
The History of Apple Mice in Pure CSS - ianstormtaylor
http://codepen.io/joshbader/details/fKjra?preview_height=600
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doomlaser
Looking at them like this reminds me how terrible they are -- ergonomics isn't
Apple's strong suit. Give me a cheap Logitech mouse any day of the week.

Bizarrely, Apple's dedication to the "simple" idea of not having a second
mouse button results in far more uncomfortable and unintuitive interfaces,
featuring an ever increasing melange crazy gestural shortcuts.

~~~
gurkendoktor
I absolutely agree that their mice suck, but I think the Magic Trackpad is
hard to beat. The keyboards aren't too bad either. The glossy screens are
another ergonomics nightmare though.

With Apple's short keyboard form factor, I can have the alphabet, the "mouse"
(trackpad) _and_ the arrow keys all in comfortable reach. Feels much better
than my old setup with a vertical mouse & Microsoft ergonomic keyboard.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
I wish Apple would release a full-size wireless keyboard. I can't stand the
smaller one with that annoying fn key and tiny cursor keys. Also, I wonder if
Apple will ever cotton on to the fact that quite a lot of us use the '#'
symbol from time to time.

Other than that, I love their keyboards.

~~~
escherba
Typing with this keyboard right now:
[http://matias.ca/laptoppro/mac/](http://matias.ca/laptoppro/mac/) Much better
keyboard than Apple's own wireless thingy.

~~~
scholia
Looks good but it weighs around 2 pounds! There are lighter laptops ;-)

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troygoode
Wow, I forgot how much I disliked the original iMac hockey puck. That said, my
least favorite of these (taking into account their contemporaries) is the
Mighty Mouse - that little ball was awful.

Oh, and this visualization is of course very slick. I was not expecting to be
as wowed by the animated transitions as I was...

~~~
Xixi
Everybody hated the iMac hockey puck as you call it, but I actually quite
liked it, the reason being that it was quite heavy!

I've been using a mighty mouse at work recently (after a stupid incident
involving coffee...), and let me just say this: that little ball in the middle
is an unmitigated disaster.

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dzhiurgis
I kinda like the 360 scrolling.

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mistercow
I agree. I'm so used to it from two finger scrolling on a trackpad that I get
frustrated if I use a mouse with a simple scroll wheel.

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stbtrax
Is there a better way to navigate this page rather than clicking tiny tiny
circles? I got a little frustrated after clicking 3 of them.

~~~
bbx
You're right. The problem with these little circles is that, in order to
navigate, you need to horizontally move a precise amount of pixels without
moving to far away vertically. It's also an issue considering this type of
navigation is meant to be used rapidly, going from one circle to another. You
usually end up clicking _all_ the circles and not just one.

That's why, when I can, I tend to trigger the navigation on _hover_ and not on
_click_. Google does that as well. It's much less frustrating because it
doesn't require to exactly stop on a circle but rather just go through it, and
it helps quickly trigger all the circles in a fluid sequenced motion.

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Samuel_Michon
Or you could use links with meaningful labels instead of mystery meat tiny
tiny circles. If you make the text large enough, you’ll have solved several
problems at once. Also, make sure users can navigate using their arrow keys.

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badman_ting
Their mice aren't very good. And the current one in particular, the one you
can do gestures on, is no exception. However, I really like the trackpad and
the current keyboard. It's exactly what I want in a keyboard.

The problem with the mouse is that it's hard to do gestures on something that
isn't stationary. I've always had a thing for a particular model of Microsoft
Intellimouse but it's about ten years old now and getting hard to find, and
mine was starting to go on the fritz. But I've been using the trackpad for
about six weeks now and I really like it.

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INTPenis
Attention, this Pure CSS website requires Javascript.

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dingdingdang
Exactly this, why the "pure" label when obviously not? The main reason for me
to click through to this thing was exactly that; I love seeing people push an
individual tech like CSS on its own: there's nothing tech-wise news worthy in
oldschool js/css solution like this.

~~~
itafroma
I don't think that level of cynicism is warranted: the individual mice are, in
fact, styled via pure CSS. The small amount of JavaScript that's used is a
convenience method to toggle which mouse is visible[1], and the work that was
done here does not change in any substantive manner without it. If all the
mice were displayed simultaneously side-by-side it'd be equally impressive.

[1]:
[http://codepen.io/joshbader/pen/fKjra](http://codepen.io/joshbader/pen/fKjra)

~~~
J_Darnley
> If all the mice were displayed simultaneously side-by-side it'd be equally
> impressive.

Then that should be what happens when javascript is disabled.

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nilliams
Why?

I'd wager most of us are happy with the concept that it's being presented on
CodePen with a bit of helper JS so that the target audience (developers who
are unlikely to disable JS, or are happy to enable it for a site like CodePen)
can better appreciate the demo.

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Kiro
Very cool but am I the only CSS hacker who is fat, has a big Unix beard and
drinks Jolt Cola? Josh Bader looks like a rockstar.

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mikeg8
This was the most amazing thing I've seen on the web. Not even kidding, my
mind is blown right now.

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Aardwolf
Why not the history of proper mice (= with 3 or more buttons). They went a
long way. It could be the history all the way from that first wooden mouse,
through the first scrollwheel, through the optical mice, to a modern gaming
mouse.

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kaoD
I see  in many mice. Is it supposed to be Apple's logo? It looks like
box(F8FF) to me.

~~~
threedaymonk
I see what looks like a Hebrew letter nun. It's a private use character, so
there's no real guarantee about what it will look like. I'll refrain from
making a sarcastic comment about the Apple-centric world-view of Apple users!

[http://www.nikcub.com/posts/unicode-uf8ff-aka-the-apple-
logo...](http://www.nikcub.com/posts/unicode-uf8ff-aka-the-apple-logo-
character-on-macs)

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cleverjake
It'd be neat to make a click state on the first few that had a button

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oscargrouch
Did you mean: "Xerox PARC mouse" ?

