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Input Devices Businesses Apple

Apple Releases Multi-Button "Mighty Mouse" 1502

Posted by CmdrTaco from the now-that-is-freakin'-awesome dept.
TheRaven64 writes "Hot on the heels of the announcement of x86 Macs, Apple announced a multi-button mouse, known as the Mighty Mouse. It appears that the entire surface is touch-sensitive, allowing the mouse to be programmed as a single-button, multi-button or scrolling device."
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Apple Releases Multi-Button "Mighty Mouse" More

Apple Releases Multi-Button "Mighty Mouse"

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  • Finally (Score:5, Funny)

    by RandWalker ( 903696 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2005 @10:03AM (#13221124)
    A zero button mouse from Apple! Truly less is more!

  • Hell... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jwthompson2 ( 749521 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2005 @10:03AM (#13221125) Homepage
    has frozen over and the devil has taken up hockey and ice fishing...

  • Welcome to 1986 (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ChrisF79 ( 829953 )
    It's great that Apple finally came to their senses and created this mouse, but what I thought was really interesting is the fact that they allow you to still program it to use as a one button mouse. They're really holding onto their beliefs that people can only handle one button at a time with this thing. But, if they believe that people want the simplicity of a one button mouse, wouldn't they ship this thing out of the box with only one button functioning? Those people that want the simplicity of a one
    • I don't think Apple ever believed people "can only handle one button at a time", just that most of the time a second button was a product of poor interface design and not a product of necessity. and they're right.

    • Re:Welcome to 1986 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Daniel_Staal ( 609844 ) <DStaal@usa.net> on Tuesday August 02, 2005 @10:21AM (#13221362)
      Apple is perfectly aware that intelegent users can handle more than one button at a time. They just don't believe that the average developer can handle more than one button at a time. At least, not and keep a good interface.

      So, they force the delevopers to think 'Oh, shit: this is a Mac, the user only has one button!', and then they actually think about what goes on the second.

    • Re:Welcome to 1986 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Golias ( 176380 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2005 @10:26AM (#13221410)
      But, if they believe that people want the simplicity of a one button mouse, wouldn't they ship this thing out of the box with only one button functioning? Those people that want the simplicity of a one button mouse surely won't be the ones changing the settings to disable the other buttons. After all, that sounds awfully hard to do!

      If I'm a dad with young children, I might want to set up the mouse preferences differently depending on the user. Full-functions for me and the older kids, one-button for the toddlers and grandparents. It's actually a pretty fucking cool idea.

  • Gettting cold in here (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FunWithHeadlines ( 644929 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2005 @10:04AM (#13221139) Homepage
    Man, Hell isn't as hot as I was led to believe. Is it getting cold in here or is it just me?

    Hey, wait a minute, what will the Apple trolls do? Won't somebody think of the trooooollls?

    OK, seriously, I hope this finally ends all the lame "Yeah, but it only got a one-button mouse" idiocy whenever Apple hardware is discussed around here. You always could use a multi-button mouse with OS X. Now you can do it with a shiny new Apple mouse. Let's put these snipes to rest, k?

    • OK, seriously, I hope this finally ends all the lame "Yeah, but it only got a one-button mouse" idiocy whenever Apple hardware is discussed around here. You always could use a multi-button mouse with OS X. Now you can do it with a shiny new Apple mouse. Let's put these snipes to rest, k?

      I just hope that the powerbooks are going to have multiple mouse buttons.
    • It will only end the trolls if they ship this mouse with every machine... which I don't think they will be. A one-button mouse will still be standard, and you can still buy two-button ones. Nothing has changed.

  • Maybe I'm just oldschool... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pVoid ( 607584 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2005 @10:05AM (#13221147)
    But I hate touch sensitive input devices which provide absolutely no feedback. Apple should know this from their own iPods. Gen 3 was fully touch sensitive, gen 4 has embedded buttons that go "click" to give you feedback that you've actually pressed the thing.

    As gentle as it might be, the hand always recognizes the threshold of 'clicking' a button, but I find that it's practically impossible to tell if you've clicked a touch sensitive surface or not.

    All of that, IMHO. I wouldn't go gaga over this mouse.

    • From the Apple website...
      You'll Really Click
      Touch-sensitive technology under Mighty Mouse's seamless top shell detect where you're clicking, transforming your sleek, one-button mouse into a two-button wonder. But the innovation doesn't end there. Apple engineers added force-sensing buttons on either side of Mighty Mouse that let you squeeze the mouse between your thumb and finger, activating Mac OS X Tiger Dashboard, Exposé or a whole host of other, customizable features -- instantly.

      It sounds to me li
      • R! T! F! A!

        Thanks to a smooth top shell with touch-sensitive technology beneath, Mighty Mouse allows you to right click without a right button. Capacitive sensors under Mighty Mouse's seamless top shell detect where your fingers are and predict your clicking intentions, so you don't need two buttons -- just two fingers.

    • There's a little feedback (Score:5, Informative)

      by pjcreath ( 513472 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2005 @10:10AM (#13221225)
      It sounds like the clicky noises on the iPod don't do it for you, but they at least did the same thing here. In small print on the side of the design page [apple.com], it says that "a tiny speaker inside Mighty Mouse produces button-clicking and Scroll Ball-rolling sound effects."

      Not quite as good as tactile feedback, but definitely better than none.

      • I missed that on my first read through....

        I wonder if you'll be able to 'upload' your own sounds to it...

        Could be interesting. :-)
      • You click the mouse same as the old one, by pushing down on the whole mouse until it clicks - tactile. The mouse senses what side of the top your finger is on, giving you a left and right click. You can also click the scroll ball on top of the mouse for a third button - tactile. And you can squeeze the sides for a fourth button - tactile. All these are programmable, and the ball scrolls 360 degrees.
  • no not really, considering my fingers rest on my mouse (ever so lightly). Now a touch mouse? Bad enough that touchpad on my dell laptop always gets hit by the underside of my thumb.
    Just make a freaking normal mouse people.
    • It clicks mechanically.

      The touch sensors are used to distinguish which finger you clicked with.

      It makes a clicky sound, has a clicky feel, and won't activate by touch alone. Happy?
  • Mighty Mouse? That name sounds too cheesy to be an Apple product, don't you think? No pun intended, of course.
  • I think TerryToons [toonopedia.com] should sue Apple's ass off
  • I think releasing a multi-button Apple styled mouse is going to be good press for them.

    Much better press than they recieved yesterday implementing Intels DRM scheme.

    Kinda coincidental release - dontcha think?

  • Scratch that off the list of things Steve Jobs would never do! First they announce they are going to use Intel CPUs [apple.com], now this. What's next a Video iPod [macrumors.com]?

  • First Mac fanatics believed that Apple would never use Intel processors.

    Then they said Apple would keep the one button mouse for ever.

    It seems like every month now that Apple is turning the world upside down. This certainly seems like something strange and new to me. Does anyone know if anything like this has been done before?

    At the rate they're going it makes me wonder what radical type of product or strange new feature they'll come out with next.

    • Then they said Apple would keep the one button mouse for ever.

      Well, the standard mouse on all Macs is still the one-button model, and there isn't a CTO option for this new mouse on the online store yet.

      This mouse is a $50 separate purchase. If you want a Mac, you'll still get a one-button mouse in the box, at least for now.
  • OK, this is pretty interesting - and about time that Apple came out with a multibutton solution. Provided that it's durable enough to last a few years, this seems like a pretty good product. I wonder how it will feel when clicking on a button that doesn't actually click. I think the tactile feedback is something we've all grown accustomed to.

    I'm not thrilled that you need Tiger to get full functionality out of it, but I'm not surprised, either.

    I guess my only question is - when is a bluetooth versio

  • At $49.. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Ga_101 ( 755815 )
    I'd rather have a Danger Mouse [amazon.com] or two...

  • Hacks (Score:2)

    by Now15 ( 9715 )
    I wonder how long till someone does a hack to turn the scroll ball into a fully fledged trackball?

    Then you could reserve moving the mouse for... umm... scrolling?
  • ...because it's not the standard bundled mouse with their desktop systems. I just checked, and it's not even a BTO option to replace the one-button mouse.

    I'd bet, however, that once this has been around for a little while, they'll get manufacturing costs down and it will become the standard bundled mouse.

    And when they do that, the smart move IMHO would be for new systems to be configured out of the box to still see the mouse as one-button (for the n00bs), and let those who want more functionality enable the
  • My favorite mouse has a nub (pressure sensative Joystick used on thinkpads. They don't make them any more. I liked it for the multi directional scrolling. Glad the idea didn't die completely..

  • Are we sure someone isn't releasing an April Fool's joke a few months late?

    First the switch to Intel and now this. What's next, the return of the Newton?
  • Next up Windows Aqua. A new multimedia flavor of Windows geared to the multimedia afficionado who used to struggle with Apple. Coming from WilliamSoft in 2007.
  • Anyone else burst out laughing when they saw this?

    I mean, I'll reserve judgement until I have actually tried one... but methinks Apple is just mocking us.

    You will never get a multibutton mouse!! Never!! You will get a... squeezable... rocking... scroll-locking.... oblong pointer... that folds into.... origami.... white...

  • it's a single-button mouse with multi-button functionality, so hell hasn't quite frozen over but the weather reports certainly are confusing.
  • So after twenty years of denying the bleedin' obvious, Apple has responded to crticism that one mouse button is not enough by producing a mouse with no buttons at all?! Way to isolate the rest of the world, Apple!
  • Having only a single shell clicking is a bad idea - I mean having a much more clear-cut outline would be more convenient rather than relying on some underlying touch-sensitive detector to figure out where we clicked from.

    The mouse may be sleek, it may have the mark of Apple written all over it, but come on to match the functionality of my regular (meaning non-Apple) optical mouse it has to have some clear cut dividers with separate RESPONSE!
    • Having only a single shell clicking is a bad idea - I mean having a much more clear-cut outline would be more convenient rather than relying on some underlying touch-sensitive detector to figure out where we clicked from.

      Actually - my Logitech MX1000 mouse has no discernible area for the right and left mouse buttons, its just a continuous shell that flexes at key points. No one seems to notice this since you don't spend a lot of time looking at your mouse. It's not really an issue.

  • So "hot on the heels" apparently means "two months later?" Where do you people get your cliches? The Intel announcement was June 6. Today is August 2. Jesus, people. Stop trying to talk like you're some kind of wannabe PR student and submit stories like a normal person. At least you didn't include the obligatory rhetorical Slashdot idiot question? Yeah, that question mark was intentional. While I'm at it, I might as well say that I'm a big Apple fanboy, and I have to let it be known that anybody who
  • For this crowd, the story should have linked to Apple's technical specs [apple.com] page.
  • Why chouldn't they mention this when they announced the move to Intel chips?
  • If so I might be interested in a touch sensitive mouse too!
    • Has a "Scroll Ball", that seems to basically be a tiny trackball built into the mouse. The scroll ball is clickable.
    • The mouse has some touch sensitive areas where you traditionaly find left/right mouse buttons. You still click the entire body, but it knows wether your finger was on the left or right when you clicked.
    • Two side buttons
    • Optical
    • Currently wired only
    • It has a speaker inside! The speaker produces "sound effects"
    • Mac and Windows compatible (seems you need Tiger for fully functionality on Mac)
  • It looks cool, but I need to try one in person before I'd buy one. The main "two" buttons are described as "touch-sensitive" in the Tech Specs page [apple.com], and I'm concerned that they might not actually have the positive "CLICK!" feel that real-button mice do, thereby messing with one of the most well-established tactile feedback loops in my life.

    On the other hand, I can see programming the force sensitive side buttons to let add a "sudo" to the mouse action you're trying to perform. Can't drag that file to the

  • Where's the wireless version? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Scorpion_1169 ( 609426 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2005 @10:15AM (#13221290) Homepage
    Or do we have to wait 10 years for that? Maybe a few weeks after they switch to AMD CPUs?
  • Couldn't find the referenece, but does anyone remember one of the Douglas Adam's book where it describes how radios had evolved from super primitive knobs and dials to touchpads, to finally you just need to wave in the general direction of the thing, so you needed to keep maddeningly still in your seat if you wanted to keep listening to the same station?

    That's where I'm worried Apple might be going, this mouse is somewhere in the middle of that evolution.

    (Seriously, I have to be careful when buying a PC mou
  • Now that would have been a good marketing name...
  • Dumbmentia already had one these designed years ago...

    -
    StupidaMouse
    Some companies make pointing devices with special features -- rollers to help us scroll down pages, extra buttons, you name it. One company in particular (ahem) makes something called an IntelliMouse. What we really need is a mouse with no buttons... so users will stop clicking on things and crashing their systems.
    -

    http://www.dumbentia.com/pdflib/stupida.pdf [dumbentia.com]

    Well sort of :)
  • Seems like an interesting moouse, but I'll wait for the bluetooth version. I'm suprised they didn't make one now that all Macs have bluetooth as standard.
  • This is the perfect tool for telepornation. Gotta love those dirty-minded Apple engineers.
  • Mac users couldn't handle two buttons and now they candle a mouse with a zillion nifty features?
  • There is no rocking action in this mouse!
    You click just as you do now in the regular single button mouse, only now, thanks to the touch sensitive areas, it knows if you clicked with a finger on the left or the right side of the mouse!
  • read all the way down to the -third- whole sentance which reads "And with touch-sensitive technology concealed under the seamless top shell, you get the programability of a four-button mouse in a single-button design. " Jeez.
  • ..but then everyone could have it, I guess.

    You see, that whole "360 degree movement" think is a trckball. If you have a mechanical moune, there's one on the bottom of it. AutoCAD uses a much better way of accessing this type of pan function: you click-hold the middle button (or scroll wheel) and move your mouse. Far more accurate than track balls. Want to zoom, too? That what the scroll wheel is for.

    I happen to have seven buttons on my Logitech MX900 mouse (okay, the right and left "buttons" are just pressu

  • PowerBook!? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pergamon ( 4359 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2005 @10:31AM (#13221466) Homepage
    Now all they have to do is make the button-bar underneath the touchpad on the PowerBooks be touch sensitive to allow for multibutton there too.

  • Anybody else think this'll be truly awful gaming? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SilentChris ( 452960 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2005 @10:33AM (#13221494) Homepage
    I think the design will be ok for basic desktop work (not so sure I'm keen on the ball), but as a gamer I question it. When I click, I want tactile feedback that it's been registered. Also, anyone who's played with anything touch-sensitive knows that it's never quite as reactive as as a regular mouse.

    I don't question that'll be fine for the average user, and I know the Macites will blast me with "get a gamer's mouse then" (I have one for my Mac), but anytime Apple leads the rest of the industry tends to follow. Hopefully Apple led well.

  • How Rich! (Score:3, Funny)

    by sysadmn ( 29788 ) <{sysadmn} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday August 02, 2005 @10:36AM (#13221535) Homepage
    So the company that stayed with a one button mouse [slashdot.org] because "users might get confused" releases a multi-button mouse with built in track button and squeezable sides? Worse yet, the side action is programmable? Pretty ironic.
    What's next, the Danger Mouse, where squeezes will randomly deliver electric shocks?

  • My writeup (Score:3, Informative)

    by ZackSchil ( 560462 ) on Tuesday August 02, 2005 @11:41AM (#13222239)
    My writeup for this article (submitted nearly 4 hours ago) was a bit more detailed so I might as well post it as a comment.

    As if we needed yet another sign of the impending apocalypse, Apple announced today that they will be selling a multi-button mouse. [apple.com] The aptly-named "Mighty Mouse" features [apple.com] two top buttons (actually, one that's a touch sensitive panel to determine which side of the mouse has been clicked), a secondary button that is activated by squeezing the sides of the mouse, and a clickable, bidirectional scroll ball. It also contains a small speaker to give user feedback when clicking or scrolling. The mouse is programmable from the Mac OS X Mouse Control Panel [apple.com] and will retail for $49. It has not yet been bundled with any Macs and is not available as a build-to-order option. It is, however, PC compatible.

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