Apples discovers two button mouse

More innovation from the land of Apple

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=951
from WinCustomize Forums

To better assist Windows users wanting to convert to the Macintosh, Apple is apparently working on a two-button mouse.

Meanwhile, Las Vegas odds makers are currently taking bets on how long it will take for Macintosh advocates to claim that Apple invented the two-button mouse and Microsoft and "PeeCee" users merely copied it from them. ;) !FROGCARE!

20,858 views 37 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
"Insiders warned that anticipation may continue to build for months as the company perfects the product"

hehe How can your "perfect" a 2 button mouse?!

It's a friggin 1 button mouse with anohter button on it...there you go Apple, I just saved your engineers 'months' of work
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
They should offer free training courses for Mac users on "How to use the second mouse button". And for Windows users wanting to convert to Mac, they should offer "How to get along with only two buttons".
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I'm good with my 3 buttons and scroll wheel. Seriously, why the heck has it taken Apple this long to figure this out?!
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Eight buttons? I only have four on my trackball. (What do you do with eight buttons, use both hands?)
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
is this serious ???
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I guess they noticed mac users were mutating and adapting to the one button.....and the other fingers were beginning to atrophy.....not a good trait for auto-eroticists....
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
you just made my day. halarious, brad.. thank you
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
LOL.

I'm good with my 5-button and scroll button mouse, thank you very much.

Mac mouse with two buttons.. revolutionary! PC mouse with 2 buttons... A classic!
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hmm seriously, can you even buy a PC mouse with just 2 buttons? Basically all mouses, even cheap mouses with balls has in least a scrollbutton.
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
drives me crazy that i don't have a scroll wheel on macs. my logitech and microsoft mice work fine when i plug them into a mac and use the wheel - but without it i'm lost. i go to scroll and its not there.

i'm with the rest of you guys .. my home mouse even has that 'joystick' style scroll wheel. for a company all about the latest in interfacing, i'm suprised with these crappy one button optical apple mice
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Why does Apple go for a two button mouse when I have four fingers (and a thumb). Or maybe in Apple's case two fingers is enough
Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top

even cheap mouses with balls 

You gotta love a mouse with balls...

Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top

they have been working on it for a while, perfecting it.

Guess it IS quite a challenge....to count to two.

Took 'em decades to perfect one button....heaven knows how long it'll take them to work out how anthropomorphics and ergonomics will control a second button placement....

Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I think that apple will use something like the ipod technology to replace the mousewell. That would be nice
Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top
maybe mac has decided its given its users the "finger" long enough and decided to use two of them
Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Now if we could only get M$ to swallow its pride also and give up on the stupid "right-click, drag thru forty submenus" bit and give us real keyboard shortcuts, the world would be a truly happy place.
Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top
It's nice of Apple to finally help out us poor Windows Users who are stuck with an OS that constantly requires a multitude of mouse buttons to work it.
Have you ever tried to work Windows without a mouse, or with one mouse button. It isn't possible.
A mouse should be point and click and everything should be accessed via simple menus, or key presses. mm. that sounds familiar.
Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Basically all mouses, even cheap mouses with balls has in least a scrollbutton.



That is funny in more ways than one... balls... track balls.

yeah, even the cheep-o mouses have a mouse wheel and 2 buttons...
Reply #22 from WinCustomize Forums Top
It's odd it has taken to now for them to announce it.

OSX works fine with my MS Explorer and that includes the left/right scroll and all 5 buttons.
Reply #23 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Although I tend to try not to use a mouse at all, unless I have to; since OSX is based on BSD, I was wondering how long it would take Apple to come out with the hardware to support their OS. I mean, have you ever tried to use a GUI on top of a Unix/Linux or BSD based OS, and NOT use the third mouse button? It's a pain!

Still it's all about marketing, and as has been shown: that is not Apples' forte. I mean MS can market ice-cubes to Inuits, and Apple could develop an air-conditioner that was only powered by ambient air and still not be able to market it people living in a desert. Some of the best technologies have come out of Cupertino over the past 20 years, but they don't end up going anywhere.
Reply #24 from WinCustomize Forums Top
If you've used OSX you've probably figured out you don't need more than one mouse button, and other mice don't really function with more than 2, all those extra buttons are just basically hotkeys that do what your keyboard does and most people usually end up using them for ctrl, alt, tab, shift, etc etc...

So on windows you don't need more than 2, mac you don't need more than one, and all the other buttons are just for whatever else you use to generally keep your other hand off the keyboard as much.

But no scroll wheel? Talk about a productivity killer, having to stop what your doing to go to the scroll bar to reposition or see more makes everything go slower, and using it annoying. Windows users are so accustomed to using the mouse wheel the scroll bar generally works just as a visual referrence as to what your current position is out of how much content.

But thats just the way these things ship. How many of you use the crappy mouse came with your dell, hp, compaq, gateway, sony or whatever. Many people replace them immediatly with a mouse that works better and has more features. The same is true with mac and pc, the standard mouse often gets replaced by one that suits the individual better, which means all these logitec 8 button rechargeable nimh laser shooting can opening mice we all love, are used on both mac and pc and work no differently.

Mac isn't becoming able to use more than one mouse button, or able to use a scroll wheel. You've been able to use them pretty much just as long as you have on a pc. PC's just generally ship with a mouse that has them on there as a standard. And the "standard" mouse that comes with a mac is simply getting an extra button that it doesn't need, just to help pc users who couldn't adjust to using an operating system with a mouse that doesn't need more than one button any better than those people that can't seem to figure a reason to replace their vcr with a dvd player.

If apple really wanted people to use the mice they make, they'd put a scroll wheel on it, that ipod-like touch sensitive idea sounds awesome.
Reply #25 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I'm not sure why people don't notice it, but there really arent any more 2 button'd mice anymore! EVERYONE should have a 3 button mouse by now, because almost all scrollwheels are acutally a button too. OMG how I HATE using a mouse w/o a scrollwheel. And by now they're gonna come standard with 5 (like Intellimouse)