Apple's Mighty Mouse: The Move to Multi-Button
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 4, 2005 8:10 PM EST- Posted in
- Mac
High Resolution LCD and Gaming Performance
One of the reasons why I originally switched to the Logitech MX1000 was because of my use of higher and higher resolution displays. I found that the larger the LCD I moved to, the more of a pain using low DPI optical mice became. When I first decided to leave my old Microsoft mouse behind, I bought two mice and did a little mini roundup for myself to determine which one I'd use for my main machine. The running was between the Logitech MX1000 and the Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 4.0. In a nutshell, my conclusions were that although I liked the ergonomics of the IntelliMouse Explorer 4.0 better than the MX1000, the scroll wheel (I accidentally middle-clicked a lot with the IntelliMouse's wheel) and, most importantly, the tracking accuracy of the MX1000 was far better for my needs, especially on using very high resolution displays. So, the MX1000 became my work mouse and the IntelliMouse Explorer 4.0 became my testbed mouse.
One of the areas where Logitech's mice are supposed to excel is in gaming. So, I fired up a few games and tried out Apple's latest just to see how mighty it was. However, it was in its gaming performance that I was actually the most disappointed. The tracking speed and accuracy were good enough for me; granted, my first-person shooter skills have atrophied over the past few years, so I'm not as dependent on the perfect mouse as I would have been before, but I would say for the majority of casual/recreational gamers, the tracking and accuracy won't be a problem. The major problem instead was an issue that I mentioned earlier in this review: the problem of right clicking when your left click finger (in my case, the index finger) is resting on the left side of the mouse.
When using the mouse for anything but gaming, I'm not usually alternating left and right clicks all that much, especially given how much of a keyboard-shortcut nut I am. But even when I am clicking a lot, the pace of my clicking isn't so great that I have problems remembering to lift my index finger before I go to right click. It's a pain, sure, but it's something that I can deal with. In games though, it's a very different story.
I fired up a game of Command & Conquerer: Generals, a real-time strategy game where left clicking will select your characters and right clicking deselects them. The reason why I picked this game in particular is because it involves a lot of alternating between left and right clicking, which was where the single-button design of the Mighty Mouse truly failed. Quickly switching between left and right clicks using the mouse had my hand doing a finger dance that it wasn't used to doing at such a fast pace; it went something like: index finger up, right click, index finger down, left click, combined with a lot of dragging and selecting. Although the Mac is far from a gaming platform, those of you who do happen to game on your Mac (or want to use the Mighty Mouse on your PC) should know of the mouse's shortcomings.
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kelmon - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link
Great article. I'm pretty interested in one of these mice as my current MS IntelliMouse is getting a little long-in-the-tooth and could best be used with my old PC these days. Since I'm going to be in London in a couple of weeks I'll stop in at the Apple Store there and see if I can play with one for a bit. Gaming isn't something that I do very much these days so that aspect shouldn't be a problem, so if it feels comfortable and the scrollball works well for me then I'll probably buy one (assuming that I can persuade the wife...).Anyway, a great summary of the features and it definitely highlights the need to "try before you buy".
jkostans - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link
What I got from this article: The mouse sucks, but we don't want to offend the mac people so we'll be very very nice about saying it. I have no idea why anyone would buy this after seeing this or any other review on the web.jazzcrazed - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link
Well, it's important to know that the prospective users of this mouse are not reserved to users of multi-button mouses, but also users of the one-button Apple Pro Mouse - which are, believe it or not, the majority of Mac users. Us PC users who've all our lives used multi-button mouses most certainly do not know the perspective of someone who's exclusively used one-button mouses. Anand emphasized his subjectivity on this matter, and rightly conceded that in many cases he could not speak universally on certain features. He wasn't writing this review just for PC users, but Apple Pro Mouse+Mac users.For what it's worth, I think it's definitely a more scrutinizing review than <a href="http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/mightymous...">http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/mightymous... Cheng's at Ars Technica</a>.
Griswold - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link
Why is Apple going to extreme lengths to be different and sacrifices usability for that? Are they afraid of being compared to (superior) products and thus hide behind fancy gimmicks nobody really needs or wants?fishbits - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link
I was asking the same thing myself. The basic three-button mouse with scroll wheel works fabulously, and if you can't improve on that or even come close, don't bother. But that's the weird cultish power of Apple. Because it's different it must be better, and because it's Apple it must be better. Even when it isn't.Even Anand falls for it to some degree. Cracked up reading his lapse into battered wife syndrome:
"It's my own fault, I brought it on myself!" A PC user buys a crappy mouse and says "This thing is a piece of junk," throws it out and buys one that works right. An Apple user buys a crappy Mighty Mouse and says "There must be something wrong with ME!" Too funny.
Backslider - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link
My thougths exactly, WHY! Just make it two buttons and be normal. I wonder how much money they spent in engineering this stupid gimicky crap. If I was an investor I would be pulling all my stock out today.Davediego - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link
You mentioned you wished other mice had horizontal scrolling... well your mx1000 does. The scroll wheel titls to the side.Dennis Travis - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link
If you read farther down Anand states his MX1000 has horizontal scrolling.radonX3 - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link
I don't understand the logic of Apple. Everything they make are flashy toys with no real functionality behind it. This mighty mouse is another example of it.Hywel - Monday, August 8, 2005 - link
I think you're wrong here. "Everything they make are flashy toys with no real functionality behind it", is just plain wrong. It's a common accusation that Apple are all form over function, but it just ain't true. The majority of Apple product offer form and function.However, in this particular case, the stupidly named Mighty Mouse, Apple have produced a lemon. For all the reasons the review mentions. For the 'battered wife' syndrome mentioned in a comment below, and probably a whole lot more.
I've been thinking about getting a multi-button mouse for a while, but it's not been a priority. Unlike a lot of Mac people, I think properly designed context sensitive menus are fabulous - as long at they're contextual, and not just a bunch of unrelated crap. So I was ready to jump on this thing. Given two products that are essentially equal, I'd go for the Apple one, even if it was a few quid more. Simply because they usually make good stuff that's easy to use. I'm not buying this thing though. I've thought about it, and I think this review is being a bit soft on Apple. This mouse is over-engineered. It solves a problem of Apple's own invention: "Make a two button mouse with no apparent buttons", when the real job spec should have been "Make a bloody good comfortable multi-button mouse that's better than anything from Logitech or Microsoft".
The mighty mouse is crap.