
Apple's Buttonless Mouse Came From Steve Jobs' Misunderstanding - buza
http://www.minyanville.com/sectors/technology/articles/Apple-Buttonless-Mouse-Came-From-Steve/3/10/2014/id/54102
======
keypusher
> The Pro Mouse also ditched the dust-collecting ball underneath a standard
> mouse in favor of an LED for fully solid-state optical tracking. "As far as
> I'm aware, we were the first consumer company to do that," Farag said.

Sorry, but no. From wikipedia: "The first modern optical computer mice were
the Microsoft IntelliMouse with IntelliEye and IntelliMouse Explorer,
introduced in 1999 using technology developed by Hewlett-Packard." Also, the
Intellimouse Explorer is a legendary mouse which deserves its own article. I
still own two of them and use one daily (3.0 version).

~~~
drakaal
Yeah.

But even Wikipedia got it wrong. Sun had optical mice in the 1980's and you
could get a version for the PC from Hewlett Packard in 1997 that used an IR
sensor.

This paper talks about the history of mice, and mentions that optical mice
started in 1981. (though they required a special mouse pad)
[http://genevalunch.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/12/145378.pdf](http://genevalunch.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/12/145378.pdf)

~~~
Nursie
Yeah, we had these Sun ones in the lab at university back in '96(ish). They'd
probably been there a few years even then.

'Course they were reliant on the special mat, and the mat had to be oriented
correctly. I suppose you might say they weren't really a consumer offering
though, which the article mentions. The price of Sun systems kept them in
business ajd education facilities.

~~~
wfraser
I'm guessing that's what the Wikipedia article means by "modern": able to work
on most any surface, not just a special mat.

------
laureny
> While there are many users, gamers in particular, who shy away from Apple's
> buttonless offerings

Many? I have yet to come across a single person who likes any of the Mighty
Mouse models that Apple produced. They are all reviled and considered some of
the worst mice that were ever created by a hardware company.

Steve Jobs was no genius, he got a few things very right and quite a few
others very, very wrong.

~~~
archagon
I kind of like the Magic Mouse. It basically gives me a built-in trackball and
inertial scrolling, something I've wanted in a mouse for many years. It's too
bad the ergonomics really suck, and that not having a dedicated right mouse
button makes it completely unusable in some cases. (Games?)

~~~
kilburn
A bunch of recent Logitech mouses feature an unlockable "free spin" wheel.
Basically, you can "lock" the scroll wheel and then it functions as a notched,
precise operation for small adjustments. Alternatively, you can "unlock" it
and then it scrolls very smoothly and nearly forever. Ideal when you want to
move across a large document. It's hard to describe and they do it better at
[1].

I would really encourage you to try one mouse with that function. You could be
very pleasantly surprised :)

[1]
[http://xahlee.info/kbd/mouse_with_spinning_flywheel.html](http://xahlee.info/kbd/mouse_with_spinning_flywheel.html)

~~~
archagon
I really like the idea of those Logitech mice, but having briefly used one, I
find that the flywheel mechanism really compromises the middle click. The
Magic Mouse also has the advantage of being able to scroll in any direction,
which is far more useful than you might think. Finally, it's just nice to have
a device that has a minimum of mechanical parts; I feel a lot more confident
dropping my Magic Mouse on the floor, since there's not a lot in there that
can break.

------
pom
This reminds me of how when Apple created the UI for the Lisa (and then the
Mac), they thought that on the original Xerox Alto, windows could overlap, so
Quickdraw had to handle overlapping windows [0]: “Smalltalk didn't even have
self-repairing windows - you had to click in them to get them to repaint, and
programs couldn't draw into partially obscured windows. Bill Atkinson did not
know this, so he invented regions as the basis of QuickDraw and the Window
Manager so that he could quickly draw in covered windows and repaint portions
of windows brought to the front.”

I thought I read somewhere that Jobs specifically asked for this,
(mis)remembering having seen it at PARC, but I cannot find the quote at the
moment.

[0]
[http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...](http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=On_Xerox,_Apple_and_Progress.txt)

~~~
klodolph
There are a few stories that follow this pattern... my favorite is the one
about Starcraft development. While Blizzard was making nothing more than
"Warcraft in space", a competing studio showed a beautiful and fluid RTS at
trade shows that got everyone's attention. The Starcraft team had a hard time
getting their product to the same level, and had to scrap a lot of code. It
turned out that the other studio was just showing prerecorded videos at trade
shows, while employees mimed the appropriate button presses to make it look
interactive.

~~~
chris_wot
It was Dominion: Storm over Gift 3, from Ion Storm.

[http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/starcraft-orcs-in-space-
go-d...](http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/starcraft-orcs-in-space-go-down-in-
flames)

------
lukeqsee
I expected to read an article about how awful the Magic Mouse is, since I
don't like the current Apple offerings of mice—at all. I find them poorly
fitting and quirky (holding a mouse with just the tips of my fingers doesn't
work for me). OTOH, I love their trackpads and find any other laptop trackpad
almost impossibly insensitive and powerless.

I, however, really enjoyed their previous mouse offerings. So I was glad to
see innovation happens the old fashioned way. An "Oops." An "Oh wait…" Then a
"This is genius!"

Edit: grammar.

~~~
meowface
I fully agree, and I think that's the common opinion as well. Their laptop
touchpads are above all others, but I can't stand using a Magic Mouse for more
than even a second.

I've been using Logitech mice (G5 and later G500) for many years, and they're
far more ergonomic.

------
prawn
The article/interviewee suggests it was the first mainstream optical mouse,
launched in 2000. Didn't the Intellimouse have it around 1999, plus a
scrollwheel? I remember using a range of Microsoft mice going back many years
and they were pretty well known.

Actually, the Wheel Mouse Optical I still use today is from late-2000, I
think. For a while in the middle, I used one of the darker grey Explorers
before returning to the lighter and older version.

Anyone else remember round/puck mice from before that Apple one, mid-1990s?
First encountered that shape of mouse in a Unix lab.

~~~
ScottBurson
Mouse Systems, Steve Kirsch's company, was shipping optical mice in 1982. They
were standard issue on Sun workstations for years. I leave it to your judgment
whether that qualifies as "mainstream".

~~~
wtallis
_Mainstream_ is debatable, yes, but the quote used the word _consumer_ , which
Sun definitely wasn't.

~~~
kalleboo
The Mouse Systems optical mice were available for other, consumer, platforms
as well. We had a Mouse Systems optical mouse (with the metal grid mousepad)
for our Mac Classic in the early 90's.

------
w1ntermute
Apple mice are comically frustrating to use. I'd rather carry around a mouse
of my own than use one of those pieces of crap.

Edit: even more funny is the "Magic" Trackpad. Watching people mouse around on
big desktop monitors at the speed of molasses with one of those always cracks
me up. The only "magic" in it is that it makes any mouse-intensive work take
twice as long to complete.

~~~
alayne
I love my trackpad. You don't know what you're talking about. This is just
another opportunity for you to shit post Apple.

~~~
Gracana
I have one and love it as well. A giant modern trackpad in all its gesture-
interface glory is a pretty awesome experience. I still like to use a mouse
for precise tasks, but for web browsing, documentation reading, and general
use.. it really can't be beaten.

~~~
epsylon
What does it do that a mouse can't?

~~~
wtallis
Multitouch gestures are like keyboard shortcuts that you can activate without
having to take your hand off the mouse. An expanded set of gestures such as
provided by jitouch is extremely powerful.

~~~
CatMtKing
There is software[1] available for mouse gestures, although it appears that
it's third party and hasn't been updated in some time. Firefox has some very
nice add-ons that do mouse gestures as well. For X11, there's Easystroke.

[1] [http://briankendall.net/xGestures/](http://briankendall.net/xGestures/)

~~~
epsylon
The "all-in-one gestures" Firefox add-on is the #1 reason why I use it as my
main browser. Chrome doesn't have any decent gesture add-on (they even
_removed_ things like scrolling through tabs with the mouse wheel...).

I've looked at the gestures documented by Apple on their site and I didn't see
anything that couldn't possibly be done better with a mouse and a mouse wheel
(and decent software).

------
gcb0
Typical Apple anecdote.

Form over function? Check.

Enraged know it all CEO? Check.

Claiming it invented a mouse when it didn't? Check.

------
PhasmaFelis
There are plenty of "crazy Steve Jobs" stories that make him look like a
brilliant visionary. This is not one of those.

~~~
72deluxe
Haha true. It portrays him as arrogant.

If I worked with someone like that, I would find it grating. I did once apply
to work at a helium balloon factory, and they offered me the job, but I wasn't
going to be spoken to like that!

------
pyang
This looks like a rewrite of the 9to5Mac article for page views.

~~~
graeme
This one?

[http://www.cultofmac.com/269222/steve-jobs-hated-idea-
multi-...](http://www.cultofmac.com/269222/steve-jobs-hated-idea-multi-button-
mouse-designer-claims/)

------
judk
Classic Steve. Form first, function if you have time later.

~~~
VeejayRampay
Classic Steve, calling people morons for no good reason.

------
rkaushik
>"What changed his mind was that he felt that users were finally ready to
embrace an interface that had contextual menus and multiple buttons that did
different things," Farag explained.

That was always the thing with Jobs. You would never see a feature until _he_
felt that you were ready for it.

------
fractallyte
There are many technical people who hate the one-button mouse, but the design
is perfect for users who are not comfortable with computers.

Furthermore, after years of reading contemptuous comments about this design,
and now this article (and associated discussion), it must really have taken a
genius to perceive something beyond the conceptual resistance (unconscious,
even) of those surrounding him. It's the same process that leads to new
paradigms.

Imagine that: making computers _easy_. Pffft.

------
MattBearman
Interesting read, but did anyone else find it annoying that the article didn't
include any pictures of the 'zero button' mouse?

My first Apple was an MBP, so I don't know what the first Apple Pro Mouse
looked like, turns out it was this -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Pro_Mouse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Pro_Mouse)

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salmonellaeater
The article's title makes a daring statement. The possessive of a name ending
in s usually uses 's:

James's Forbes's

Omitting the s after an apostrophe is usually reserved for historical or
Biblical names (because historically they were pronounced the same as the bare
word, as opposed to current pronunciation with the extra -ez sound):

Socrates' Moses' Jesus' Jobs' (?)

~~~
maaarghk
In the UK at least I believe we would stick with the second style every time.

edit: lowkeykiwi, you are hellbanned.

~~~
salmonellaeater
I was assuming American English, since the site is based in New York. Even so,
it turns out there is a lot of nuance to this grammatical question. The
Chicago Manual of Style (which is for book editing) prescribes 's, while the
AP Stylebook and Libel Manual (for press, naturally) prescribes ' only.

So since it's an American news site and follows AP guidelines, the title is
perfectly normal. Carry on.

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qq66
When you've nailed so many things so right in your career, you tend to believe
in your opinion even when you've got something totally wrong.

