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Technology (Apple) Businesses Apple Technology

Apple Applies For Rotary Mouse Patent 393

Posted by pudge from the mmmmm-ouse dept.
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?"
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Apple Applies For Rotary Mouse Patent More

Apple Applies For Rotary Mouse Patent

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  • Trackball (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Alizarin Erythrosin ( 457981 )
    Sounds to me like it's just like a trackball, but for scrolling

    • Re:Trackball (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Uber Banker ( 655221 )
      Sounds like a combination of a joystick [tilting] and conventional mouse [moving], just with the stick part removed.

    • Re:Trackball (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Oculus Habent ( 562837 ) * <oculus.habent@gm ... Nom minus author> on Sunday April 27, 2003 @09:26AM (#5818753) Journal
      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 (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        And the other obvious application -

        Internet navigation
        Down and up could mapped to hop to the next and previous link on a page (like tab) and left/right could act as the back and forward buttons. That'd be kinda neat. Er, if I didn't use lynx.

      • Re:Trackball (Score:3, Interesting)

        by RJack-45 ( 171759 )
        Probably will be used for Apple's "piles" concept.
        Piles [slashdot.org]

    • It's called a hat switch and it's not new (Score:4, Informative)

      by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @11:43AM (#5819318) Journal
      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? (Score:3, Informative)

    by aed ( 156746 ) * on Sunday April 27, 2003 @09:05AM (#5818685)
    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....
    • "Although not really a 'rotary disc'"

      You answered your own question.

      • Re:Prior art anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Ur@eus ( 148802 )
        Well I would think there are some rules for significant difference for a new patent for it to be considered a new invention. If not I guess someone can patent 'pink rotary disk' as a separate patent again from the original apple patent.

        • Re:Prior art anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Zakabog ( 603757 )
          In a traditional wheel mouse, the wheel moves forward, backwards or down. This is more like a d-pad it can move forward, backwards, left, right, or down which is significantly different than any other scroll mouse I've ever seen.
          • Well there is the IBM mouse mentioned with a trackpoint thing, and I have also seen mouse with both a horizontal and a vertical scroll wheel.

            Think I even saw a mouse using a small trackball ball instead of a wheel once.

            I was just curios to what kind of rules the patent office (in theory) follow to judge wether somehing is truly a new idea or just a variation of an old one
          • The Logitech Trackman Marble FX has a little red button that switches the trackball to scrolling mode. I've never had much use for this feature in linux, mostly because it really isn't supported (but i did, once, get all 4 buttons working just as buttons), but the idea is interesting.

            I'd actually personally rather like to see a trackball with a secondary, smaller trackball integrated for scrolling and/or 3D applications.

    • Woohoo, you win!!! FPAP - First Prior Art Post!!
    • There was an old controller available for the Super Nintendo that used this exact type of device instead of the traditional 4-way pad.

  • What's next? (Score:4, Funny)

    by SpaceRook ( 630389 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @09:08AM (#5818693)
    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.
    • If the integrated the BAT Chording Keyboard [worklink.net] and the mouse, you could have convenient one-handed computer use.

      The only problems I see are the mouse would be the size of your outstretched hand, and the mouse button would either have to be one of the chording keys (limiting your chording options or making them more complex) or the whole mouse (like Apple's Pro Mouse) which means you would probably have to exert a good bit of force to click the mouse.
    • You know, just curious - was the parent post meant to be "interesting", or "funny"/"verbally ironic"?

  • Quite a progression for Apple (Score:4, Funny)

    by Trinition ( 114758 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @09:08AM (#5818695) Homepage
    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

    • No... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by autopr0n ( 534291 )
      It's a rotary dial, like on the iPOD, or those old telephones.

      Yeah, I have no idea what they were smoking when they came up wit that one. Although 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.

      • Re:No... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jdreed1024 ( 443938 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @10:02AM (#5818882)
        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... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by feldsteins ( 313201 ) <scott.scottfeldstein@net> on Sunday April 27, 2003 @11:34AM (#5819263) Homepage
        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... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by jo_ham ( 604554 ) <joham999 AT gmail DOT com> on Sunday April 27, 2003 @01:36PM (#5819886)
          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... (Score:4, Informative)

          by apg ( 66778 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @02:16PM (#5820048) Homepage

          > 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 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by teromajusa ( 445906 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @09:11AM (#5818704)
    Seems like it'd lead to all sorts of unintentional scrolling when you click. Or clicking when you want to scroll.
    • That statement is maybe a little too general. Admitted, I have lots of problems of that kind with my LogiTech mouse's scroll whell. But I have used other mice with scroll wheels that could be used as a middle button just fine. So it all depends on how well the device is actually constructed. As long as Apple manages to get the mechanical details working fine, it should be possible to use this device without unintentional clicks/scroll motions. From the design images, it looks pretty 'safe', as the rotary me
    • Nah. From the patent application [uspto.gov] itself:

      ... the user can manipulate the disc 182 side to side ? for horizontal scrolling 184 and the user can manipulate the disc 182 backwards and forwards as shown ? for vertical scrolling 186. Another advantage of the invention is that pressing down on the disc for clicking does not cause the disc to rotate, i.e., since the motion of the disc is orthogonal to the direction of clicking (button press) the user can press on the disc itself to activate the button.

      Also so
  • the ipod has a circular touch pad with a button in the middle. i guess this is where they got the idea

  • More buttons are good but... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Alcoyotl ( 157542 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @09:14AM (#5818717) Homepage Journal
    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... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 27, 2003 @09:19AM (#5818735)
      "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: (Score:5, Insightful)

        by DaedalusHKX ( 660194 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @09:58AM (#5818870) Journal
        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
  • IBM allready has mice with a 2d nipple (glidepoint) on it for scrolling.

  • Disc, not ball. (Score:5, Informative)

    by rsmeds ( 539318 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @09:14AM (#5818722)
    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).

    • This is just a way for Apple to catch up to the multi-button mouse present, without seeming to cave in on the idea of one button superiority.

      My mac enthusiast friends are already going to be talking about how this is actually better than all the 5-button PC mice.

      The disc idea seems confusing to me though, since they are introducing multi-button functionality in what is still just one button.

      • Mac OS X already has full support for a two-button mouse. No extra drivers needed, so I think Apple has already "caved" into the idea.

        Just because they don't manufacture a multi-button mouse doesn't mean they think they are inferior.
    • This is basically the IBM thinkpad's pencil-eraser mouse with a larger surface area and you can push on it to click.
      • Didn't Toshiba do it first?

        Now more and more laptops seem to have both a nipple and a trackpad, like Dell ones (presumably so that they can pick up more sales from both camps).

        Personally I like my NEC, with a trackpad + a scroll slider between the L and R buttons. Indespensable once you get used to it. (Just like a wheel mouse, who wants to go back now?)
    • Ignore me... misunderstood the post... now I get it...
  • I was wondering, but if this might be a two buttom mouse from apple, where would the first button go? I hope it's not around it because it'd be kind of annoying. With a usual 3 button scroll mouse the scroll wheel is in the middle and there's 2 other buttons to the side so you have 3 places for 3 fingers to sit comfortably. With this kind of mouse, there would be a spot for your pointer finger, and middle finger but your ring finger would be off to the side, kind of ackward. I dunno maybe I'm just seein

  • Uhm, (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TimPoorary ( 668905 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @09:21AM (#5818740)
    There are a few PCS phones that use this type of button for navigation.

  • Audio/Video Editing!!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bpd1069 ( 57573 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @09:25AM (#5818749) Homepage
    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. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MtViewGuy ( 197597 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @09:25AM (#5818750)
    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.
    • I would think that it would be fairly stright forward to write a jitter sensitivity control so that when the mouse was moving, presumably smoothly and relatively quickly, that the widget would have one context, and another when it was bouncing over a small range of points near each other. What would that annoying result be? I suspect an oh-no-second or so of lag between when you start to move the mouse, and when the cursor moves on the screen, with an additional slider in the driver window.

      Even though, I

  • An old idea in new clothes: radial controllers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LinuxParanoid ( 64467 ) * on Sunday April 27, 2003 @09:29AM (#5818763) Homepage Journal
    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].
    • I think while the new Apple mouse design borrows some of the concepts from the Intellivision controller, I worry the disc will end up being too small in size (especially given Apple's penchant for building relatively small-sized mouse pointers), which will cause unintended scrolling, especially if you have big hands and/or fingers.

      This isn't like the iPod, where the disc controller is fairly large and easy to manipulate even with larger-sized fingers.

  • image of apple's new mouse (Score:5, Funny)

    by LMCBoy ( 185365 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @09:36AM (#5818788) Homepage Journal
    here [makingit.com]

    Looks like this will bring a tighter focus on mac gaming too, finally! All you PC-ers, prepare to get fragged!!
  • On a high end CAD station, it was something that looked like a dimmer dial and rotated ( zoom ) as you would expect, but it also moved like a joystick ( pan and move )..

    Damned if i can remember who made it though..

  • the little gizmo on recent Palm devices? OK, there is a separate button in the middle of the disc, but basically it seems to do the same thing.

    Actually, I'd like that. A Palm mod that allows it to be used as a wireless pointing device.

  • Prior art (Score:2, Informative)

    by parkanoid ( 573952 )
    I cannot quite recall the name right now, but I remember reading about a joystick that used a near identical controller instead of the traditional stick; a little wheel on the left could be rotated left and right as well as pulled forward or backward. It has an interesting input system on the right (each finger operated two buttons without moving).

  • Mice with two, three, four, five (six??) buttons, 1 scroll bar, 2 scroll bars... Now rotary button mice?

    Whats next? 3 Dimensional mice that measure the distance from the desk to the mouse? Now that'd be cool for Flight Sims maybe..

    How many more features will we see crammed into our favorite techno-puck..

  • A hat-switch? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sielwolf ( 246764 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @09:55AM (#5818848) Homepage Journal
    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? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Glyndwr ( 217857 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @09:57AM (#5818859) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • Is it that? A combination of a 4- or 8-way switch with a pushable button? I guess all makers of joysticks will be delighted. For G*ds sake, make that thing turnable too, that way you could control screen rotation or whatever along with everything else.

  • 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...

    :-)

    • I'm a programmer and inveterate time waster by trade, not a programmer, but I agree about the scroll wheel being necessary.

      So I went and bought one. Mice are cheap these days and for very little I have a Belkin that matches the colour of my TiBook, has a scroll wheel and the second button is automatically option-click, which means context menus.

      Not really sure why Apple insists on the one button mouse when a three button mouse works perfectly upon being plugged in... I know it's traditional, but I never l
  • I can only see someting liek this being usable in a handheld or laptop design. 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.

    If it required to hands to work it would preclude the use of another input device like a mouse or keyboard.

    Just guessing here.

  • I'm confused (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Glyndwr ( 217857 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @10:13AM (#5818933) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • Re:I'm confused (Score:3, Insightful)

      by hoggy ( 10971 ) *
      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?

      I think it's pretty simple. It's a flat wheel. If you put your finger on the top of the wheel and move it from side to side you're moving the wheel horizontally. If you put your finger on the side of the wheel and move it backwards and forwards then you're moving the wheel vertically. The wheel spins the same way regardless.

      It's a con

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

    No. This rumor flares up before every macworld. After macworld, apple stays with the one button mouse. This has been a consistent pattern ever since 1984.

    As for the patent. Intriguing? Yes. Garuantee that this will be a product? Hardly. Between 2001-2003 Apple has been awarded around 30 patents [uspto.gov] And has applied for about 30 more [uspto.gov] patents. Of those 60+ only a fraction will probably make it into future hardware.

  • iPod as a mouse hack ... similar in concept (Score:4, Interesting)

    by adzoox ( 615327 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @10:52AM (#5819082) Journal
    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??? (Score:3, Funny)

    by boatboy ( 549643 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @10:56AM (#5819102) Homepage
    Doesn't Mac know that everybody uses touch-tone now? These young wipper-snappers wouldn't know what to do with a rotary mouse.

  • Can companys come up with better stuff to patent then stupid shit. I know the didn't get it yet but they will. I mean they should come up with something to replace the mouse now that would be worth a patent not a damn improvement.

    atto

  • It will suck if it's anything like this mouse... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ChaosMagic ( 657047 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @10:58AM (#5819114)
    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.
    • It'll suck if it's anything like this... but not if it's like this...

      The Apple / Bandai Pippin Controller [geocities.com] had something similar to the trackball you are speaking of and it was/is the easiest to hold, most comfortable, game controller I have ever used. In fact, I use it with my Mac still -- with the ADB adapter and the USB adapter [griffintechnology.com].

      I would love for Apple to bring this down to wireless bluetooth mouse size. For now I like to use a Logitech Trackman Marble [compuvisor.com] due to the fact I hate moving mice on the desk and

  • Finally!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SwedishChef ( 69313 ) <craig&networkessentials,net> on Sunday April 27, 2003 @11:41AM (#5819303) Homepage Journal
    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 (Score:3, Informative)

    by angle_slam ( 623817 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @11:55AM (#5819384)
    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' (Score:4, Insightful)

    by digidave ( 259925 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @01:54PM (#5819968)
    Like flight sim joysticks have, with the sole difference being that it's shaped differently.

  • Obvious joke... (Score:3, Funny)

    by hankaholic ( 32239 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @02:37PM (#5820148)
    <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 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gdarklighter ( 666840 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @03:52PM (#5820477) Homepage
    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 (Score:3, Funny)

    by juggleme ( 53716 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @04:23PM (#5820588)
    ...and read "Apple: Apple Apples"? Oh well...

  • Piles (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MCSR_Jake ( 580501 ) on Sunday April 27, 2003 @06:30PM (#5821208)
    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! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nycroft ( 653728 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @11:06AM (#5824826) Homepage
    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.

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