4 ms·

Jobs wasn't perfect - rumor was the one button mouse exists because he picked it from an unfinished mock. The magic mouse also sucks (though I do like the large

Jobs wasn't perfect - rumor was the one button mouse exists because he picked it from an unfinished mock. The magic mouse also sucks (though I do like the large trackpad). I think their argument for the charging port on the bottom is because they didn't want people to be able to use it plugged in (so people wouldn't just leave it plugged in), it was intentional.

throwawayboise 6y ago
I thought the reason (for the one-button mouse) was so that you'd never have to think about which button to click.
- fossuser 6y ago
  "Farag recalls a prototype presentation meeting with Jobs where he and the design team presented possibilities for what would be the next Apple mouse. The team had several versions to show Steve, some of which "were fully done, with all the parting lines cut in for buttons and different plastic parts, and all the colors just right," according to Farag. At the last moment the team decided to include a prototype that echoed the look of the previous gen Apple mouse, but it was not finished and didn't include cut-outs for the buttons. “We were going to put that model into a box so people wouldn’t see it.” Farag said. Jobs darted right for the unfinished one saying, “That’s genius…We don’t want to have any buttons,” according to Farag. As one would expect, someone from the design team quickly jumped up and agreed with Jobs as if that was one of the options all along." https://www.techspot.com/news/55958-how-a-misunderstanding-with-steve-jobs-led-to-the-no-button-apple-pro-mouse.html https://www.techspot.com/news/55958-how-a-misunderstanding-w... As far as not thinking about a button to click - that only works if the idea of 'right-click' doesn't exist. In the real world where it does now you just have to know to control-click, which seems strictly worse.
  - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
    I think you're misunderstanding the article you linked at least a bit here; it's not the origin story of Apple's original one-button mouse. It's describing the "no button" Pro Mouse circa 2000, which still functioned like a one-button mouse in practice. Macs had one-button mice since they first shipped in 1984. > As far as not thinking about a button to click - that only works if the idea of 'right-click' doesn't exist. Well, when you adjust your timeline back to when that first one-button mouse came out in 1984, one can argue whether the idea of right-click as we know it today really existed! There were multi-button mice already, but there wasn't any standardization as to what the buttons did, so Apple's insistence on "there is just one button and it does THE THING" was at least defensible. And IIRC early versions of Windows pretty much ignored anything but the left button, although applications could receive clicks from them. I'm pretty sure the "right-click for a context menu" idea that's become standard today actually started with OS/2. > In the real world where it does now you just have to know to control-click, which seems strictly worse. Or you could just right-click. :) Every mouse Apple has sold since 2005 supports right-clicking (and OS X actually supported right-clicking from the start if you plugged in somebody else's mouse!). Their trackpads lets you click with two fingers for a right-click effect.
    - fossuser 6y ago
      I had the “no button” mouse where the entire top was the button - I thought it was pretty. Fair point that when this started the right click menu wasn’t super established. That said, at some point it was, probably more than 20 years ago. Today the Magic Mouse supports right click, but is still a bad mouse in my (and many others) opinion. It’s form over function. The Magic Trackpad is great though. I’m about as big an Apple fan as exists so this isn’t some tribal argument. It’s just not a good design and I think they do it because multi-click mice look ugly. They pretend it’s for other reasons with some rationalized explanation, but in the mouse case I don’t think it is.
      - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
        I'm definitely much more a fan of the trackpad, too. I like the Magic Mouse more than you do, evidently, but I don't actually like mice that much in general. :)
  - baybal2 6y ago
    Believe me or not. Big retailers don't like Bluetooth mouses because they have huge returns from them. Usually they will place a few unconspiciously in the corner, but otherwise give most of shelf space to non-bt mouses. Why so? People can't freaking press the PAIR button, even if you slap a big red sticker on it. This is also the reason retailers insist on having batteries inserted into the mouse at factory, or have internal batteries charged to full before shipping.
    - yourapostasy 6y ago
      How little people read instructions (or read at all) is depressingly common. This pattern cuts across socioeconomic lines. I long ago stopped making fun of meme'ish cartoons and symbology around controls.
    - laurent92 6y ago
      There is no “pair” button on the mAgIk keyboard or mouse. I’m an Apple fan but, when you have 6 macs in an office and you administer them, you have to carry around a PC keyboard and mouse to tell your iMac which mouse to connect to. They are getting ridiculous. I like MX mouses better, but none of the mice on the market has... horizontal scrolling. Horizontal, true, scrolling.
  - giantrobot 6y ago
    Right/control click didn't exist on MacOS until 8. You could implement it by hand in an application but there was no system right support. Even once it was added the HIG stressed it should only be used for contextual shortcuts and not any primary functionality.
  - kalleboo 6y ago
    > In the real world where it does now you just have to know to control-click, which seems strictly worse. The Mac didn't support context menus (control-click) until MacOS 8 in 1997 (13 years after the original Mac), and even then it was solely for shortcuts, and never for required functionality (unlike on Windows where some apps locked features behind that button) All Apple input devices sold today support an alternative click (two finger tap on touch devices)

throwawayboise 6y ago

I thought the reason (for the one-button mouse) was so that you'd never have to think about which button to click.

fossuser 6y ago
"Farag recalls a prototype presentation meeting with Jobs where he and the design team presented possibilities for what would be the next Apple mouse. The team had several versions to show Steve, some of which "were fully done, with all the parting lines cut in for buttons and different plastic parts, and all the colors just right," according to Farag. At the last moment the team decided to include a prototype that echoed the look of the previous gen Apple mouse, but it was not finished and didn't include cut-outs for the buttons. “We were going to put that model into a box so people wouldn’t see it.” Farag said. Jobs darted right for the unfinished one saying, “That’s genius…We don’t want to have any buttons,” according to Farag. As one would expect, someone from the design team quickly jumped up and agreed with Jobs as if that was one of the options all along." https://www.techspot.com/news/55958-how-a-misunderstanding-with-steve-jobs-led-to-the-no-button-apple-pro-mouse.html https://www.techspot.com/news/55958-how-a-misunderstanding-w... As far as not thinking about a button to click - that only works if the idea of 'right-click' doesn't exist. In the real world where it does now you just have to know to control-click, which seems strictly worse.
- chipotle_coyote 6y ago
  I think you're misunderstanding the article you linked at least a bit here; it's not the origin story of Apple's original one-button mouse. It's describing the "no button" Pro Mouse circa 2000, which still functioned like a one-button mouse in practice. Macs had one-button mice since they first shipped in 1984. > As far as not thinking about a button to click - that only works if the idea of 'right-click' doesn't exist. Well, when you adjust your timeline back to when that first one-button mouse came out in 1984, one can argue whether the idea of right-click as we know it today really existed! There were multi-button mice already, but there wasn't any standardization as to what the buttons did, so Apple's insistence on "there is just one button and it does THE THING" was at least defensible. And IIRC early versions of Windows pretty much ignored anything but the left button, although applications could receive clicks from them. I'm pretty sure the "right-click for a context menu" idea that's become standard today actually started with OS/2. > In the real world where it does now you just have to know to control-click, which seems strictly worse. Or you could just right-click. :) Every mouse Apple has sold since 2005 supports right-clicking (and OS X actually supported right-clicking from the start if you plugged in somebody else's mouse!). Their trackpads lets you click with two fingers for a right-click effect.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    I had the “no button” mouse where the entire top was the button - I thought it was pretty. Fair point that when this started the right click menu wasn’t super established. That said, at some point it was, probably more than 20 years ago. Today the Magic Mouse supports right click, but is still a bad mouse in my (and many others) opinion. It’s form over function. The Magic Trackpad is great though. I’m about as big an Apple fan as exists so this isn’t some tribal argument. It’s just not a good design and I think they do it because multi-click mice look ugly. They pretend it’s for other reasons with some rationalized explanation, but in the mouse case I don’t think it is.
    - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
      I'm definitely much more a fan of the trackpad, too. I like the Magic Mouse more than you do, evidently, but I don't actually like mice that much in general. :)
- baybal2 6y ago
  Believe me or not. Big retailers don't like Bluetooth mouses because they have huge returns from them. Usually they will place a few unconspiciously in the corner, but otherwise give most of shelf space to non-bt mouses. Why so? People can't freaking press the PAIR button, even if you slap a big red sticker on it. This is also the reason retailers insist on having batteries inserted into the mouse at factory, or have internal batteries charged to full before shipping.
  - yourapostasy 6y ago
    How little people read instructions (or read at all) is depressingly common. This pattern cuts across socioeconomic lines. I long ago stopped making fun of meme'ish cartoons and symbology around controls.
  - laurent92 6y ago
    There is no “pair” button on the mAgIk keyboard or mouse. I’m an Apple fan but, when you have 6 macs in an office and you administer them, you have to carry around a PC keyboard and mouse to tell your iMac which mouse to connect to. They are getting ridiculous. I like MX mouses better, but none of the mice on the market has... horizontal scrolling. Horizontal, true, scrolling.
- giantrobot 6y ago
  Right/control click didn't exist on MacOS until 8. You could implement it by hand in an application but there was no system right support. Even once it was added the HIG stressed it should only be used for contextual shortcuts and not any primary functionality.
- kalleboo 6y ago
  > In the real world where it does now you just have to know to control-click, which seems strictly worse. The Mac didn't support context menus (control-click) until MacOS 8 in 1997 (13 years after the original Mac), and even then it was solely for shortcuts, and never for required functionality (unlike on Windows where some apps locked features behind that button) All Apple input devices sold today support an alternative click (two finger tap on touch devices)