Apple Applies For Rotary Mouse Patent

Dregs of Tar writes "According to an article at The Mac Observer, Apple has applied for a patent on an interesting new mouse idea. A rotary disc on the surface of the mouse can be pushed straight down as a mouse button, tilted forward or back to scroll vertically, and tilted side to side for horizontal scrolling. In other words, it's a rotary scroll wheel! Could it be so? Could we soon see Apple-branded, multibutton, scrolling mice?"

Re:Trackball

Except that a trackball is not a disc. The words rotary disc, as well as the picture on the article, bring to mid the "wheel" on the iPod. Integrating the single spinning disc with four buttons (Up, Down, Left, Right) and the ability to spin it, I assume.

More important to me than the four buttons is the rotary disc itself. The thumb wheel on the iPod makes for ridiculously easy scrolling through lists, long and small, with both fine control and super speed. That same ability on the desktop would be quite nice for:

• Navigating folders
• Any lists
• Video editing
• Brightness & Contrast settings

Pretty much any place a simple, unlimited movement with variable speed control is useful. In short, all over the place.

I think a disc would be much more convenient than a scroll wheel. While the wheel consumes less surface space on the mouse, the limited range of motion of your finger makes scrolling long distances with it painful. However, I can trace circles on a surface with my finger with much less effort.

Re:Trackball

Er, if I didn't use lynx.

Hey, 1989 called... they want their browser back.

It's called a hat switch and it's not new

It's called a hat switch. It's on lots of nice joysticks to control the direction you're looking. I've been after one to be put on a good mouse forever. If Logitech would put one on one of their corded MX models, I'd be in heaven.

There is definitely prior art. Take a look at the mouse component of this Saitek [pcworld.com] mouse/action pad bundle.

Prior art anyone?

Since quite a while IBM has some mice featuring a scroll/track-point device.
Although not really a 'rotary disc', it *is* a device which can be pushed as a button, and can be pushed/tilted in all directions for scrolling..
(See this one [ibm.com] for example)

Sorry Apple, too late....

What's next?

Cool. A mouse with a trackball on top of it.

I think someone should make a mouse with a keyboard on top of it. That way you can type without every taking your hand off the mouse.

Re:What's next?

Jesus christ. How many times do I read this.

Go out and buy any one of a hundred multi-button USB mice and plug it into a Mac. The scrollwheel and contextual-menu buttons are supported out-of-the-box in OS X in all apps. Just because Apple don't ship a multi-button mouse does not mean that Apple don't support them.

Also, the round mice went out a long long time ago. Apple ship very nice optical mice with all Macs now. They also have a "no-button" design - rocking the mouse forward slightly clicks the mouse button. This is a very ergonomic design and means that you can use your whole hand to click, which reduces tendon strain substantially and makes the mice much better suited to anyone who suffers from RSI.

If you want to dislike Macs, pick a legitimate reason. If I had a dime for every person who says "I don't like Macs because x" and hasn't actually ever walked into an Apple store...

Re:What's next?

eh? If by "touchpads" you mean laptops with trackpads, you can attach a USB mouse to them with no problems - I have an Apple Pro mouse attached to my iBook.

When I'm on the move, I use the internal trackpad, and since it is close to the keyboard it is extremely easy to control+click to get right click funtion when necessary.

Most of the time I use command+shift+click with one hand to open links in tabs behind the current one. I very rarely use contol+click.

Re:What's next?

The point is that you should *not* have to run out and drop *more* money to get another peripheral to make your spangling new Mac not suck.

Ever order a computer from Dell? They'll toss in an el-cheapo mouse for free, or you can upgrade to a decent mouse for $40. Same difference here. Apple tosses in a mouse, or you can "upgrade" yourself at CompUSA. And you can even resell the Apple mouse of eBay.

Big fat hairy deal.

Re:What's next?

But the point is, you don't ever need to use control+click to access features; they're always available via standard clicks through menus/lists etc (assuming the program is decent).

control+click provides a more advanced and convenient method in many cases, but it's for more advanced users. I novice user should be able to do everything with one button - and they can. If you want the extra button, buy a mouse with an extra button.

Maybe Apple should provide it as an option when buying a Mac, but they don't at the moment. Perhaps this new mouse they're patenting will be the optional mouse for their systems.

How hard is it really to hold down the control key with your left hand when you're clicking? It's not like you need to be doing anything else with that hand while you're using the mouse, and your left hand is already on the keyboard. Control is right there!

of men and mouse

It's only fair to point out that the current design is widely disliked, that the only reason that it is still in place is because there's a few high-up die-hard UI people who were originally sold on the one-button mouse, and it's their baby (Jobs is one).

It's also fair to point out that without a source on that observation, this is just your opinion. I know a ton of Mac people - practically all of my friends - and they love the optical mouse. There's more than a 'few high-up (?) die-hard UI (?!?) people' (that statement doesn't make any sense at all actually, it's not a UI issue, and who's high up? Some nameless Apple industrial designers?)

I've done extensive user testing for multi-button apps before. The earlier poster who mentioned the difficulties getting older computer-illiterate people to understand and adapt to these conventions is right - it is nearlyimpossible. It's very easy to forget, but when you've spent coutless hours in a UI lab watching Random Person stumble through what you consider to be the most trivial tasks... trust me. There's a very, very good reason for the 1 button mouse.

And not just one - an oft-overlooked fact is the right/left dominance thing. Lefties like to use their mice on the left side of the computer. It's important that your primary 'click' is your index finger. Swapping mouse sides can potentially swap your primary click - which you can re-map of course (computer expert that you are), but then your manuals are all wrong when they say left-click, right-click, etc.

Mac mice have never had an issue with left/right-handedness. (Also note that many creative types are right-brained, thus left-handed. This is important to some.)

The point is that you should *not* have to run out and drop *more* money to get another peripheral to make your spangling new Mac not suck. Apple had a (tenuous) reason to not include a second button...up until they introduced context menus triggered by *control-clicking*. At this point, they're just being stupid.

Oh spare me. The cost must be in the neighbourhood of $5, a vanishing percentage of the overall expense. The Apple keyboard is forced on you too, no one seems to complain about that. It makes more sense to me to include the simplest mouse by default from the original company, and people can drop the $30 for a multibutton mouse if they feel like it.

The public is always five years behind

You make some excellent points. I've begun to think that general Macintosh opinion among the public lags about five years behind the reality. How many Mac users have heard non-Mac users rant about the fruit-colored iMac, a computer that's been out of production for years? On the other hand, even tech geeks in general are largely unaware of the BSD underpinnings or free iApps... all stuff that's come along largely since the advent of OS X and makes the Mac of greater value to geeks and casual users alike.

My guess is that in the year 2007 or 2008 the public will be saying "Did you know that Apple has a server box?" or "Did you know those new Apple laptops use 802.11g?" or "Hey, OS X shunts all the quartz compositing off to the video card! That's a neat idea".

I, for one, am tired of having to entertain anti-Mac arguments from people who are well-versed in the latest Wintel situation but haven't checked in on Apple in more years than you can count on a single hand.

Re:What's next?

Unless you have a LAPTOP and want it to have more than one button. Your suggestion isn't really a viable option on a plane, train, bus, or a lot of the many of places people buy laptops so they can use them in.

Then get one of these [edgereview.com] mice. They don't require a surface to move on and they have two mouse buttons. Honestly though, there is no real need for a second mouse button in MacOS. Every function is either in a menu up top, or you can hold down the control key and click to bring up a contextual menu. Because of these two things I hardly ever use the second button on my third-party mouse.

Making the entire mouse a button means you can't rest your hand on the mouse.

Turn the mouse over. On the bottom of the mouse is a sensitivity adjustment. Turn it and the mouse will take more force before it clicks. I've never had a problem with my hand accidently clicking on the Apple mice, but if you do that's why there is an adjustment for it.

Quite a progression for Apple

From the people with a 1-button mouse, who then moved to a NO-button mouse, we now have a mouse with an extra 4+1 directional button?!?1

Re:No...

It's a rotary dial, like on the iPOD, or those old telephones.

I don't think it is. I know what the title of the patent application says, but reading the description, it doesn't make sense that it's an actual dial like the iPod. The description says that the user can push it side to side or up and down. That's 4 directions. The iPod dial only goes in two directions. Up and down. (it's basically a scroll wheel turned on its side) To navigate "left" and "right", you use the other buttons on the iPod (Forward, back, etc). And it's certainly nothing like a telephone dial, which is spring loaded and can only go in one directon. I think it's more like a joystick, but instead of moving a handgrip, you move this round pad. Sony has something kind of like it on the remote for their home theater receivers. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Re:No...

First off let me remind you that this isn't an actual product. Nobody at Apple or anywhere else has stated that this is The Future Of Pointing Devices. Someone had an idea, made a prototype, legal got a patent Just In Case. That's how I read it.

It's a rotary dial

No, it's not. It's amazing how many Apple experts are in the slashdot house when a story pops up. The kind of experts that haven't used a Mac regularly since before the days of the Color Classic.

I'm sure all the apple zelots will crawl out of the woodwork to tell us why this is the greatest thing ever, and how having anything less would be like living in the stone age

I'm sure hundreds of ANTI-Apple zealots will crawl out of the woodwork to inform everyone that the iPod is "like a rotary dial phone." More of them will crawl out to mod the comment up as "+1 Informative." Another bunch will show up to make 1-button mouse jokes and then mod them up as "+1 Funny." One brave non-Mac user will publicly proclaim his desire to use OS X on his cheap-ass x86 box. It wil be immediately moderated up to "+5 Interesting" because so many of Windows/Linux users have OS envy.

The voices of the remaining seven people on slashdot who might have had something interesting to contribute to the discussion will be either a) drowned out completely or b) sucked into arguing with anti-Mac trolls. (Today, I'm the latter I guess.)

Such is the nature of front page Mac news at slashdot. (And why is this front-page news? You got me. Let's see if tomorrow's brand new music downloading service makes the front page. The success or failure of that initiative is going to make a lot of people stand up and take note. That'll be news.)

Re:No...

You forgot to mention the guy who posts about his 9600/300 in every Mac story, taking two hours to copy a 17 meg file, thus making all Apples worthless.

And the obligatory "I'd buy a Mac but they're soooo expensive! I looked at the iBook, but then saw a Dell for $650, ok so it only has a CD rom drive, a cheap plastic case, no wireless, no firewire, but it's still better than the iBook because it has a faster processor!"

Re:No...

> It's a rotary dial

No, it's not.

Ummm... Yes, it is.

Come on, people. As patents go, Apple's actually done a pretty good job making this one [uspto.gov] pretty darn easy to read. Here's one of many claims that make it clear that the disc rotates:

12. A mouse for moving a cursor or pointer on a display screen, comprising: a mouse housing; and a disk coupled to the mouse housing and rotatable about an axis, the disk being configured to facilitate a control function on the display screen, the disk having a touchable surface for rotating the disk about the axis, the touchable surface being completely accessible to a finger of the user such that the disk can be continuously rotated by a simple swirling motion of the finger.

Sounds kind of annoying to me

Seems like it'd lead to all sorts of unintentional scrolling when you click. Or clicking when you want to scroll.

More buttons are good but...

it can become very confusing for the computer illiterate crowd. Ever tried to explain the difference between left and right click ?
But for power users, it's a different story. I have a thumb button on my mouse that I programmed to be the ENTER key, and it's be hard for me now to do without.
My point is, how can you design a mouse that is universal and "upgradeable" at the same time ?
Apple's approach of the problem sounds interesting though, and raise a question about what will the future of pointing devices be.

Re:More buttons are good but...

"I have a thumb button on my mouse that I programmed to be the ENTER key, and it's be hard for me now to do without."

You call that power usage? I've bound my thumb button to a macro that automatically creates a flame bait post for slashdot. Saves me hours of hard work every day!

You seem clueless :), what he meant was:

Power users can tell such simple things apart, such as left and right click. I did tech support for sometime and still do for my parents and close family friends. Most of them are mid 40's to mid 50's and it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to get those people to use two fingers, one for each button and to tell which "click" to use. It is beyond aggravating. I'm sure plenty of other frustrated tech support types can sympathize with you as well bud.

-Daedalus

Link

here is a link [ibm.com].

Disc, not ball.

Ok, let's just read that article one more time: It describes a mouse with a DISC, not a TRACKBALL. Also, I can't see any hint of the disc serving as a second mouse button in the patent description. This being Apple, that disc thingy will probably be the only control-element on the mouse. One thing that the article itself seemed a bit confused about, was whether the disc was ROTARY (i.e. something you rotate, as on an old telephone) or just a kind of cross-button with 5 directions (horizontal, veritcal, and down).

Re:Is there a reason...

When the mouse was new people weren't used to using them, and Apple feared that more than one button would confuse people. It would be more familiar to do it like a keyboard where you have one key, but holding down a modifier key you can switch the functionality of they key. Apple went with this design simply for familiarity in concepts..

Uhm,

There are a few PCS phones that use this type of button for navigation.

Audio/Video Editing!!!

This would be a great tool for AV editing... I'm thinking Jog Control /w mouse capabilities... New macs already come with a decent entry level suite of tools, why not adapt the input method to bolster your strengths...

now if they could just get it integrated with the Logitech 3D mouse, use two and a la Instant Minority Report Action!

Not sure if it's a good idea, though.

While the new Apple patent sounds like a good idea, I have concerns that if Apple doesn't design that unusual button correctly you're going to end up with a lot of unintended screen scrolling.

Given that later releases of MacOS 9.x and the current MacOS X releases support the full functionality of the two-button mouse with scroll wheel natively (e.g., compatible with USB-port mouse pointers from Microsoft and Logitech), Apple should just "bite the bullet" and get Logitech to build a scrolling mouse that complements the shape of the current Power Macintosh boxes and iMac machines.

An old idea in new clothes: radial controllers

Radial discs for user input are not exactly a new idea; that said, they didn't take off in earlier incarnations.

Anybody remember Intellivision [intellivisionlives.com]?

The #2 competitor to the Atari 2600, the Intellivision had a controller with a disc very similar to that described on this patent application (see the picture shown at the above link). The radial dial controller (along with a phone-like keypad and a couple 'action' buttons) was used rather than a joystick or a mouse.

The Intellivision controller is described at the bottom of this page, [intellivisionlives.com] and the problems with it are aluded to in this video game history [emuunlim.com], notably that:
Unfortunately, the control discs are not a huge hit with players, along with the fact that their flimsy design leads to frequent controller breakdowns. Hardwired right into the system, this becomes a big problem for owners who have to slog the whole machine back to the dealer for repair.

I'd imagine Apple will avoid these mistakes; mice aren't integrated and I don't see why they can't insure higher quality. Personally, I found the disc an acceptable substitute for a joystick after playing with it a bit at a friend's house.

So I think there's a fair bit of prior art. I searched for 5 minutes for Intellivision and Coleco patents and found it described in [uspto.gov]
Patent 4,486,629, 4,470,012, 4,462,594, and 4,439,648. I didn't see that prior art cited in the Apple patent.

That said, the new patent does A) control scrolling actions rather than main-locus-of-control actions, and B) as the patent application says, "pressing down on the disc for clicking does not cause the disc to rotate" which seems like an advance to me over the Intellivision controller.

I guess the question comes down to: how well is the usability testing going?

--LP

P.S. For a Slash-based forum on post-PC UI issues, see Nooface [slashdot.org].

image of apple's new mouse

here [makingit.com]

Looks like this will bring a tighter focus on mac gaming too, finally! All you PC-ers, prepare to get fragged!!

A hat-switch?

Why does this just sound like a hat-switch that you find on joysticks? Of course it's a neat idea to plop it onto a mouse. Personally I'd rather have one under my thumb. I think a lot of people are used to using hat controllers that way. Hell, how many FPSes on the PS2 are best played by using the analog sticks with your thumb? Same thing here.

Surely Trust have already done this?

Have you seen Trust's product lineup [trust.com]? A friend of mine bought this monstrosity [trust.com] from them the other day that had -- I kid you not -- the usual two buttons, two scrollwheels (one horizontal, one vertical; one was also a button), and another two buttons on the sides. That's a total of nine buttons, folks (counting the wheels as two buttons each). The Windows driver was about 60Mb.

It is a regular joke amongst our friends that it is only a matter of time before Trust made a mouse with a trackball on top of it, and that will be rapidly followed by a joystick mounted on top of a trackball atop a mouse. In the version 3, they'll add a four-way view switch button to the joystick and another half-dozen buttons to the bottom of the mouse. Version 4 will probably be wireless and integrate a toaster, oven and water cooler into the base of the charging cradle. You heard it here first.

At Last Apple Sees the LIght

I work as a musician and producer and a one button mouse is a right pain when working on the Mac. Although I love OS X and Logic, I would be able to work much faster if Apple would provide some kind of scroll wheel so I could nip around documents much faster.

Although it is hard to know before seeing a real mouse I think the fact that this could be both Vertical and Horizontal will make it better to use than existing scroll wheels. I love the transparent Apple mouse so this would be an excellent improvement...

Now the next step is to get the music software to support it.... So hopefully Apple ownership will speed that up too...

:-)

No, old device

You'd have to put two next to each other so you can coordinate the movements, but such a technique would allow you to scroll around a big screen quickly and accurately after a few minutes of practice.

You mean, like this? [att.net]

Your /. nickname is quite fitting. :-)

~Philly

I'm confused

So, is it a rotary dial (two analog inputs: rotate left, rotate right; one digitial input: push down) or a d-pad (five digital inputs: up, down, left, right, push middle down)? Everyone seems to be assuming the latter, including the original article, but they that's not rotary, which it must be because that's in the title of the patent. Maybe it's both at once, but how do you stop it rotating when you're trying to push it in a direction?

My poor brain is confused, and trying to read the patent application itself didn't help. It's rather dense. Nevertheless, paragraph 37 of it says

For example, the rotatable disc 56 may provide a control function corresponding to a scrolling feature that allows a user, for example, to move the GUI vertically (up and down), or horizontally (left and right) in order to bring more data into view on the display screen

. Note that this says horizontal or vertical. So that implies a rotary dial as a straight replacement for a wheel; OK, I can deal with that.

Paragraph 60. however, says

For example, as shown in FIG. 10, the user can manipulate the disc 182 side to side as shown by arrows 183 for horizontal scrolling 184 and the user can manipulate the disc 182 backwards and forwards as shown by arrows 185 for vertical scrolling 186

and suddently it can do 2d scrolling, which a 1D wheel certainly can't. What gives? The diagrams page hates Galeon so I can't look at fig 10. Can someone shed light on this?

As for the ergonomics, I'm a little dubious. Isn't side-to-side motion of a finger actually quite bad for you? I though fingers had essentially one dimensional joints and were designed to move up and down and not much else. Roatating my finger in a 1-inch diameter circle feels a little uncomfortable to me. I do see their point about having to pick the finger up off a scroll wheel all the time, though; I've always had that problem with Sony jog dials, too.

iPod as a mouse hack ... similar in concept

I know of several programmers that are awaiting the final design and specs of the new iPod to release an iPod mouse program, control hacks that essentially turn an iPod in to a firewire input device.

Control system volume and navigation - launch apps - use for timeline and frame by frame manipulation in final cut pro - use for TRON tank turrets and Centipede!

A lot like this device: Shuttle Express [contourdesign.com] You can see the similarities.

This is one reason the Mac is great - I have been able to use lots of devices that I have investments in; in lots of different ways. T68i [sonyericsson.com] & Romeo [irowan.com] is just one example.

Rotary???

Doesn't Mac know that everybody uses touch-tone now? These young wipper-snappers wouldn't know what to do with a rotary mouse.

It will suck if it's anything like this mouse...

At work I am having to use a free mouse that came with the computer system, despite my insistance that a decent mouse would add to productivity we have ended up with this completely and utterly useless peice of crap [scan.co.uk] (which is why it's only a fiver I guess).

Ignoring the fact that as a normal mouse this is already pretty bad (sticky and clicky buttons and badly formed shape in the palm), that little blue thing on top? Pointless! I don't know what muppet designed this thing but it is utterly unusable, basically it is trying to be a trendy new type of scroll wheel or something. But, major point number one, it isn't a button and doesn't count as a third middle click. All it does is goes up and down, not like a wheel but just like a thing that you can push up or down or leave to spring back to the centre.

This might (might!) have been a decent design, although I'm still doubtful even then, but basically when you go to "scroll" down or up, no matter how careful you are just to tap it up or down, it almost always scrolls right to the very end of the document. They claim this is better than the mouse wheel somehow!

Anyway, slightly back on topic, if the Apple mouse is basically this but with horizontal scrolling too, then it's gonna be crappy. The Apple idea did conjur up in my mind the idea of a mouse with a track ball where the wheel is at the moment. Although perhaps complicating matters somewhat, it's also logical (in my mind, ha) so that there are two degrees of movement through the mouse (somewhat like moving your head whilst moving your eyes at the same time). This could (amongst other more pratical things) be pretty cool for doing the walking through Doom3 (for example) whilst at the very same time "looking" around freely using the track ball.

Finally!!!!

A patent from a high-tech company that isn't some lame attempt to steal ideas from the past and/or something that was so obvious to everyone else that no one ever thought to patent it. I am so friggin sick of patents that blatantly try to subvert progress in the name of ripping off the community that this one from Apple actually comes as a breath of fresh air. I have no idea how useful this device will be but at least it appears no one else has ever built one before.

Link to the patent application

Why can't articles link to the patent application (I'm talking more about the Mac Observer article than the Slashdot article.) I guess I'm just getting used to the blogging model: when something is being discussed, a link to that is provided. I've noticed op-eds doing the same thing: discussing another op-ed without providing a link to it. Haven't they heard of the A HREF tag?

Anyway, here is a link to patent application 20030076303 [uspto.gov]. You can see the images from there also.

Ummm... this is actually a 'hat'

Like flight sim joysticks have, with the sole difference being that it's shaped differently.

Obvious joke...

<obapplemousecomment>

Could we soon see Apple-branded, multibutton, scrolling mice?

I'd be happy to just to see an Apple-branded, multibutton mouse.

</obapplemousecomment>

(yes, I know they're available, but all display-model Macs I've seen to date have at most one mouse button, and some hardly seem to have a button at all... in other words, refer to my .sig)

This is NOT a hat switch, nor is it an iPod wheel

It's closer to a combination of the two. Pushing DOWN on the wheel in any of the 4 cardinal directions scrolls. Pushing straight down would be another function, and spinning the wheel clockwise or counter-clockwise woulld be two other functions (scrolling through links, fields, cursor movement, etc.). And with the proper tension adjustment, I can't see slippage being a problem. That same tension adjustment would prevent rotary movement when pushing down. It looks like a rather ingenious design to me.

Am I the only one who saw this on the front page

...and read "Apple: Apple Apples"? Oh well...

Piles

Has no one mentioned that this patent goes almost hand in hand with the current Mac rumors regarding implementing "piles" of documents to replace, somewhat, file folders on the desktop. Think how easy it would be to shuffle through a "pile" of documents with this new mouse! Anyway, that's just rumor talk.

You guys are killing me!

Why is everyone here so negative? Horray for Apple for getting some new stuff out there! Who cares if you guys don't like it? Why don't one (or all of you) go out and invent your own makes-everybody-happy ubermouse?

Why am I even bothering to log in anymore? All I do is read complaints from people who are never satisfied. Well, if you can't beat 'em, join em.

Check this out...Apple's idea sucks! Screw those punks and their sell-out style! Rotating disc? How 'bout rotating this! *grab grab*. 'Scuse me while I go use another companies' third-party POS mouse before I even see the finished Apple product! I'm gonna switch to Linux 'cause OS X is too pretty and I want a OS that is ugly and hard to use so I can look cool in front of all my friends... aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrghfggghggurgle...ppphhhlphhhpppt! !!!!

Warm fuzzies, everbody! Not cold pricklies! Jesus.