Apple's Mighty Mouse: The Move to Multi-Button
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 4, 2005 8:10 PM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Small Balls and Touchy Sensors
Not only is the Mighty Mouse Apple's first multi-button mouse, it is also their first mouse with a scroll wheel, or to be more precise, scroll ball.Despite what some originally thought, the Mighty Mouse's scrolling mechanism isn't the same thing as the trackpoint devices that we've seen on laptops; instead, it is actually a very small ball that can spin in all directions.
The scroll ball lets you scroll in both X and Y directions, as well as in combinations of the two (e.g. diagonally left). The scroll ball isn't active unless it is slightly depressed. In other words, you can't scroll with it without putting a very slight amount of pressure on it. The whole "not active until you push it" aspect caught me off guard initially and it took a little getting used to, but it wasn't a huge deal.
Hold mouse over image to see how far the scroll ball can be depressed.
When scrolling, the ball does provide you with feedback; it feels like you're using a scroll wheel with more frequent and quieter clicks than any other mouse that I had used before. With much less distance between scroll "clicks", the Mighty Mouse gives you much finer grained scrolling than with my Logitech MX1000. The clicks are also far less intrusive than on the Logitech, making Apple's scroll ball more of a hybrid of the Logitech MX1000's scroll wheel and the newer click-less Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 4.0 scroll wheels in terms of tactile feedback. You get smoothness similar to the Microsoft mice, but with the aural and tactile feedback more like the Logitech wheels.
Scrolling up and down is business as usual with the Mighty Mouse, although even at the highest scroll speed setting, it takes more time to scroll rapidly through multiple pages than on the Logitech; it's the trade-off that you make for the finer grained scrolling, which the Mighty Mouse offers. The problem with the finer grained nature of the scroll ball is that scrolling large distances is often a lot quicker using the actual scroll bars in an application. Apple's Mighty Mouse drivers don't provide a setting for controlling how many lines each scroll "tick" corresponds to, and they err on the side of under-scrolling rather than scrolling too much. I'd guess that this is something that can be fixed with a simple updated driver with a new option, but until then, it is a complaint that I had about the mouse.
From my experience with the Mighty Mouse, scrolling along the X-axis worked fairly well, but I'm not sure if a ball is the best suited for horizontal scrolling. The best way to think about it is like this: note the range of motion of your index finger when you wave to someone with just that finger (in a manner similar to operating a scroll wheel); now, try moving your index finger from side to side and note the significant reduction in its range of motion. Obviously, the way that your fingers are jointed dictates that they will move much freer and easier in the former manner rather than the latter, and unfortunately, it also means that scrolling left to right with a device like the Mighty Mouse isn't as perfect as it could be.
Left to right scrolling works on the Mighty Mouse - it just doesn't work perfectly, thanks to the fact that your index finger doesn't naturally want to move left to right as easily as it moves up and down. This is one area where I think Microsoft/Logitech actually have it right. Their horizontal scrolling is handled by pushing the wheel left or right and holding it there until you are done scrolling. This method means that you don't have to keep moving your scroll finger left to right (or right to left), which makes it a bit easier than what the Mighty Mouse requires of you.
Apple's other claim to fame with the scroll ball is that it lets you scroll in all directions. After all, it is a ball and balls tend to allow that sort of freedom. While getting used to the horizontal scrolling wasn't too big of a problem, scrolling at angles isn't as glamorous as you would think. Pretty much the only time that I have to scroll in both X and Y directions at the same time is when I'm looking at or editing a big image, so I fired up Photoshop and gave the scrolling a try.
The problem with scrolling diagonally is that it isn't smooth at all; it's not smooth and it's slow. You would naturally want diagonal scrolling to be as smooth as horizontal or vertical scrolling, but it ends up being more of a jaggy operation; scrolling at a 45 degree angle feels a lot like scrolling right a bit and then scrolling up a bit, and repeating that over and over again with the abruptness of switching directions included. It's not horrible, and it is useful for those times when you do need to scroll a short distance in a direction other than strictly along either axis, but overall, it isn't too useful. The other problem is that half of the time, I found myself scrolling left/right or up/down when I was trying to scroll diagonally. Instead of dealing with the frustration of the scroll ball not going where I wanted it to go, it was usually easier just to scroll left/right then up/down separately. And once again, because of the fine granularity of each scroll click, I found that often times it was a lot quicker just to grab onto a scroll bar and get to where I needed to go that way.
Last up are the new side buttons on the Mighty Mouse, the buttons that for me are the worst design element of Apple's mouse. Although there is one button on each side of the Mighty Mouse, they need to be depressed together in order for them to activate and operate, which means that the two buttons only really act as one.
One of the two side buttons
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
45 Comments
View All Comments
LincTX - Saturday, August 6, 2005 - link
I don't think the mouse is the only one with small balls. There is a difference between Professional and just being plain tame. This is a horrible, horrible product that is sure to annoy more than just gamers and PC-switch users.I say pass the Apple product reviews on to a reviewer which hasn't been recently bitten with the Apple worm. It's only fair I think.
cryptonomicon - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link
Logitech or microsoft are not perfectly ergonomic and do not fit many people's hands, however they are infinately more ergonomic than this attempt by apple.Why can't apple just put two buttons on the top of their mouse??? The bottom-clicking mechanism is an overly complicated way for a mouse to work and causes alot more accidental clicks in my experience.
Vitaboy - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link
By the content of most of the comments here, it seems you have a lot of people who feel very threatened by the Mighty Mouse.
It seems Anand's review was very objective. He pointed out the mouse's good features as well as the bad features. In the end, he basically stated the mouse is certainly appropriate for some people (like Apple Pro Mouse users) but not so great for others (gamers and hardcore multi-button mousers). Yet, a lot of people seem to be very threatened by this seemingly sensible language with comments like, "This proves the mouse sucks!" or "Apple is all style, no function!" when it's clear most of the people posting have not used the mouse, do not have an open mind, and do not even care to have an open mind about it.
I've tried the mouse. The mouse isn't perfect, but it's perfectly good enough for most Mac users and probably a lot of less experienced Windows users. It feels comfortable to my hands and is thus "ergonomic" for my needs. Considering most companies slap the term "ergonomic" as nothing more than a marketing label to make consumers think they are getting "ergonomic" without really explaining why their product is so "ergonomic" (like the marketing guy that Dilbert needles by explaining what he means by "paradigm"), it seems to me the only definition of ergonomic is something that doesn't cause you discomfort or pain after use. And that, it seems, is a very personal thing rather than Microsoft, Logitech, or Apple telling me that their mouse is "ergonomic."
That being said, for every comment of "It's amazing how much Apple can get people to pay for useless style", you can always find someone who feels threatened by the idea that there are many people out there who find that Apple products work for them just fine.
The bottom line? Some users will love Might Mouse because it works well for them. Many other will not like it one bit. But everyone would benefit from the discontinuation of inane and childish mentality of "I think the mouse sucks and you are getting ripped off if you buy because I hate it and I know better than you and you should use what I think is better because Apple sucks." Nuff said.
IKeelU - Saturday, August 6, 2005 - link
I don't feel threatened by apple's products. It just seems arrogant to me that a company would forsake ergonomics and functionality just to be "different". Granted, I don't actually know why apple chose this design, but from Anand's reactions to the product, I can't see any other reason why someone would want to buy it.MCSim - Saturday, August 6, 2005 - link
Mighty Mouse is one way to say "we don't want to expand to gaming". If it only works in simple use, there's no way it would become popural outside of Apple fanatics or "we don't know anything else".My MX700 is ergonomic, can use it anyway i want, doesn't have same kind of limitations as MM, can use it with Mac's and PC's.
MM is just bling bling. There's no way telling what it causes in long periods of time to your hand. Only Apple can deliver this kind of "limited" usage products, because it's "cool".
As you said, most Mac users are a lot less experienced than the Windows users. My friend once told me a joke, simple computers for the simple users. He was just being sarcastic. :)
kmmatney - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link
Well, I think this mouse sucks. I also thought the "hockey puck" mouse sucked on the old imacs. I don't think they make the old hockey puck mouse, because, well, it sucked. This one seems way to easy to miss the clicks. The market will show how long this mouse lasts in its current form. I bet it won't go over all that well.Ocaid - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link
Amen.cryptonomicon - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link
" This is a case where I really think Apple has sacrificed usability in order to achieve aesthetic elegance."Yep. This mouse sucks. I feel sorry for the people who are going to use it.
SMOGZINN - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link
It seems to me that this mouse was created for the type of people that move the mouse over the icon and then pick up their hand and click with one finger. You know the same people that type with one finger, probably the same finger that they click the mouse with. I often think that Apple does not take their customers seriously, and makes systems designed for the lest common denominator. This is a shame because they often have really interesting ideas, and I would like to be able to get a system that does not look like it was designed for a 14 year old's room like the all plastic 'ninja' cases or a warehouse (flat metal case, beige case.)Houdani - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link
Mind you, I'm not bellyaching for the sake of bellyaching. This is a case where I really think Apple has sacrificed usability in order to achieve aesthetic elegance.I totally wouldn't be surprised if prolonged use of this mouse didn't cause significant musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) due to the unnatural way you have to manipulate your hand in order to use the mouse. Quite seriously, I expect users of this mouse to enjoy the pleasures of Tennis Elbow -- and they probably won't even realize it's the mouse which is causing it.
This mouse is a failure in the sense that in order to use it, you have to do unnatural things with your hand. Yes, you can "get used to it" but that's hardly any reason to excuse it's flawed implementation.
>> You should not have to physically lift one finger in order to click with another.
>> You should not have to pinch with your thumb and pinky in order to use the side buttons. Hello thumb button!
>> Moreover, you should not have to reposition your entire hand in order to use the side buttons.
>> You should not have to apply pressure to the trackball in order to use it. That's just unnecessary strain.
>> When using the trackball, you should not have to repeatedly move your fingers in a contorted manner (while exerting a slight amount of downward pressure) just to get to the other side of the document. Anand has me thinking the "high scroll rate" isn't all that high a rate.
On a side note, what happens when you click the trackball when either of your fingers is resting on the mouse? Do you have to physically remove your fingers from the left and right "buttons" in order to get a trackball click?