“On February 18, 2010, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals one of the next possible chapters for Apple’s Magic Mouse,” Jack Purcher reports for Patently Apple.
“Apple introduced the world’s first Multi-Touch Mouse this past October. The Magic Mouse features a seamless touch-sensitive enclosure that allows it to be a single or multi-button mouse with advanced gesture support,” Purcher reports. “Using intuitive gestures, users can easily scroll through long documents, pan across large images or swipe to move forward or backward through a collection of web pages or photos.”
“In January of this year, we were able to see the first installation of technologies related to advancing the Magic Mouse and today, Apple sheds more light on the advances that they’re considering,” Purcher reports. “Today’s patent focuses on introducing a ‘rotatable mouse’ using new sensors and a triple-axes gyroscope that detects the roll, pitch, and yaw of the mouse.”
Purcher reports, “That translates in allowing the user to tilt the mouse one way to cause a horizontal scroll and another way to cause a vertical scroll and yet another to tilt a graphic as shown above. The other change that you’ll notice in the graphic above is that the bottom of the mouse is described in terms of it having a convex bottom design so as to make it easier to cause scrolling and other events by simply rocking or rolling the mouse. It’s so simple, that it’s brilliant.”
Much more, including patent application illustrations, in the full article here.
Hey, sounds like the hockey puck is back! This time it rocks! It’ll skate without moving and the others will never catch it.
Great news for porn users: Now both of your hands can be involved in the act of gyration.
Naughty . . .
Hey Hey My My
…Rock and Roll will never die….
There’s more to the picture
Obv this was the original intent of the 2-finger left/right swipe, which now consistently lifts one edge of the mouse off the mousepad.
I’m half-joking. I love my Magic Mouse.
Than meets the I just bought two of these…one for my girlfriend.
MagicPrefs is great.
than meets the eye
How nice that you know that the plural of “axis” is “axes”! Wow! Congratulations!
However, a tip for non-native speakers of English: “triple-axes gyroscope” is incorrect. You wouldn’t say you have a three feet high fence, know a six feet tall man, saw a fifty yards touchdown, or live on a five miles long road. When a word is used adjectivally as a unit of measurement, it’s always singular.
It’s “triple-axis gyroscope.”
Soounds like the mighty ‘Gaming Mouse’ is on its way…
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It will be reat but it seems this Mouse has a scroll ball. That I don’t like.
It will be great but it seems this Mouse has a scroll ball. That I don’t like.
(Unless it’s a RDF emitter.)
I remember reading about the “rocking” motion a long time ago, even before the previous Mighty Mouse. This is just a recycling of old ideas, and I don’t think Apple will use it this time either.
But will it right-click?