I’ve never understood the angst about the Magic Mouse 2 charging port. The critique above explains clearly why the port doesn’t need to be on the edge or top of the mouse. Less than a minute’s charge yields hours of use.
As as noted in another post above, a charging cable isn’t structurally designed to handle the motions and bending involved with being a mouse cord. Yet, you can rest assured that lots of people would just leave it plugged in all the time, damaging the cable and the charging port on the mouse as well. Then there would be lots of complaints and inevitable class-action lawsuits over the poorly designed charging cables and charging ports. And for what? Because users can’t wait a minute or two to charge up the mouse for a day’s use.
Your argument implies there’s only two possible designs for mice with rechargeable batteries. On bottom, or fragile on front.
There are plenty of options. One might design a robust charging cable. How about that? Go on, tell me that’s not possible. Another is to give the device wireless charging. Both add cost, but Apple is not shy in that department, so that’s not an issue. There’s plenty of better designs than this mess.
At the 12.9 inch size the old iPad keyboard cover was terrible. It was too flimsy for its size and would easily lose contact with the iPad, requiring to be disconnected fully to re-pair it.
The new design solved more than the confusing origami design. It's both sturdier, provides a heap more protection and has a rock-solid connection. It's better in every way.
It really blows me away how many people fail to understand the design of The Magic Mouse 2. I hear so many complaints about that fact that the charging port is on the bottom of the device so you can’t use it while it is plugged in. Huge numbers of people believe that this design was some sort of oversight by Apple or some triumph of form over function. This idea is completely wrong. The placement of the charging port on The Magic Mouse 2 is very intentional. It is designed this way to force users to unplug the device once it is charged. If users are given the option to leave the device constantly plugged in, they will do so. In doing so, they will destroy the battery. It’s that simple.
Those who try to armchair quarterback Apple’s design decisions are, for the most part, truly clueless.
Apple hits some and misses some, and yet.. they survive (but are still DOOOOMMMMED)
Sorry... obligatory.
Anywhoo, the worse thing about that hockey puck mouse was that it shipped with the powerMac G3 and G4 for 2-3 years until they created the clear and black wired "pro" version, which was beautiful (except people bitched it only had one click).
It really blows me away how many people fail to understand the design of The Magic Mouse 2. I hear so many complaints about that fact that the charging port is on the bottom of the device so you can’t use it while it is plugged in. Huge numbers of people believe that this design was some sort of oversight by Apple or some triumph of form over function. This idea is completely wrong. The placement of the charging port on The Magic Mouse 2 is very intentional. It is designed this way to force users to unplug the device once it is charged. If users are given the option to leave the device constantly plugged in, they will do so. In doing so, they will destroy the battery. It’s that simple.
Those who try to armchair quarterback Apple’s design decisions are, for the most part, truly clueless.
If this really was a consideration, why haven't they done something similar to the iPhone, which most people leave plugged in way too much, shortening its battery life? Did Apple suddenly become truly clueless?
I'd say that Apple, and Ive just had a problem with mice. Couldn't design a good one if their life depended on it. Other things, fine, trackpads, fine, keyboards fine. But for some reason mice have just eluded them. From the first one with one button when everyone else had two, and then two with a wheel. Then through the puck mouse, which was an ergonomic disaster, and most disappointing for me, still only had one button. I really thought the two coloured sections on the sides were buttons, until I got one. Then on to the Mighty Mouse which is just mediocre, and as you mentioned a ham sandwich could have told you that putting the plug on the bottom was a bad idea. Not only have I replaced the one that came with my iMac with a wired mouse from MacAlly, I just noticed my wife quietly replaced hers with a Microsoft mouse she got somewhere.
Here's to hoping that Apple stops getting arty with their mice and designs one that just does what we need.
Surprisingly Mice are one thing that Microsoft does a pretty good job with. I love my surface mouse because of how it fold flat. Makes it easy to slip in pants pocket. Microsoft needs to look at what Apple does with their power adapters. Microsofts's bricks are heavy and ugly. Apple's adapters are beautiful and light.
It really blows me away how many people fail to understand the design of The Magic Mouse 2. I hear so many complaints about that fact that the charging port is on the bottom of the device so you can’t use it while it is plugged in. Huge numbers of people believe that this design was some sort of oversight by Apple or some triumph of form over function. This idea is completely wrong. The placement of the charging port on The Magic Mouse 2 is very intentional. It is designed this way to force users to unplug the device once it is charged. If users are given the option to leave the device constantly plugged in, they will do so. In doing so, they will destroy the battery. It’s that simple.
Those who try to armchair quarterback Apple’s design decisions are, for the most part, truly clueless.
I've found battery die half an hour after first warning. Plug in and take a toilet & coffee break after this happens is unlikely to give enough charge to get to end fo day or lunch whichever is next.
I'd be more willing to pay that as a deliberate design choice if:-
a) the keyboard charge ports didn't keyboard to work plugged in.
b) the mouse promoted for recharge when batteries were 10% full not 2%.
There are more reasons to think it was just what they did without thinking than did by design.
Apple makes many great products, and has a few misses, as discussed about, but I believe with the comment regarding elimination of ports on MacBooks and MacBook Pros, requiring....dongles, dongles, dongles, give me a break. Why make business users carry around a bag full of dongles on a trip. If Apple was really great on design, they would find a way to have an ultrathin with ports for users. I am sorry, USB-C to ... dongles at $30 a pop are crazy. Let me show you my presentation, oh wait I don't have the right dongle to connect to your 80" monitor. Let's all look at my 13" screen... :-)
Worst Ive designs? (Imo) 1. Hockey puck mouse; Used it once, put it away & switched to Logitech. 2. Mighty Mouse (with the nub which got clogged) eventually switched to Logitech. 3. Apple Pencil #1 charging on the go by sticking it into the iPad charging port. Awkward. 4. G4 Cube; fragile, waste of space, in the shape of a tower but more like a Mac Mini
Worst Ive designs? (Imo) 1. Hockey puck mouse; Used it once, put it away & switched to Logitech. 2. Mighty Mouse (with the nub which got clogged) eventually switched to Logitech. 3. Apple Pencil #1 charging on the go by sticking it into the iPad charging port. Awkward. 4. G4 Cube; fragile, waste of space, in the shape of a tower but more like a Mac Mini
Apple Pencil 1, how can I forget. Not that was bad.
SD Card slot on the back of the iMac. It's a blind reach, and if the card is even slightly off axis when you attempt to insert it, it jams. I presume they didn't put the slot in the bottom edge of the chin because an inserted card spoils the look, but I don't understand why the design team couldn't be bothered to work up a pleasant blind insertion solution. I did it in a product nearly 15 years ago. If you inserted the card at an odd angle, it would guide the card straight as you continued to push.
Face it, the original, 128K Mac was ugly. The Lisa was (necessarily) bulky, but what came after... Jobs wanted a one-piece unit--the toaster paradigm.
A white, minimalist, box + petite monitor would have been better. Later models looked a bit better, without the someone-has-been-smoking-in-this-room-for-20 years tone.
I’m not really sure what you’re criticizing here — the color? Or, the all-in-one design?
What you describe as the color is what I would say it looks like now after 35 years of yellowing. But when it came out, the natural color is PMS 453, which is a nice shade of greenish-beige, with a beautiful contrasting taupe accent color in cables, keyboard and mouse, which looked nicer than the dull beige boxes which could be found in every business product manufactured at the time.
The all-in-one design was revolutionary, and persists to this day in the very pragmatic and beautiful iMac. Separate components as you suggest were the bland IBM standard of the day, and was hardly as attractive as Job’s concept.
I just crack up and the same tired complaints about the port location on the magic mouse. Not only does one get days of warnings before the battery goes low, but apparently every complainer never sleeps or takes a break. Is it too much trouble to plug the mouse to recharge at the end of the day of the first, or second, or n-teenth time and go to sleep, or go home from the office, or heck... plug it in when you go on a coffee break?
No. It's zero effort. I plug mine in when I leave the office. Next morning it's good for another month or two.
It really blows me away how many people fail to understand the design of The Magic Mouse 2. I hear so many complaints about that fact that the charging port is on the bottom of the device so you can’t use it while it is plugged in. Huge numbers of people believe that this design was some sort of oversight by Apple or some triumph of form over function. This idea is completely wrong. The placement of the charging port on The Magic Mouse 2 is very intentional. It is designed this way to force users to unplug the device once it is charged. If users are given the option to leave the device constantly plugged in, they will do so. In doing so, they will destroy the battery. It’s that simple.
Those who try to armchair quarterback Apple’s design decisions are, for the most part, truly clueless.
If the software in the mouse isn't smart enough to prevent the battery from being killed due to long-term pluggage, maybe fix the software rather than gimping the mouse. And if someone only uses it plugged in, why would they care if the battery eventually became crippled?
Those who can't see the most basic of fixes for potential problems are, for the most part, truly clueless.
I think everyone is getting the Magic Mouse wrong. I figured Apple did it so people wouldn't think it had to be plugged in to work. I figured this out after going to a friends house and telling him the iMac keyboard was Bluetooth and doesn't have to be plugged in. That's when it hit me. The same reason Apple has their logo "upside down" on Macs. Better for Apples reputation even if it's hard to get used to at first.
Another thing I hate about Magic Mouse 2: there's no way to know if it's on or not. Yes, there's a switch that tells you that. But without a LED indicator light, there's no way to verify if your mouse is simply out of charge or if there's just something wrong with the connection to your Mac.
Because you'd need it to be connected to your Mac to actually know how much battery it has left.
I just crack up and the same tired complaints about the port location on the magic mouse. Not only does one get days of warnings before the battery goes low...
I guess it depends on whether we're talking about worst design, or biggest impact. I think the reason the Magic Mouse design gets so much criticism, was mostly covered in the above comments already. It was completely avoidable, and it's just awkward. When you're charging, how do you even set the mouse down? Kind of on its side with the cord as a rocking 'tripod' kind of resting point? On its back, like a toppled turtle? While it might be a minor thing in the big picture, it's a completely inelegant design (very unlike Apple).
The good thing, is that it is easily rectified by just getting a different mouse. I had the previous (or 2 gen. previous?) one with 2 AA batteries (and 2 AA rechargeables worked too, so just a few second swap). But, the mouse in general, kind of sucked even though it was a technological marvel (ergonomics, or actual function). In fact, I can't think of a good Apple mouse. That has never been their strong point.
As for my list...
One of my least favorite current products is the iPad Smart Cover. The one I had for my iPad 2 was an awesome design and very well made. The new one for my current iPad is a piece of junk. It doesn't hold the iPad up nearly as stable (bump it a bit and it collapses). It's harder to setup. It isn't nearly as well made (they really cheapened it up). And, I think it cost as much if not more $.
Butterfly keyboard But, I'd have to go with the the butterfly keyboard as the worst design in terms of impact. It is a major part of the utility of the product, and a prime user-interface touchpoint. You can't really replace it like a mouse. It was avoidable, and they should have foreseen the problems (I'm guessing they did, but did it anyway).
Magic Mouse 2 As I said above, not a huge deal, but totally avoidable and terrible design. From just a pure design point of view, probably the worst (just not a big impact).
Puck Mouse That thing was just awful.
Mac Pro (cylinder) For putting so much work and beauty in a design, but totally missing the mark. It is kind of analogous to your job being to design something to get the football team to the next game, and you come back with a Ferrari.
Industrial design is a balance between utility, beauty, and user-interface. If you miss on the utility, the rest doesn't really matter. If you botch the UI, that's also a big problem. Once you've got those two, then beauty gets some really big bonus points. The best designs nail all three.
Comments
There are plenty of options. One might design a robust charging cable. How about that? Go on, tell me that’s not possible. Another is to give the device wireless charging. Both add cost, but Apple is not shy in that department, so that’s not an issue. There’s plenty of better designs than this mess.
The new design solved more than the confusing origami design. It's both sturdier, provides a heap more protection and has a rock-solid connection. It's better in every way.
Those who try to armchair quarterback Apple’s design decisions are, for the most part, truly clueless.
Sorry... obligatory.
Anywhoo, the worse thing about that hockey puck mouse was that it shipped with the powerMac G3 and G4 for 2-3 years until they created the clear and black wired "pro" version, which was beautiful (except people bitched it only had one click).
Microsoft needs to look at what Apple does with their power adapters. Microsofts's bricks are heavy and ugly. Apple's adapters are beautiful and light.
1. Hockey puck mouse; Used it once, put it away & switched to Logitech.
2. Mighty Mouse (with the nub which got clogged) eventually switched to Logitech.
3. Apple Pencil #1 charging on the go by sticking it into the iPad charging port. Awkward.
4. G4 Cube; fragile, waste of space, in the shape of a tower but more like a Mac Mini
What you describe as the color is what I would say it looks like now after 35 years of yellowing. But when it came out, the natural color is PMS 453, which is a nice shade of greenish-beige, with a beautiful contrasting taupe accent color in cables, keyboard and mouse, which looked nicer than the dull beige boxes which could be found in every business product manufactured at the time.
The all-in-one design was revolutionary, and persists to this day in the very pragmatic and beautiful iMac. Separate components as you suggest were the bland IBM standard of the day, and was hardly as attractive as Job’s concept.
But who can argue with an opinion?
Those who can't see the most basic of fixes for potential problems are, for the most part, truly clueless.
I think everyone is getting the Magic Mouse wrong. I figured Apple did it so people wouldn't think it had to be plugged in to work. I figured this out after going to a friends house and telling him the iMac keyboard was Bluetooth and doesn't have to be plugged in. That's when it hit me. The same reason Apple has their logo "upside down" on Macs. Better for Apples reputation even if it's hard to get used to at first.
Hope this makes sense.
https://www.cultofmac.com/168377/the-upside-down-apple-logo-a-steve-jobs-mistake/
An old Mac laptop with a right side up Apple logo.
Because you'd need it to be connected to your Mac to actually know how much battery it has left.
I guess it depends on whether we're talking about worst design, or biggest impact. I think the reason the Magic Mouse design gets so much criticism, was mostly covered in the above comments already. It was completely avoidable, and it's just awkward. When you're charging, how do you even set the mouse down? Kind of on its side with the cord as a rocking 'tripod' kind of resting point? On its back, like a toppled turtle? While it might be a minor thing in the big picture, it's a completely inelegant design (very unlike Apple).
The good thing, is that it is easily rectified by just getting a different mouse. I had the previous (or 2 gen. previous?) one with 2 AA batteries (and 2 AA rechargeables worked too, so just a few second swap). But, the mouse in general, kind of sucked even though it was a technological marvel (ergonomics, or actual function). In fact, I can't think of a good Apple mouse. That has never been their strong point.
As for my list...
One of my least favorite current products is the iPad Smart Cover. The one I had for my iPad 2 was an awesome design and very well made. The new one for my current iPad is a piece of junk. It doesn't hold the iPad up nearly as stable (bump it a bit and it collapses). It's harder to setup. It isn't nearly as well made (they really cheapened it up). And, I think it cost as much if not more $.
Butterfly keyboard
But, I'd have to go with the the butterfly keyboard as the worst design in terms of impact. It is a major part of the utility of the product, and a prime user-interface touchpoint. You can't really replace it like a mouse. It was avoidable, and they should have foreseen the problems (I'm guessing they did, but did it anyway).
Magic Mouse 2
As I said above, not a huge deal, but totally avoidable and terrible design. From just a pure design point of view, probably the worst (just not a big impact).
Puck Mouse
That thing was just awful.
Mac Pro (cylinder)
For putting so much work and beauty in a design, but totally missing the mark. It is kind of analogous to your job being to design something to get the football team to the next game, and you come back with a Ferrari.
Industrial design is a balance between utility, beauty, and user-interface. If you miss on the utility, the rest doesn't really matter. If you botch the UI, that's also a big problem. Once you've got those two, then beauty gets some really big bonus points. The best designs nail all three.