Apple's New Mouse Is Not as Mighty As Rival's Magnifier By WALTER S. MOSSBERG August 4, 2005
Apple Computer is the design champion of the computer world. But the company has had one blind spot: the mouse. From January 1983, when it introduced the industry's first mouse, through last month, Apple insisted on producing mice with just one button and no scroll wheel. Meanwhile, the rest of the computing word had long discovered that a scroll wheel and a second button -- the right-click button -- have lots of utility and are very easy to master. Apple's archrival Microsoft has been making two-button models since its first mouse hit the marketplace a few months after Apple's in 1983, and models with a scroll wheel since 1996. The scroll wheels make it easy to wade through long screen displays, and the right button produces a drop-down menu with actions appropriate to whatever is on the screen. [Mighty Mouse] On Tuesday, Apple finally gave in -- sort of. The company released an optional, add-on mouse called Mighty Mouse that allows right-clicking and scrolling. But in a stubborn homage to the old dogma, Apple designed the Mighty Mouse so it looks like, and can work like, a one-button mouse. Those clashing design goals make the Mighty Mouse harder to use than competing mice. ... http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20050804.html Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _______________________________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
