I've worked on mice before and frankly I have no clue what sort of technical requirement would lead to an upside down charging requirement and disabling the functionality in the meantime. Can you explain what that reason might be?
Also if most people can't just pick up the mouse and use it, it's a broken design. In my particular case, it's so much smaller than my palm that I'm sure any grip would result in RSI.
Simple, the front is not thick enough to accommodate a common port like USB or Lightning. If you put it on the sides, it defies the purpose.
Changing the design to accommodate a port in the front doesn't make sense because the primary function of the device is to act as a human-computer interface and optimising the design for that purpose is paramount, charging is not a primary function but something that we have to do with electronics and as a result having long battery life and short charging process is good enough solution(the battery lasts about a month, charging takes about 2 hours but will work for hours even with a few minutes or charging). Why would you compromise a design for something that needs to be done occasionally and can be done out of the service(i.e. at nigh, when not using it).
So put the port on the side where you aren't supposed to grip it. If we assume that being totally nonfunctional for a couple hours a month is acceptable, merely being a bit inconvenient for the same period is surely an improvement.
Also, we don't agree that the magic mouse is good human-computer interface because I'm starting from the position that causing physical pain automatically precludes it from that category. Another example of an interface in the same position is laser keyboards. They're also very cool designs, but the the fact that tapping on solid surfaces starts to hurt after awhile precludes them from being 'good' HCI.
You can't put it at the side, the cable will interfere with the keyborad or the laptop that is on the left and won't work at all for the left handed people.
I mean, if you really think that charging a few minutes a day or leave it charging overnight once a month is a deal breaker, simply don't buy it but this is not a bad design. It is very unrealistic to expect that the mouse will be used 24/7 every day forever. If you have this use case of using mouse 24/7 everyday, this must be some kind of industrial operation and obviously this mouse is not for you but for everyone else it's a non-issue.
Won't work at all for left-handed people, as opposed to now where it works for no one during the same period? Seems like an improvement, despite my doubts that it truly wouldn't work for left-handers.
Anyway, hopefully we can avoid wild mischaracterizations here. My expectation obviously isn't that things work 24/7 indefinitely. Think about how the typical user is going to discover that the battery is low. Either they'll get the notification just before it dies and have to charge it "soon" [1] or the mouse will simply die and force the matter. In some cases (think multi-user computer labs), the person who receives the notification and the person who has to charge the mouse might be two different people. I think it's reasonable to find waiting around on a mouse rather than whatever they were planning on doing irritating.
A few observations here. The first: this product is an optional thing. There are many mice manufactured, they all work with Macs. I, personally, have a Kensington. The last Apple mouse I had possessed a tail, and was only okay, not, for instance, good.
The next one: the charge lasts a month to six weeks with normal use.
Next one after that: it's your unlucky day and you didn't idly think "oh, hey, I'll plug this in over lunch" on week three like a normal person. What you do is plug it in, and take a ten minute break. Everyone has ten minutes worth of things they can do. This gets you to a real break, and now you're good for another six months. Yes, I said months, just plug the damn thing in sometimes. Set yourself a reminder. Don't be a vegetable.
The amount of time you've dedicated to being irritated online about a product you don't use, is longer than the irritation a typical user of that product will experience the entire time they own it.
This would be a very different forum if the only things we discussed were the bare necessities of life.
Anyways I'm not irritated. This conversation was started because I asked what the good reasons behind obvious design issues are. So far the conversation has been about how you can work around them. That's great, but not the point.
Sure, better notifications can help. Maybe once idle, can send a notification to the phone to make the user put it on charge overnight.
I had the occasion where the battery died by surprise. That’s why I keep repeating that the device works for hours after few minutes o charging, you don’t have to fully charge it before use.
>Simple, the front is not thick enough to accommodate a common port like USB or Lightning
Well, that's the broken design part.
>Changing the design to accommodate a port in the front doesn't make sense because the primary function of the device is to act as a human-computer interface and optimising the design for that purpose is paramount
There's nothing about HCI that prevents a different design.
In fact, the Magic Mouse is one of the least ergonomically optimized mice out there...
It doesn't matter how large the battery is - at some point, someone forgets to charge. With any other mouse, you plug it into the charger and continue to use it while it's charging.
