Really, I've never understood the hype about wireless keyboards / mice. What's the big deal? They just sit on your desk anyway, it's not like you can wander around while using them.
I hope Apple doesn't waste time & money on this - they've got more important things to be working on. Let Logitech or somebody fill this market niche
I agree with dealing_death. I had a wireless mouse once, a Logitech MX700. Awesome mouse, except for the "wireless" part. Required two cords - one came out of the cradle/charger/base station thing, the other plugged into a wall socket, and they converged on the USB port. I don't understand why, but for some reason you had to plug a wall socket into the USB plug thing in order to charge the mouse. Just not worth all the clutter and hassle if you ask me.
I'd rather have a corded MX500, but now I have a Microsoft Intellimouse Optical that I really like (and it has much, much better OS X drivers than the Logitech), so I'm going to quit mucking about with mice and just stay with what works.
(1) Some of Apple's pro video software is already 3-button mouse aware
(2) Unix/X11/OS X apps need multi-button mice more than legacy OS9 apps which were designed with 1 button mice in mind
(3) Both Apple's customers and more importantly potential switchers from Wintel/Linux have been demanding multi-button mice and Apple has made a big song and dance about listening to its customers
With 64 bits about to land on the desktop, what better time has ever existed than to drop this barrier and abandon the legacy position on the one-button mouse? It's a no-brainer and I am confident Apple will address this issue.
What about a solar powered mouse?? Would that "get rid" of the power issues? Would an optical mouse draw too much power for solar?
So, what about a kinetically powered mouse? You know, like the fancy wristwatches. Or a heat-powered mouse (with the heat being the warmth coming off of your hand - unusable for the cold-handed among us)? Either of these forms with a small battery, for reliability's sake. I think, however, that the wirelessness of these mice is the biggest powerdrain. I think even solarpower would be too little, unless you had a hefty little solar panel feeding directly into the mouse. I wonder how low they can go wrp to the energy requirements of wireless mice.
So, what about a kinetically powered mouse? You know, like the fancy wristwatches. Or a heat-powered mouse (with the heat being the warmth coming off of your hand - unusable for the cold-handed among us)? Either of these forms with a small battery, for reliability's sake. I think, however, that the wirelessness of these mice is the biggest powerdrain. I think even solarpower would be too little, unless you had a hefty little solar panel feeding directly into the mouse. I wonder how low they can go wrp to the energy requirements of wireless mice.
Solar power would NOT work. Your hand would be over it all the time, and even if it wasn't, most interior lighting isn't enough for a laser mouse. A solar calculator works just because the LCD draws little power.
legacy OS9 apps which were designed with 1 button mice in mind
this is actually a good thing!
if EVERYONE designed applications with that in mind (but still had robust 2nd button support that only MIRRORED functions that could be done just fine with only one button) things would make MUCH more sense...
As far as I'm concerned somebody at Apple should be thrown off the roof.
1. Everything is easier with a two button mouse. If you have a one button mouse you barely have a clue what I'm talking about. The idea that I have to run one hand to the keyboard for every little thing is annoying.
2. Scroll wheel = good. I can't believe some people actually don't have them. I had to use an "apple pro mouse" (laughable at best) the other day. Let's just say I ended up throwing it across the room.
3. That whole "ease of use" thing is a load of crap! Every Windows users on the planet uses a two button mouse. My mom knows how to right click. Maybe that was a selling point in '89 but it's just stupid by today's standards.
4. Windows users still rag on the "mac toy" mouse and rightfully so. Who wants to switch to a platform that has a toy for a mouse? After all a real switcher has had a nice scrollwheel, and two buttons for multiple functions. What's the advantage to switching in the mouse department? It's just a downgrade :-(
5. Apple should have at least offered from their order form directly to bundle a two button mouse/w scrollwheel. If not one they designed than partner with another company and sell theirs. Apple ignoring us on this issue is retarded. Not giving a user choices out of the box is retarded.
6. There is no reason to continue to isolate mac customers by offering them crap solutions.
We the people who FUND Apple demand a better mouse!
inkhead, quite frankly: it is YOU who don't know what you're talking about. More isn't always more. Of course ten buttons can be convenient if you know exactly what each of them does.
A single button can be just as convenient, however, if the app is designed to be clever enough, by using a simple and straightforward interface where everything is obvious: the menu bar is *always* on top, the context menus are always *optional* (exception: browsers, because they follow an awful design scheme from Netscape / Mosaic), toolbars are optional, too, and all the rest is required.
Yes multiple buttons can be helpful for advanced users and in fact, I'm using a two-button + scrollwheel + scrollwheel button mouse right now. ?9,99, not even claimed to work on a Mac, works great. I only really need it for RDC, VNC and X11, however. Scrolling works much easier by holding fn and dragging (thanks to uControl), and clicking works fine with a single button, thank you.
Solar power would NOT work. Your hand would be over it all the time, and even if it wasn't, most interior lighting isn't enough for a laser mouse. A solar calculator works just because the LCD draws little power.
Laser mouse? We're talking about optical mice here, which use LED's.
And the "laser" draws little power, perhaps what a normal ( scientific calculator (say a Ti-3X) and its LCD display would draw. What is going to suck the most power is probably whatever method of wireless data transfer you are using.
The thing with most solar-powered calculators is that they are dual power, meaning that they have internal batteries to fall back on. That being said, assuming Apple does make a "dual power" mouse, the solar panels probably will aid very little in extending battery life. It would be a nice marketing gimmick, however. Apple could use it to help sell the mice to users of older Macs and even PC users.
So, there's not much of a chance that a pure solar powered mouse will be able to sustain itself during normal, mostly covered use. In between use, I think it will be able to prove its worth. The so-called LED will draw less power at rest, as will the optical sensor, and the device won't have to transmit much (if any, though I have no clue about that) data. Then, it can use the solar cells to charge up the battery. So they wouldn't be dead (and expensive!) weight.
Not that I think any of this is likely. In fact, I would bet against it.
When I said they are working on wireless power I meant scientists in general just to clarify, read it in Popular Science a while ago IIRC.
Chucker I thought that too. But you must realize most new Mac buyers are PC people. They know how to use a mouse. They really can handle two buttons and a scroll, their skull really won't implode without a 1 button mouse. And for a new computer user it is not that much harder to learn anyway. Especially with the Internet, and more text being converted to the computer (online college classes, eBooks, PDF, the web, blogs, forums, work-related, school reports) it just makes sense to have a scroll wheel to scroll down and up. Right-clicking is also made use of in OS X and just sucks if you have to control click. It's MORE complicated. Also, games are becoming more popular as time goes on, and 1 button mice in games are a joke. I could not play Max Payne with a 1 button mouse. I have bullet time on the right click and the wheel goes through guns. All new games need a real mouse.
I see this as an opportunity for Apple to really innovate with the mouse. Add Bluetooth, two buttons, a wheel (maybe use some fancy technology like having a strip of "trackpad" there, the usual Apple flair who knows), wireless, and most importantly, no battery. Would kinetic energy (using the motion of moving the mouse to charge it like I mentioned earlier) be enough? There must be a way to cut the batteries otherwise I can't see Apple going wireless. For Education I assume it would be the same mouse but wired, because they'd be gone faster than a ham sandwich in Opera's house.
How about a solar pad that you set somewhere, that connects to the mouse? That way the mouse would have more than enough power!
Connects to the mouse with what? If it's a dock, what's the point? Are there flexible (and efficient) solar cells? (which could be used in a mouse pad.) Even with a solar mouse pad..you have to worry about maintaining contact and not short circuiting etc...at every possible point on a 9x7 pad or so...very cumbersome.
I don't think I'm clear on your reasoning here...?
However I would like to see a Apple PRO BT mouse with two buttons and scroll that uses the kinetic energy from movement to charge the battery, like those Seiko watches.
That's a really slick idea. Any Idea about what reistance needed javascript:smilie('')
It has everything I want and feels like something Apple could/should have made. I don't really see how they could improve on the mouse w/o going in an entirel new direction. But I'd like to see them try.
I don't understand why Apple is so stuborn on this point. The fact of the matter is that everyone I know prefers a multi-button mouse to a single. On top of this, the biggest complaint I here from PC users about the Mac is that it only has one button. And as if these two reasons weren't enough, there is support throughout the OS.
I hope to see Apple really target Pro (creative, science, tech) markets w/10.3 and the 970. It seems that an OEM multi-button mouse would be a prerequisite to truly play ball with this crowd.
Here is my idea for Apple's new mouse that will probably never materializae: a wire-less bluetooth mouse that is self charging. It is optical, so it has the neat red laser thingamagig. Here is how it self charges, it has a wheel, but it does not use it for navigation, but rather to charge the battery, I think that every time you move the mouse it could generate engough energy to send the signal and use the light.
It might not work, but wouldn't it be cool if you didn't have to replace batteries or put it in a docking station.
or it charges when you click the button so when it goes out... just click it a couple hundred times and it's working again
A self charginf mouse would be cool, but it will never happen. And if Apple wants to make a bluetooth mose, first all the computers need bluetooth standard
Comments
I hope Apple doesn't waste time & money on this - they've got more important things to be working on. Let Logitech or somebody fill this market niche
I'd rather have a corded MX500, but now I have a Microsoft Intellimouse Optical that I really like (and it has much, much better OS X drivers than the Logitech), so I'm going to quit mucking about with mice and just stay with what works.
(2) Unix/X11/OS X apps need multi-button mice more than legacy OS9 apps which were designed with 1 button mice in mind
(3) Both Apple's customers and more importantly potential switchers from Wintel/Linux have been demanding multi-button mice and Apple has made a big song and dance about listening to its customers
With 64 bits about to land on the desktop, what better time has ever existed than to drop this barrier and abandon the legacy position on the one-button mouse? It's a no-brainer and I am confident Apple will address this issue.
Originally posted by pooandwee
What about a solar powered mouse?? Would that "get rid" of the power issues? Would an optical mouse draw too much power for solar?
So, what about a kinetically powered mouse? You know, like the fancy wristwatches. Or a heat-powered mouse (with the heat being the warmth coming off of your hand - unusable for the cold-handed among us)? Either of these forms with a small battery, for reliability's sake. I think, however, that the wirelessness of these mice is the biggest powerdrain. I think even solarpower would be too little, unless you had a hefty little solar panel feeding directly into the mouse. I wonder how low they can go wrp to the energy requirements of wireless mice.
Originally posted by der Kopf
So, what about a kinetically powered mouse? You know, like the fancy wristwatches. Or a heat-powered mouse (with the heat being the warmth coming off of your hand - unusable for the cold-handed among us)? Either of these forms with a small battery, for reliability's sake. I think, however, that the wirelessness of these mice is the biggest powerdrain. I think even solarpower would be too little, unless you had a hefty little solar panel feeding directly into the mouse. I wonder how low they can go wrp to the energy requirements of wireless mice.
Solar power would NOT work. Your hand would be over it all the time, and even if it wasn't, most interior lighting isn't enough for a laser mouse. A solar calculator works just because the LCD draws little power.
Originally posted by der Kopf
So, what about a kinetically powered mouse?
Sure, they can use the gyroscopes from Pscates' display.
Originally posted by McCrab
legacy OS9 apps which were designed with 1 button mice in mind
this is actually a good thing!
if EVERYONE designed applications with that in mind (but still had robust 2nd button support that only MIRRORED functions that could be done just fine with only one button) things would make MUCH more sense...
1. Everything is easier with a two button mouse. If you have a one button mouse you barely have a clue what I'm talking about. The idea that I have to run one hand to the keyboard for every little thing is annoying.
2. Scroll wheel = good. I can't believe some people actually don't have them. I had to use an "apple pro mouse" (laughable at best) the other day. Let's just say I ended up throwing it across the room.
3. That whole "ease of use" thing is a load of crap! Every Windows users on the planet uses a two button mouse. My mom knows how to right click. Maybe that was a selling point in '89 but it's just stupid by today's standards.
4. Windows users still rag on the "mac toy" mouse and rightfully so. Who wants to switch to a platform that has a toy for a mouse? After all a real switcher has had a nice scrollwheel, and two buttons for multiple functions. What's the advantage to switching in the mouse department? It's just a downgrade :-(
5. Apple should have at least offered from their order form directly to bundle a two button mouse/w scrollwheel. If not one they designed than partner with another company and sell theirs. Apple ignoring us on this issue is retarded. Not giving a user choices out of the box is retarded.
6. There is no reason to continue to isolate mac customers by offering them crap solutions.
We the people who FUND Apple demand a better mouse!
A single button can be just as convenient, however, if the app is designed to be clever enough, by using a simple and straightforward interface where everything is obvious: the menu bar is *always* on top, the context menus are always *optional* (exception: browsers, because they follow an awful design scheme from Netscape / Mosaic), toolbars are optional, too, and all the rest is required.
Yes multiple buttons can be helpful for advanced users and in fact, I'm using a two-button + scrollwheel + scrollwheel button mouse right now. ?9,99, not even claimed to work on a Mac, works great. I only really need it for RDC, VNC and X11, however. Scrolling works much easier by holding fn and dragging (thanks to uControl), and clicking works fine with a single button, thank you.
Originally posted by Placebo
Solar power would NOT work. Your hand would be over it all the time, and even if it wasn't, most interior lighting isn't enough for a laser mouse. A solar calculator works just because the LCD draws little power.
Laser mouse? We're talking about optical mice here, which use LED's.
And the "laser" draws little power, perhaps what a normal ( scientific calculator (say a Ti-3X) and its LCD display would draw. What is going to suck the most power is probably whatever method of wireless data transfer you are using.
The thing with most solar-powered calculators is that they are dual power, meaning that they have internal batteries to fall back on. That being said, assuming Apple does make a "dual power" mouse, the solar panels probably will aid very little in extending battery life. It would be a nice marketing gimmick, however. Apple could use it to help sell the mice to users of older Macs and even PC users.
So, there's not much of a chance that a pure solar powered mouse will be able to sustain itself during normal, mostly covered use. In between use, I think it will be able to prove its worth. The so-called LED will draw less power at rest, as will the optical sensor, and the device won't have to transmit much (if any, though I have no clue about that) data. Then, it can use the solar cells to charge up the battery. So they wouldn't be dead (and expensive!) weight.
Not that I think any of this is likely. In fact, I would bet against it.
Chucker I thought that too. But you must realize most new Mac buyers are PC people. They know how to use a mouse. They really can handle two buttons and a scroll, their skull really won't implode without a 1 button mouse. And for a new computer user it is not that much harder to learn anyway. Especially with the Internet, and more text being converted to the computer (online college classes, eBooks, PDF, the web, blogs, forums, work-related, school reports) it just makes sense to have a scroll wheel to scroll down and up. Right-clicking is also made use of in OS X and just sucks if you have to control click. It's MORE complicated. Also, games are becoming more popular as time goes on, and 1 button mice in games are a joke. I could not play Max Payne with a 1 button mouse. I have bullet time on the right click and the wheel goes through guns. All new games need a real mouse.
I see this as an opportunity for Apple to really innovate with the mouse. Add Bluetooth, two buttons, a wheel (maybe use some fancy technology like having a strip of "trackpad" there, the usual Apple flair who knows), wireless, and most importantly, no battery. Would kinetic energy (using the motion of moving the mouse to charge it like I mentioned earlier) be enough? There must be a way to cut the batteries otherwise I can't see Apple going wireless. For Education I assume it would be the same mouse but wired, because they'd be gone faster than a ham sandwich in Opera's house.
Originally posted by Junkyard Dawg
How about a solar pad that you set somewhere, that connects to the mouse? That way the mouse would have more than enough power!
Connects to the mouse with what? If it's a dock, what's the point? Are there flexible (and efficient) solar cells? (which could be used in a mouse pad.) Even with a solar mouse pad..you have to worry about maintaining contact and not short circuiting etc...at every possible point on a 9x7 pad or so...very cumbersome.
I don't think I'm clear on your reasoning here...?
Originally posted by Aquatic
They are working on wireless power. Really!
However I would like to see a Apple PRO BT mouse with two buttons and scroll that uses the kinetic energy from movement to charge the battery, like those Seiko watches.
That's a really slick idea. Any Idea about what reistance needed
It has everything I want and feels like something Apple could/should have made. I don't really see how they could improve on the mouse w/o going in an entirel new direction. But I'd like to see them try.
I don't understand why Apple is so stuborn on this point. The fact of the matter is that everyone I know prefers a multi-button mouse to a single. On top of this, the biggest complaint I here from PC users about the Mac is that it only has one button. And as if these two reasons weren't enough, there is support throughout the OS.
I hope to see Apple really target Pro (creative, science, tech) markets w/10.3 and the 970. It seems that an OEM multi-button mouse would be a prerequisite to truly play ball with this crowd.
It might not work, but wouldn't it be cool if you didn't have to replace batteries or put it in a docking station.
Damn someone beat me to it.
A self charginf mouse would be cool, but it will never happen. And if Apple wants to make a bluetooth mose, first all the computers need bluetooth standard