of the University’s sports writers in time before their 7am posting time.
I found I re-started my work with a clearer head or emptied distracting bladder or cup of coffee injected for the last push. Mostly a refreshed brain and body. Most often while charging the mouse, I’d run up and down a set of stairs a few times and be so refreshed back in the saddle.
And I never had a cable failure if I used that cable for something else.
This is the strongest case to keep cable charging into the belly button. Qi charging on a mat that could be a mouse pad might solve the interruption in the future.
*While I found constructive use of five minutes, you don’t have to. Eg. What if you’re collaborating with client or your art director through screen sharing? Then you have to think ahead and make sure you have a charge to get through a session of unknown length reliably.
For that reason, Apple should make an option of a mouse charge readout that a user can opt-in, for mission critical reliability and session continuity.
But do thank Apple that all your cables are wearing at a similar rate and all last a very long time, rather than a cable you leave in the mouse for a day or days or weeks on end, accumulating motion at the connector and getting an intermittent failure —and being a common cable, getting mixed in with other cables and adding risk and exasperation to other uses.
Yeah, it seems like it would be rather easy for Apple to make its Semi-Magic Mouse use the Apple Watch Charger. But as others have noted it doesn’t take a long period of time to get the Semi-Magic Mouse charged for a full day of use.
I’m more of a trackball user (Logitech MX Ergo), but I do have a Magic TrackPad nearby because its gesture and multi-finger support is awesome. When I do use a mouse it’s the Logitech MX Master 3s. Funny thing is that after using the MX Master 3s for years I finally realized there is a button under the thumb position that by-default launches Mission Control, which is one of the more frequent gestures I use on the trackpad. Duh.
I really, really hope they do away with the charging port altogether and make it wirelessly chargeable via both the Apple Watch puck or the iPhone MagSafe puck, like you can do with an AirPods case.
This would be a deliciously passive-aggressive move, making the mouse completely and totally wireless, while continuing to prevent people from using it as a wired mouse.
The reason the charging port is on the bottom is due to the original removable battery option. The charging port is in the same location as the latch for the removable battery cover. That allowed Apple to save $$ by keeping the industrial design almost identical between the two different versions.
That's ok then. I'm perfectly happy to accept suboptimal design if it contributes to Apple's bottom line.
It would have been suboptimal design without the fast charging capability. But since it could charge for the work day in five minutes, keeping the internal design arrangement almost identical to the removable battery version makes more sense than spending time/money on giving the end user five minutes of tethered work time.
Ah, the same old, tired “it’s not THAT much of an inconvenience” excuse. The people making it are almost as tired as the excuse is.
The picture in the article shows just how ridiculous the design is. I was again reminded of the absurdity when I got an alert that the battery on my Magic Keyboard was low. I simply plugged it in and kept working. I suppose what I should have done is turned it upside down and gone to do something else which I must have needed to do anyway while it charged?
The current design keeps people from leaving it plugged in and using it as a wired mouse. Is aesthetics a reason? Maybe.
The real reason is that this is Apple, and they would inevitably have to defend themselves against a class action lawsuit if they designed it the way you want it, because leaving it plugged in would result in wear and damage to the cable and port from repetitive (mis)use as a wired mouse. It wouldn't matter if they plastered warnings all over the place not to use it while it's plugged in. The lawsuit would claim that it was clearly designed so that you could use it while plugged in, knowing that the eventual damage from an intentionally faulty design would result in sales of more replacement cables and mice.
Put the port on the bottom, and while there's lots of truly absurdist bellyaching about it, there are no class action lawsuits. It's a wireless mouse. It's insanely easy to charge it so you can use it wirelessly.
The reason the charging port is on the bottom is due to the original removable battery option. The charging port is in the same location as the latch for the removable battery cover. That allowed Apple to save $$ by keeping the industrial design almost identical between the two different versions.
That's ok then. I'm perfectly happy to accept suboptimal design if it contributes to Apple's bottom line.
It would have been suboptimal design without the fast charging capability. But since it could charge for the work day in five minutes, keeping the internal design arrangement almost identical to the removable battery version makes more sense than spending time/money on giving the end user five minutes of tethered work time.
Ah, the same old, tired “it’s not THAT much of an inconvenience” excuse. The people making it are almost as tired as the excuse is.
The picture in the article shows just how ridiculous the design is. I was again reminded of the absurdity when I got an alert that the battery on my Magic Keyboard was low. I simply plugged it in and kept working. I suppose what I should have done is turned it upside down and gone to do something else which I must have needed to do anyway while it charged?
The current design keeps people from leaving it plugged in and using it as a wired mouse. Is aesthetics a reason? Maybe.
The real reason is that this is Apple, and they would inevitably have to defend themselves against a class action lawsuit if they designed it the way you want it, because leaving it plugged in would result in wear and damage to the cable and port from repetitive (mis)use as a wired mouse. It wouldn't matter if they plastered warnings all over the place not to use it while it's plugged in. The lawsuit would claim that it was clearly designed so that you could use it while plugged in, knowing that the eventual damage from an intentionally faulty design would result in sales of more replacement cables and mice.
Put the port on the bottom, and while there's lots of truly absurdist bellyaching about it, there are no class action lawsuits. It's a wireless mouse. It's insanely easy to charge it so you can use it wirelessly.
No evidence whatsoever to suggest this would happen. Completely made up nonsense with little to nothing by way of precedent. Stop making excuses.
For me the placement of the charging port is a big deal. For one, it's an unforced error so it's aggravating. What were they thinking? Secondly, the so-called "5 minute charge" is bogus. When I used to use the Magic Mouse it would die at the worst times. I needed it at that moment. Later - 5 minutes, 30 minutes and hour was too late. With the replaceable battery versions I could at least change the battery on be good to go. What I want is a charging port in the front to make the mouse work like a wired mouse. AND I want it to be wirelessly chargeable so I can keep it charged just by putting it on the charging pad when I leave the computer. That would be perfect.
The reason the charging port is on the bottom is due to the original removable battery option. The charging port is in the same location as the latch for the removable battery cover. That allowed Apple to save $$ by keeping the industrial design almost identical between the two different versions.
That's ok then. I'm perfectly happy to accept suboptimal design if it contributes to Apple's bottom line.
It would have been suboptimal design without the fast charging capability. But since it could charge for the work day in five minutes, keeping the internal design arrangement almost identical to the removable battery version makes more sense than spending time/money on giving the end user five minutes of tethered work time.
Ah, the same old, tired “it’s not THAT much of an inconvenience” excuse. The people making it are almost as tired as the excuse is.
The picture in the article shows just how ridiculous the design is. I was again reminded of the absurdity when I got an alert that the battery on my Magic Keyboard was low. I simply plugged it in and kept working. I suppose what I should have done is turned it upside down and gone to do something else which I must have needed to do anyway while it charged?
The current design keeps people from leaving it plugged in and using it as a wired mouse. Is aesthetics a reason? Maybe.
The real reason is that this is Apple, and they would inevitably have to defend themselves against a class action lawsuit if they designed it the way you want it, because leaving it plugged in would result in wear and damage to the cable and port from repetitive (mis)use as a wired mouse. It wouldn't matter if they plastered warnings all over the place not to use it while it's plugged in. The lawsuit would claim that it was clearly designed so that you could use it while plugged in, knowing that the eventual damage from an intentionally faulty design would result in sales of more replacement cables and mice.
Put the port on the bottom, and while there's lots of truly absurdist bellyaching about it, there are no class action lawsuits. It's a wireless mouse. It's insanely easy to charge it so you can use it wirelessly.
No evidence whatsoever to suggest this would happen. Completely made up nonsense with little to nothing by way of precedent. Stop making excuses.
No evidence? Among other things, Apple just paid out on a class-action lawsuit that literally penalized them for extending the usability of older iPhones by preventing them from crashing.
Remember "battery gate"? All lithium batteries become weaker over time. It's a fact. It's physics. It's also a fact that smartphones will crash if the processor demands more peak power than an older, degraded battery can produce in a given time. Apple wrote iOS to adapt in those cases, instead slowing the processor in order to spread out (and thus lower) peak power demand on the battery over time, thereby allowing functions to be carried out, if a bit more slowly, instead of letting the phone simply crash and shut down. While it's true that a phone that gets slower and slower may motivate a user to eventually spend the money to replace it with a newer device, it's also true that a a phone that starts crashing and shutting down will motivate a user to much more quickly replace it with a newer device, because it's not just slow, it's unusable. Apple was actually decreasing demand for iPhone upgrades by enabling older devices to last longer, but the class action lawyers twisted that around, ignoring the facts and creating a narrative that Apple was causing older phones to slow down for no reason in order to promote a planned obsolescence scheme. That's a lie, but it was eventually cheaper for Apple to settle the suit rather than letting it drag out, with that lie continuing to be featured in the public square, and continuing to damage Apple's reputation.
That's just one case, but it provides ample evidence to demonstrate how Apple is a target for nonsensical class action suits. Just like it's a fact that aging lithium batteries lose capacity, it's a fact that constant, repetitive motion, friction and torque applied to a lightning or USB cable and port will gradually inflict cumulative damage to both the cable and the port. Even more, it will take time for the damage to manifest, increasing the likelihood that a point of failure would occur after the mouse's warranty has run out. This creates the perfect class-action storm: the claim would be that the connection was negligently or intentionally designed to fail outside of warranty, inflicting maximum financial duress on the poor user, who is now out-of-pocket for repairs or replacements.
On the other hand, putting the port on the bottom of the magic mouse eliminates the problem altogether. You may be incredibly inconvenienced by waiting three minutes for a full day's charge, but that mouse and charging cable will remain in pristine operating condition for years to come.
For me the placement of the charging port is a big deal. For one, it's an unforced error so it's aggravating. What were they thinking? Secondly, the so-called "5 minute charge" is bogus. When I used to use the Magic Mouse it would die at the worst times. I needed it at that moment. Later - 5 minutes, 30 minutes and hour was too late. With the replaceable battery versions I could at least change the battery on be good to go. What I want is a charging port in the front to make the mouse work like a wired mouse. AND I want it to be wirelessly chargeable so I can keep it charged just by putting it on the charging pad when I leave the computer. That would be perfect.
Read my comments above. Using it as a wired mouse would eventually damage the charging cable and the charging port. Lightning and USB connector standards are not designed to withstand thousands of hours of constant fiddling and torque. Which is more inconvenient? Waiting a few minutes for your mouse to charge (which would itself be unnecessary if you charged it overnight with some regularity), or finding out that not only is the battery dead, but so is the charging port, because you've worn the contacts away by leaving your wireless mouse plugged in and used it as if it was a wired mouse? Also, if you can count on yourself to put the mouse on a wireless charging pad when you're away from your computer, if the issue is so mission critical, why can't you count on yourself to plug it in overnight say, once a week?
Do you actually believe what you're writing? Is your head really that far up your ass or are you just so in love with Tim that you've lost all rational and critical thinking ability?
Let's analyze your claim - Apple can't put the plug in a convenient spot because then people will leave it plugged in and wreck the battery and Apple will get sued. And likely go out of business.
What about people's iPhones? they leave them plugged in all night while they sleep even though it takes less than an hour to fully charge them. Somehow iPhone batteries aren't dying left and right. Hmm...maybe Apple's smart enough to have battery management software? No, Apple would never be that smart. And what about the thousands of iPads that are used as kiosks, point of sale systems, etc and stay plugged in 24/7? Wow, they still work! I have a 10 year old iPad that's been repurposed. The battery's long dead but it doesn't matter because it's always plugged in.
Let's look at an even better example, the Magic Keyboard. It lets you do exactly what they should have done with the Magic Mouse. The battery runs low and you can plug it in and keep typing. By some miracle we haven't seen legions of lawyers filing class action suits because people have left their magic keyboard plugged in and the batteries have died. Maybe because it's not an issue?
And Battery gate? Your memory is as weak as your reasoning. Apple got sued because they throttled performance without telling people. One can claim that they did it to protect people or that they did it to surreptitiously drive sales. Because they did it in secret both claims are plausible. Had they simply told people there wouldn't have been an issue.
Please, if you're going to come up with excuses, at least try to better than a 6th grader could do.
I still prefer the second generation Magic Mouse over the first generation Magic Mouse. The battery runtime on the first gen MM was atrocious. Using two sets of good rechargeable AA batteries like the Eneloop ones ensured you always had charged batteries available but it felt like I was constantly swapping batteries.
The Magic Mouse is a very clever device with features that you’d never expect to see on a mouse. I still have my Gen 1 MM but no longer use it because it’s not as comfortable for me compared to Logitech mice and trackballs and Apple’s Magic Trackpad. The low profile and shiny surface doesn’t fit my hand as well as my Logitech pointing devices. Using the MX series pointing devices is like sitting in a comfortable recliner while Apple’s mouse feels like sitting on a park bench.
Do you actually believe what you're writing? Is your head really that far up your ass or are you just so in love with Tim that you've lost all rational and critical thinking ability?
Let's analyze your claim - Apple can't put the plug in a convenient spot because then people will leave it plugged in and wreck the battery and Apple will get sued. And likely go out of business.
What about people's iPhones? they leave them plugged in all night while they sleep even though it takes less than an hour to fully charge them. Somehow iPhone batteries aren't dying left and right. Hmm...maybe Apple's smart enough to have battery management software? No, Apple would never be that smart. And what about the thousands of iPads that are used as kiosks, point of sale systems, etc and stay plugged in 24/7? Wow, they still work! I have a 10 year old iPad that's been repurposed. The battery's long dead but it doesn't matter because it's always plugged in.
Let's look at an even better example, the Magic Keyboard. It lets you do exactly what they should have done with the Magic Mouse. The battery runs low and you can plug it in and keep typing. By some miracle we haven't seen legions of lawyers filing class action suits because people have left their magic keyboard plugged in and the batteries have died. Maybe because it's not an issue?
And Battery gate? Your memory is as weak as your reasoning. Apple got sued because they throttled performance without telling people. One can claim that they did it to protect people or that they did it to surreptitiously drive sales. Because they did it in secret both claims are plausible. Had they simply told people there wouldn't have been an issue.
Please, if you're going to come up with excuses, at least try to better than a 6th grader could do.
Nice “straw man” argument. Nobody said the things that you’re responding to. Certainly not me.
It is truly surprising that this problem has not been solved. I have attempted to use the Magic mouse when traveling, but it always is out of charge, and I can’t just connect a usb cable and use it. A $15 Walmart mouse can do that, but Apple could not engineer it?
ergonomics and tech need to be fixed: - current design hurts your wrist over time - glass-like material feels gross - you cannot press two buttons at the same time - in fact you don’t feel buttons at all - oh and no scroll wheel. You have to slide your finger over glass with zero tactile feedback - you can’t right click without hovering the finger t - poll rate stinks - DPI stinks - USB connector in a weird spot.
The reason the charging port is on the bottom is due to the original removable battery option. The charging port is in the same location as the latch for the removable battery cover. That allowed Apple to save $$ by keeping the industrial design almost identical between the two different versions.
That's ok then. I'm perfectly happy to accept suboptimal design if it contributes to Apple's bottom line.
It would have been suboptimal design without the fast charging capability. But since it could charge for the work day in five minutes, keeping the internal design arrangement almost identical to the removable battery version makes more sense than spending time/money on giving the end user five minutes of tethered work time.
Ah, the same old, tired “it’s not THAT much of an inconvenience” excuse. The people making it are almost as tired as the excuse is.
The picture in the article shows just how ridiculous the design is. I was again reminded of the absurdity when I got an alert that the battery on my Magic Keyboard was low. I simply plugged it in and kept working. I suppose what I should have done is turned it upside down and gone to do something else which I must have needed to do anyway while it charged?
The current design keeps people from leaving it plugged in and using it as a wired mouse. Is aesthetics a reason? Maybe.
The real reason is that this is Apple, and they would inevitably have to defend themselves against a class action lawsuit if they designed it the way you want it, because leaving it plugged in would result in wear and damage to the cable and port from repetitive (mis)use as a wired mouse. It wouldn't matter if they plastered warnings all over the place not to use it while it's plugged in. The lawsuit would claim that it was clearly designed so that you could use it while plugged in, knowing that the eventual damage from an intentionally faulty design would result in sales of more replacement cables and mice.
Put the port on the bottom, and while there's lots of truly absurdist bellyaching about it, there are no class action lawsuits. It's a wireless mouse. It's insanely easy to charge it so you can use it wirelessly.
No evidence whatsoever to suggest this would happen. Completely made up nonsense with little to nothing by way of precedent. Stop making excuses.
No evidence? Among other things, Apple just paid out on a class-action lawsuit that literally penalized them for extending the usability of older iPhones by preventing them from crashing.
Remember "battery gate"? All lithium batteries become weaker over time. It's a fact. It's physics. It's also a fact that smartphones will crash if the processor demands more peak power than an older, degraded battery can produce in a given time. Apple wrote iOS to adapt in those cases, instead slowing the processor in order to spread out (and thus lower) peak power demand on the battery over time, thereby allowing functions to be carried out, if a bit more slowly, instead of letting the phone simply crash and shut down. While it's true that a phone that gets slower and slower may motivate a user to eventually spend the money to replace it with a newer device, it's also true that a a phone that starts crashing and shutting down will motivate a user to much more quickly replace it with a newer device, because it's not just slow, it's unusable. Apple was actually decreasing demand for iPhone upgrades by enabling older devices to last longer, but the class action lawyers twisted that around, ignoring the facts and creating a narrative that Apple was causing older phones to slow down for no reason in order to promote a planned obsolescence scheme. That's a lie, but it was eventually cheaper for Apple to settle the suit rather than letting it drag out, with that lie continuing to be featured in the public square, and continuing to damage Apple's reputation.
They did all this without telling users, or offering them any control over their phone's behaviour. That's why they were sued. Completely different from your ridiculous prophecy.
The reason the charging port is on the bottom is due to the original removable battery option. The charging port is in the same location as the latch for the removable battery cover. That allowed Apple to save $$ by keeping the industrial design almost identical between the two different versions.
That's ok then. I'm perfectly happy to accept suboptimal design if it contributes to Apple's bottom line.
It would have been suboptimal design without the fast charging capability. But since it could charge for the work day in five minutes, keeping the internal design arrangement almost identical to the removable battery version makes more sense than spending time/money on giving the end user five minutes of tethered work time.
Ah, the same old, tired “it’s not THAT much of an inconvenience” excuse. The people making it are almost as tired as the excuse is.
The picture in the article shows just how ridiculous the design is. I was again reminded of the absurdity when I got an alert that the battery on my Magic Keyboard was low. I simply plugged it in and kept working. I suppose what I should have done is turned it upside down and gone to do something else which I must have needed to do anyway while it charged?
The current design keeps people from leaving it plugged in and using it as a wired mouse. Is aesthetics a reason? Maybe.
The real reason is that this is Apple, and they would inevitably have to defend themselves against a class action lawsuit if they designed it the way you want it, because leaving it plugged in would result in wear and damage to the cable and port from repetitive (mis)use as a wired mouse. It wouldn't matter if they plastered warnings all over the place not to use it while it's plugged in. The lawsuit would claim that it was clearly designed so that you could use it while plugged in, knowing that the eventual damage from an intentionally faulty design would result in sales of more replacement cables and mice.
Put the port on the bottom, and while there's lots of truly absurdist bellyaching about it, there are no class action lawsuits. It's a wireless mouse. It's insanely easy to charge it so you can use it wirelessly.
No evidence whatsoever to suggest this would happen. Completely made up nonsense with little to nothing by way of precedent. Stop making excuses.
No evidence? Among other things, Apple just paid out on a class-action lawsuit that literally penalized them for extending the usability of older iPhones by preventing them from crashing.
Remember "battery gate"? All lithium batteries become weaker over time. It's a fact. It's physics. It's also a fact that smartphones will crash if the processor demands more peak power than an older, degraded battery can produce in a given time. Apple wrote iOS to adapt in those cases, instead slowing the processor in order to spread out (and thus lower) peak power demand on the battery over time, thereby allowing functions to be carried out, if a bit more slowly, instead of letting the phone simply crash and shut down. While it's true that a phone that gets slower and slower may motivate a user to eventually spend the money to replace it with a newer device, it's also true that a a phone that starts crashing and shutting down will motivate a user to much more quickly replace it with a newer device, because it's not just slow, it's unusable. Apple was actually decreasing demand for iPhone upgrades by enabling older devices to last longer, but the class action lawyers twisted that around, ignoring the facts and creating a narrative that Apple was causing older phones to slow down for no reason in order to promote a planned obsolescence scheme. That's a lie, but it was eventually cheaper for Apple to settle the suit rather than letting it drag out, with that lie continuing to be featured in the public square, and continuing to damage Apple's reputation.
They did all this without telling users, or offering them any control over their phone's behaviour. That's why they were sued. Completely different from your ridiculous prophecy.
That’s not the sort of OS feature that usually gets a press release. Preventing system crashes is generally filed generically under “system improvements” or “bug fix.” And what sort of user control would you expect for the battery issue? A dialog box that says “Oof! That’s a tough one for your old battery! How would you prefer to handle it? [Temporary slowdown] or [System crash]”
You’re just proving my point. The twisted, litigious response in “battery gate” is a great predictor for how people would respond if Apple put a charging port on the front of the mouse. In some number of cases of misuse of the device as an always-wired mouse would lead to damage to the charging port, people would blame Apple for bad design and sue them for the damage.
Comments
While it's true that the current Mac user base might not be hugely into games (due to self-selection bias), improving gaming is probably the number one most important thing for Apple to do in order to expand Mac marketshare. They've already done a lot with the M-series chips, Metal, and porting tools, but a pretty easily addressed barrier is the gaming ergonomics of the pointing device.
I’m more of a trackball user (Logitech MX Ergo), but I do have a Magic TrackPad nearby because its gesture and multi-finger support is awesome. When I do use a mouse it’s the Logitech MX Master 3s. Funny thing is that after using the MX Master 3s for years I finally realized there is a button under the thumb position that by-default launches Mission Control, which is one of the more frequent gestures I use on the trackpad. Duh.
This would be a deliciously passive-aggressive move, making the mouse completely and totally wireless, while continuing to prevent people from using it as a wired mouse.
The real reason is that this is Apple, and they would inevitably have to defend themselves against a class action lawsuit if they designed it the way you want it, because leaving it plugged in would result in wear and damage to the cable and port from repetitive (mis)use as a wired mouse. It wouldn't matter if they plastered warnings all over the place not to use it while it's plugged in. The lawsuit would claim that it was clearly designed so that you could use it while plugged in, knowing that the eventual damage from an intentionally faulty design would result in sales of more replacement cables and mice.
Put the port on the bottom, and while there's lots of truly absurdist bellyaching about it, there are no class action lawsuits. It's a wireless mouse. It's insanely easy to charge it so you can use it wirelessly.
Remember "battery gate"? All lithium batteries become weaker over time. It's a fact. It's physics. It's also a fact that smartphones will crash if the processor demands more peak power than an older, degraded battery can produce in a given time. Apple wrote iOS to adapt in those cases, instead slowing the processor in order to spread out (and thus lower) peak power demand on the battery over time, thereby allowing functions to be carried out, if a bit more slowly, instead of letting the phone simply crash and shut down. While it's true that a phone that gets slower and slower may motivate a user to eventually spend the money to replace it with a newer device, it's also true that a a phone that starts crashing and shutting down will motivate a user to much more quickly replace it with a newer device, because it's not just slow, it's unusable. Apple was actually decreasing demand for iPhone upgrades by enabling older devices to last longer, but the class action lawyers twisted that around, ignoring the facts and creating a narrative that Apple was causing older phones to slow down for no reason in order to promote a planned obsolescence scheme. That's a lie, but it was eventually cheaper for Apple to settle the suit rather than letting it drag out, with that lie continuing to be featured in the public square, and continuing to damage Apple's reputation.
That's just one case, but it provides ample evidence to demonstrate how Apple is a target for nonsensical class action suits. Just like it's a fact that aging lithium batteries lose capacity, it's a fact that constant, repetitive motion, friction and torque applied to a lightning or USB cable and port will gradually inflict cumulative damage to both the cable and the port. Even more, it will take time for the damage to manifest, increasing the likelihood that a point of failure would occur after the mouse's warranty has run out. This creates the perfect class-action storm: the claim would be that the connection was negligently or intentionally designed to fail outside of warranty, inflicting maximum financial duress on the poor user, who is now out-of-pocket for repairs or replacements.
On the other hand, putting the port on the bottom of the magic mouse eliminates the problem altogether. You may be incredibly inconvenienced by waiting three minutes for a full day's charge, but that mouse and charging cable will remain in pristine operating condition for years to come.
Al Pacino said it best - "what a crock of shit!"
Do you actually believe what you're writing? Is your head really that far up your ass or are you just so in love with Tim that you've lost all rational and critical thinking ability?
Let's analyze your claim - Apple can't put the plug in a convenient spot because then people will leave it plugged in and wreck the battery and Apple will get sued. And likely go out of business.
What about people's iPhones? they leave them plugged in all night while they sleep even though it takes less than an hour to fully charge them. Somehow iPhone batteries aren't dying left and right. Hmm...maybe Apple's smart enough to have battery management software? No, Apple would never be that smart. And what about the thousands of iPads that are used as kiosks, point of sale systems, etc and stay plugged in 24/7? Wow, they still work! I have a 10 year old iPad that's been repurposed. The battery's long dead but it doesn't matter because it's always plugged in.
Let's look at an even better example, the Magic Keyboard. It lets you do exactly what they should have done with the Magic Mouse. The battery runs low and you can plug it in and keep typing. By some miracle we haven't seen legions of lawyers filing class action suits because people have left their magic keyboard plugged in and the batteries have died. Maybe because it's not an issue?
And Battery gate? Your memory is as weak as your reasoning. Apple got sued because they throttled performance without telling people. One can claim that they did it to protect people or that they did it to surreptitiously drive sales. Because they did it in secret both claims are plausible. Had they simply told people there wouldn't have been an issue.
Please, if you're going to come up with excuses, at least try to better than a 6th grader could do.
- current design hurts your wrist over time
- glass-like material feels gross
- you cannot press two buttons at the same time
- in fact you don’t feel buttons at all
- oh and no scroll wheel. You have to slide your finger over glass with zero tactile feedback
- you can’t right click without hovering the finger t
- poll rate stinks
- DPI stinks
- USB connector in a weird spot.
The entire product in 2024 is a joke.
You’re just proving my point. The twisted, litigious response in “battery gate” is a great predictor for how people would respond if Apple put a charging port on the front of the mouse. In some number of cases of misuse of the device as an always-wired mouse would lead to damage to the charging port, people would blame Apple for bad design and sue them for the damage.