Apple's Mighty Mouse: The Move to Multi-Button
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 4, 2005 8:10 PM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Final Words
Apple created a truly interesting product with the Mighty Mouse; essentially, they've created a one button mouse that is a bit more flexible than their prior one-button offerings, but definitely not a mouse that is catered to the needs of those who depend on multi-button mice.The scroll ball is nice, although I'd like to see some control over the number of lines per scroll click. The side buttons are horrible and it would be nice to make them a little easier/more convenient to use, but then again, that may conflict with Apple's desire to make the Mighty Mouse still look and work like a single-button mouse.
Gamers need not apply for this mouse, as the Mighty Mouse's touch sensors end up being more of a liability than a convenience in games. You're probably better off control-clicking with a one-button mouse than using the Mighty Mouse for gaming on the Mac. Some desktop users may feel the same way about simply using the mouse for regular applications, although personally getting used to doing the left/right finger dance wasn't as big of a deal for me in normal application usage. The drawbacks of the single button/multiple sensor construction of the Mighty Mouse are unfortunate, as I do believe that Apple could put together a very well designed mouse for the multi-button user.
For the single button mouse user, the Mighty Mouse brings scrolling functionality to Apple's mice, which is much needed. And for all intents and purposes, the default configuration of the Mighty Mouse acts and behaves just like a single button mouse with a scroll wheel. In the sense of Apple's ability to bring scrolling functionality to their single-button mouse users, the Mighty Mouse works. But if you are a user who needs to have and frequently uses that second mouse button, the Mighty Mouse isn't exactly perfect.
It's an interesting approach by Apple, but personally, it caters to a user who is very different than myself, and potentially, many of you. What I would like to see is what the designers at Apple could pull off if they were tasked to come up with a true competitor to the best of the best from Logitech and Microsoft. It'd be for a different type of user than the Mighty Mouse, but I think that it'd be the only time during which I'd really prefer using an Apple mouse.
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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.