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Input Devices Businesses Wireless (Apple) Apple Hardware

Apple Developing Two-Button Mouse 1070

An anonymous reader writes "Always the innovator, Apple is rumored to be developing a two-button mouse! Personally, I don't think it will catch on. Two buttons will be way too confusing for your average user." A few users noted a related Slashdot story from awhile back that discusses why Apple has historically avoided the two-button mouse. The article also mentions a revision to the AirPort Base Station with built-in optical audio.
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Apple Developing Two-Button Mouse

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  • by nmg196 ( 184961 ) * on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:31AM (#11952323)
    In a few years Apple will invent something called a "pan wheel" which allows you to pan up and down in documents... They'll probably try and patent it as well.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:34AM (#11952349)
      The Wheel from the iPod on a mouse?

      I'm sure my girlfriend will appreciate how dextrious my fingers will get.
    • Re:Pan wheel... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mysticwhiskey ( 569750 ) <mystic_whiskey@T ... com minus author> on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:42AM (#11952430)
      Y'know what's really funny is that OS-X supports poly-button mice with wheel-scrolling ability, yet Apple don't (as yet) sell such a mouse. This has been good for those 3rd party vendors who produce asthetically-pleasing multi-button mice. Please, no flames about Control-Click, I'm a Mac user, yet respect the right-click.
      • Re:Pan wheel... (Score:5, Informative)

        by igny ( 716218 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @09:58AM (#11953075) Homepage Journal
        What is even funnier, OSX offers better support for Microsoft's Trackball Explorer [microsoft.com] than WinXP. I bought the mouse for gaming purposes several years ago, and Win2k had a nice feature of binding keys like pgup/dn to the mouse buttons and this worked great in Quake3. Now WinXP binds vague "Forward" and "Home page" to the buttons, so IE understands, and Quake3 does not. In OSX the buttons are just Mouse1-Mouse5 and you can bind whatever functions you like, Expose, Quake, UT04 work just great...
    • by Ubergrendle ( 531719 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:49AM (#11952495) Journal
      This morning I woke up and the skies were coloured of sackcloth, and the sun coloured as blood, and there was this distinct crunching sound on the floor as I walked over a carpet of locusts, and there were these strange markings on the outside of my door.... now I know why.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:32AM (#11952336)
    ...one button at the top end and one at the bottom end. Gotta think different.
  • by wolf31o2 ( 778801 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:33AM (#11952344)
    Why would Apple design a 2 button mouse? Is that not insane? Wouldn't it make more sense to design at least a 3 button mouse with a wheel? What would really be gained by simply adding a second button?
    • Probably because you gain a *lot* more functionality/convenience from a two button mouse, and arguably quite a bit less from three. I think they're insane if they don't add a wheel, but it wouldn't really have to be clickable (lots of folks really don't get that the wheel is a button).

      I'm firmly in the 3 button camp (UNIX/Linux user) but two is better than none, and I can see why they're doing that - especially given Apple's "interesting" notions about mice.

      I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who will
      • Probably because you gain a *lot* more functionality/convenience from a two button mouse, and arguably quite a bit less from three.

        I've been wondering, though, as I've read this thread, will the second mouse button be used to bring up context menus?

        I mean, is Apple simply giving in to the pressure, or are they doing something else? Honestly, as an OSX user, I don't find the context menus in OSX that useful. Giving quick access to context menus... I can to without it. If you give me a three button mouse

      • I'm firmly in the 3 button camp (UNIX/Linux user) but two is better than none, and I can see why they're doing that - especially given Apple's "interesting" notions about mice.

        OS X really needs middle-mouse-button copy/paste support. Some apps already have ctrl-k support, but when I switch between work box and home box I always find myself having to remember to apple-c/apple-v when I want to copy stuff like search terms, etc..

        (and when Finder goes Cocoa, please please PLEASE put the Services menu in the
    • by hsmith ( 818216 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:57AM (#11952582)
      jeez! you can't throw it all at a user a once! the only way is to scale out those big features incrimentally.
    • You gain a lot by adding a second button. You gain contextual menus. By adding a 3rd button, you only gain half-assed alternative click actions in maybe 2/3rds of the applications out there. A scroll wheel would be neat, though to be perfectly honest I'd much rather have a scroll trackball. Of course, my mouse has 6 buttons and I want more, but I use a computer for a living.

      Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. For most users, 2 buttons would be enough, and the design is simple enough to be non-intimida
    • by CapnGib ( 31274 ) <dgibson.alumni@rutgers@edu> on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @09:24AM (#11952789)
      Whoa whoa whoa slow down Tex. One button at a time.

      Let the mouse button wars begin!!

      25 years later...

      mac OS XX user: "WOW the new Apple Bluetooth mouse has 3 buttons and a scroll wheel"

      Windows Longwhore SP4 user: "Lame, my MS Intellimouse has 16 buttons, 2 pressure-sensitive-tilt-slide-rotate-scroll wheels, 2 lasers, a 3-axis fiber optic ring gyroscope with GPS tracking, an inertial-charging battery system and 2-parameter biometric analyser to combat privacy, I mean piracy"

    • by jmichaelg ( 148257 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @09:26AM (#11952810) Journal
      I have a friend who went to college in 1946. She's the anti-thesis of a power user but the other day she said her two button mouse was too restrictive - she wanted one with a wheel like the one at where she works. (Yep, she still works.)

      I told her that the newest wheel mice have tilting wheels. When she understood it makes horizontal scrolling easier, her face lit up and she said "Ooooh...that sounds wonderful! Tell my grandson Mother's day is coming!"

    • What would really be gained by simply adding a second button?

      They will be compatible with 1990 era PC's

      [/rimshot]
  • by jeffy124 ( 453342 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:34AM (#11952354) Homepage Journal
    what will become CmdrTaco's new reason to not use a macintosh?
  • by MyLongNickName ( 822545 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:35AM (#11952355) Journal
    Slashdot gets sued for giving out trade secrets. Apple demands to know who leaked this information, which would have revolutionized the computer world as we know it.
  • by vjmurphy ( 190266 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:35AM (#11952364) Homepage
    I picked up an Apple Wireless Mouse and found that it was good enough for everything... except reading long pages. I'd rather have a scroll wheel than another button: the usefulness of the scroll wheel would far exceed having another mouse button.

    Luckily, I have a lot of multiple button Logitech mice running around that I can use. But can anyone tell me how I can map f9 to the middle mouse button? Whenever I try, it just pops Expose open instead.
    • You'll want to unmap that button in Expose' first. That's trivially easy in the Expose' control panel in System Preferences, just select the "do nothing" option. Then you can run USB Overdrive, which I think can do that sort of button mapping, another nifty bonus is that you gain more flexibility in your mouse speeds and accelerations.
    • Anyone look at the suggested retail prices for these?


      Apple has just recently reduced the price of its wired mouse to $29 and its wireless optical mouse to $59. The two-button wireless optical mouse would likely debut at the $69 price point once reserved for the company's current wireless mouse.

      "Jaws will drop," said one insider.


      Now, I know what the Mac fans will say: 'Plenty of people spend far more than that on gaming sticks and PC peripherals,' etc, etc.

      But why can't they make the mice cheaper? I
  • Next up.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:37AM (#11952392)
    Microsoft innovates the 1-Button mouse as a whole new line of efficiency.

    Bill Gates says: "One mouse button ought to be enough for anybody."
  • A minor correction - there will not be an optical out on the AirPort Base Station. The article mentions there may be in integrated optical out with new versions of the AirPort Express, instead of an external option.
  • It had to happen... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gamma_UCF ( 777510 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:39AM (#11952408)
    With all the people they're hoping to get that are supposed to be converting windows users because of the IPod, I'm sure a lot of people are confused by going from two buttons to one. I know it sounds crazy, but I tend to get frustrated when I use my friend' s Mac, because one mouse button should be simple, however I am used to two buttons, plus a scrollwheel, and a few extra buttons on a mouse, you rely on what you're comfortable with.

    I'm sure this will help a lot of people convert over to Macs.
  • 2 button mice (Score:4, Informative)

    by emtboy9 ( 99534 ) <jeffNO@SPAMjefflane.org> on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:41AM (#11952420) Homepage
    For what its worth, at least as far back as the first OSX release (possibly earlier, but I am Not an Apple User) you could use any 2 button mouse on a Mac... I have used them on Powerbooks and desktop machines running various versions of OSX.
  • by Nijika ( 525558 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:45AM (#11952463) Homepage Journal
    It's a little late fellas but it's understood.

    I've got an eMac and an iBook that I love, and I happily use the one-button option Apple provides, but when I get bored of that I plug in the 5 button + scroll-wheel Microsoft branded monstrosity trackball. It all works perfectly. I'm assuming this move is to get people to impulse upgrade while they're buying a new system, and to quell the usual hand-wringing from the PC fanboys. I don't think it's going to be the default option.

  • Why not just... (Score:4, Informative)

    by FinchWorld ( 845331 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:50AM (#11952505) Homepage
    ... use any standard multi-button usb mouse? is really that important it has the apple looks? (Even its really pretty).

    I got my 6 button mouse working on a mac with http://www.usboverdrive.com/ [usboverdrive.com] fine. I'll I want know is a similar app for windows, as I can only get 5 buttons to work how I want them:/

  • by xdownfornowx ( 670197 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:54AM (#11952545)
    Apple kept to a one button mouse for ease of us and to prevent user confusion. What the /. crowd seems to miss is that the mac is made for simplicity for the average joe who never used a computer. Most geeky folk who have a solid understanding of an OS will want as many buttons on a mouse as possible. For for people (like most of parents?) that are clueless navigating an OS with a two button mouse is confusing. While I was doing phone support for gateway last year I would have to explain the difference a right and left mouse click ever other call. It was like magic... at some point I would ask the customer to right on something for a menu and everytime afterwards when I would ask to click on a specific item they would then ask "is that a right click, or a left click"? After 3 times of this I would have to tell them click means left mouse button and right click is a right mouse button. I'm sure no apple support tech has had to deal with that. The mac version of a right click, being either ctrl + click or holding down the mouse button for 3 seconds to generate a menu, doesn't lodge an idea of different kinds of clicks in the users mind. I personally think apple should stick with a one button mouse and let the geeks buy a 2-5 button mouse (which has suported in the mac os since os 9) if they want.
    • Exactly. This is almost as bad as the apples-are-too-expensive posts. I have a Power mac with both the origninal one-button optical mouse as well as a Logitec wheel mouse. When my 5-year-old daughter wants to draw in the GIMP, guess which mouse she reaches for? Guess which mouse my wife uses (an which one she refuses to use)?

      Software developers could easily adapt to a one-button mouse model, if only they wanted to. Hold down the mouse for more than a few seconds and generate a "left-button" event. Ho
    • by NutscrapeSucks ( 446616 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @11:03AM (#11953679)
      What the /. crowd seems to miss is that the mac is made for simplicity for the average joe who never used a computer.

      That doesn't explain why Apple's $3000 multiprocessor workstations come with a 1 button mouse.

      A better theory is that Apple has many long-time Mac-Only users, who despite their years of computer experiece, have only experience with single button mice. Apple doesn't want their best and most loyal customers feeling stupid becasue they don't know what button to push.
      • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @10:32PM (#11961700)
        >>What the /. crowd seems to miss is that the mac is made for simplicity for the average joe who never used a computer.

        >That doesn't explain why Apple's $3000 multiprocessor workstations come with a 1 button mouse.

        It absolutely does. Look at some of their promotional stuff about who's using their computers: it's people who are good at what they do, but not experienced computer geeks. Doctors, lawyers, photographers, musicians, small business owners. People who don't care about computers -- people who care about getting their stuff done.

        Apple is all about making difficult things simple. Look at video editing before Final Cut, for example. Just because you want to do something that requires lots of gigahertz, doesn't mean you need to be a l33t computer geek -- they've gone to great lengths to make even formerly-complex things as simple as possible (like video editing, which is arguably one of the most potentially complex things you can do on a computer today).

        Note that they don't even call the PowerMac G5 a "workstation" -- they call it a "personal computer". It's built for people who want to use an Apple, but need a faster system, or a bigger screen (or two). Just because you have 2 CPUs so you can work faster shouldn't (and doesn't) mean you should be presented with an interface that's any more complex.

        In fact, if their faster systems came with different mice, they'd be sending the implicit message that "if you want more power, you need a more complex interface". And Apple's goal seems to be to smash that myth to smithereens.
      • by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 ) on Thursday March 17, 2005 @02:20PM (#11967906)

        That doesn't explain why Apple's $3000 multiprocessor workstations come with a 1 button mouse.

        I want Apple to ship a one button mouse by default on every system I buy. I will not use that mouse. The reason I want a one button mouse is not because I am an idiot, and can't use more buttons. Developers are idiots. If Apple ships a multi-button mouse, developers will immediately begin coding applications to require multiple buttons. This is something that sucks badly on Windows right now. As I mentioned earlier, Notepad on Windows has the second mouse button mapped to a contextual menu that is completely unnecessary. Other programs put controls only in this contextual menu. That means disabled people, voice interfaces, and scripts that use the menu controls usually can't get to those features. That sucks. Right now on the mac, while running a text editor, the second mouse button can actually do useful things, like spell checking, or a thesaurus, or translation, or online dictionary lookup, or any number of other services I assign.

        I use MacOS X, Windows, and Linux every day. I wish all of them and the applications on them were built for a single button mouse, and left everything else to the user to configure. But, as I said, developers are stupid. Luckily Apple isn't.

  • average user (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:56AM (#11952568)
    Two buttons will be way too confusing for your average user.

    Anyone who's done phone support with an "average user" will agree. Trying to communicate the differences between right- and left-clicking can be difficult. Never mind having the person learn in exactly which circumstances you have to do each one.
  • Zero button mouse. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gelfling ( 6534 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @09:57AM (#11953066) Homepage Journal
    I fail to see why one can't have a zero button mouse that simply executes the appropriate action after a predefined delay. After all, many of us have happily lived with X windows auto focus to foreground for years with no obvious detriment.
  • by DwarfGoanna ( 447841 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @11:27AM (#11953975)
    But I find the one button mice a lot more comfortable, as my hand doesn't have to be glued to the thing in a pre-determined position in order to click it. Oddly enough, I was a fan of the hockey puck mouse before it, as I was one of the only people to use the thing correctly, by steering it with my fingertips, leaving my hand parked to the desk. Same with my ibook, I leave my thumb laying more or less horizontally over the single button. If apple goes to two button laptops, I'm pretty much fucked. =/
  • by mzs ( 595629 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @11:41AM (#11954136)
    Here is one thing I have noticed. We have an eMac at home and two of my three kids are preschoolers. They have a very easy time using the zero (what I mean is that the entire mouse is one big button) button mouse from Apple. It is not too big too. At the library they have these two button plus scroll wheel Microsoft ergonomic mice connected to the computers for the kids. First of all those mice are way too big and there is this big hump at the base of the mouse that makes it very difficult for my kids to use. Since they have to hold the mouse near the top, very often the mouse will turn to the side and then the motion is all wrong relative to what they expect the cursor to do on the screen. The fact that the scroll wheel is in the way and that there are two buttons also causes confusion. What happens is that they end-up just clicking repeatedly until they finally click on the left mouse button and if they click on the scroll wheel their hand rolls off.

    On the other hand the size of the current Apple mouse is just perfect. It is not too small for an adult and not too big for a child. Because of the size and the fact that the whole mouse is one big button, my kids can hold the mouse near its middle, and then it does not rotate while being moved.

    I have heard the argument that once you start using a computer long enough you start wanting extra mouse buttons. What I think is that those people are not sophisticated enough. Even when I was using unix primarily, I configured fvwm and vim so that I could do almost everything from the keyboard. Today there are keyboard shortcuts for almost anything on OS X plus a bunch of small apps to add even more shortcut functionality. I really do not miss a three button mouse all the much at all. In fact I use SideTrack on my iBook and think that is perfect for the times I need to copy and paste in X11.app. Maybe Apple should make a compact keyboard with a trackpad instead of a two button mouse. If that keyboard was wireless, it would be perfect for sitting on the couch too especially with two finger scrolling.

    One thing about OS X that is very frustrating is that I have not figured out an easy way to use the built-in spell checker with only the keyboard. If anyone knew an easy way to pop-up that menu with suggested corrections, I would really appreciate it. Also using the accessibility features and that spelling dialog box with only the keyboard is really annoying because the things you want to do are too many key presses away, so that is not really a viable solution...
    • by javaxman ( 705658 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @12:56PM (#11955227) Journal
      We have an eMac at home and two of my three kids are preschoolers. They have a very easy time using the zero (what I mean is that the entire mouse is one big button) button mouse from Apple. It is not too big too. At the library they have these two button plus scroll wheel Microsoft ergonomic mice connected to the computers for the kids. First of all those mice are way too big and there is this big hump at the base of the mouse that makes it very difficult for my kids to use. Since they have to hold the mouse near the top, very often the mouse will turn to the side and then the motion is all wrong relative to what they expect the cursor to do on the screen. The fact that the scroll wheel is in the way and that there are two buttons also causes confusion. What happens is that they end-up just clicking repeatedly until they finally click on the left mouse button and if they click on the scroll wheel their hand rolls off.

      THANK YOU !

      This is my experience as well. My home iMac mouse died ( crimped a cable ) and I ran with a spare three-button mouse for a while- not a MS mouse, but a very vanilla, small, fairly standard one. It totally pissed off my then-two-year-old son. And yes, he at completely mastered use of the mouse before he turned two- he could hit the exact square he wanted on a color chooser panel with squares smaller than 1/8". By age two. But it turns out he would have found learning to use the computer much more difficult with the three-button scroll wheel mouse so popular among power users.

      I suspect most folks who don't like 'no'-button mouse are just used to what they're used to- it's actually a great design, fits well in a wide range of hand sizes, tracks movement very precisely, has and adjustable click response, and is blindingly easy to use.

      The three-button scrollwheel mouse is great for power users, but have you ever watched a novice to average computer user work? They never use those extra features. A small percentage of normal users eventually figure out when they can use the scroll wheel, which, be honest, is not always obvious, but even then they frequently won't use it when they could. The right-click? Unless your application ( or OS ) absolutely requires that you use it, it's not used. I'm not saying you don't use it, and maybe you find it productivity-enhancing, but you know what's more productivity-enhancing? Learning ( and having ) keyboard shortcuts so you don't have to take your hands off the keyboard.

      I can not believe the attitude people have about mice- a multi-button mouse is not the ideal choice for everyone, probably not even for the majority of computer users. Apple for a long time has targeted the more casual user, and for them I think the single-button mouse makes a lot of sense.

      Of course, with all things, I prefer companies to offer their customers options, and I hope you'll be able to order whichever type of mouse you want from Apple in the future. Of course, there's always the possiblity that they'll do what they've done with the Mac mini, and stop shipping you all these standard parts with every machine anyway, under the assumption that you either already have them or will want to order exactly the ones you want ( based on what some companies are selling [kensington.com] I'm still unconvinced that's a good assumption ). I personally use a trackpad with extra buttons and a scrolling area ( on a contour keyboard ) at work... but at home, I've yet to find the one-button mouse a burden. It's far from the big deal people seem to want to make it.

  • by Esion Modnar ( 632431 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @11:51AM (#11954267)
    Eliminate the keyboard.
  • by windowpain ( 211052 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @12:53PM (#11955178) Journal
    As a partner in a computer training company I taught more than 10,000 (probably closer to 12,000) people how to use Windows and Macs.

    As for the quote from the tech support person who claimed that having someone use the right mouse button caused the person to evermore ask "right or left" when asked to click: That's ridiculous. You just say, "If I, or someone else, or a book or manual instructs you to 'click' on something without telling you which button, you use the left button." You explain that the left button is the "default" button and then go into a brief explanation of what "default" means.

    Here's how to explain "default."

    The "default" is what's expected in the absence of any other instructions. The default hamburger in diners and other traditional restaurants is usually just meat between two buns (with perhaps some garnishes on the side). At McDonald's and other fast food chains the default includes ketchup, pickles, onions and sometimes more.

    Once you understand the default configuration of burgers at the place you eat, you know what to expect.
  • by harlemjoe ( 304815 ) on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @12:55PM (#11955204)
    After switching to OS X a few months ago, I've discovered that I no longer miss the right mouse button!

    One excellent reason is the terminal
    Another is the fact that control click, command click and option click all do the same things in pretty much every program (I can't say what exactly, it's that intuitive)

    All I know is that when I want a new tab in firefox instead of a new window, I always make the right kind of click

    nevertheless, I like multibutton mice, and now that I see this discussion on slashdot, I'm going to go get me a USB wireless mouse with a scroll wheel. I've forgotten how nice those were...

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