“If AppleInsider’s reports are to be believed, it appears as though Apple, after nearly more than 20 years of preaching the finer points of key strokes, has caved in to the pressure and is ‘feverishly working on a two-button wireless optical mouse,'” Michael Simon writes for Spymac. “Why now? Two words: Mac mini.”
“I’m guessing sales of the little wonder are far exceeding Apple’s most generous estimates while mouse sales are proportionately lagging. By offering a two-button mouse direct from Apple, all those switchers who just can’t seem to figure out the point of a single button will have an option to complete their aesthetically-pleasing computer with an equally-eye-appealing mouse,” Simon writes. “But rest assured, Apple’s one-button mouse will never be discontinued, and I’m quite certain it will remain the default on all new Macs. But with a two-button option, switching shoppers will likely linger in Apple’s store just a little longer before running home with their new Mac mini. So don’t be offended, and stop preaching all those doomsday prophesies. It’s not the end of the world, nor is it the end of Apple’s trademark one-button mouse. Think of it as nothing more than the start of a new world of Apple-branded options.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote earlier this week when this endlessly-recycled rumor resurfaced, we’d like an Apple-branded two-button mouse to be available, though not necessarily shipped as standard for Apple’s consumer Mac models. Like many of you, judging by your email from the previous “mouse” article, we currently use the Kensington Studio Mouse (three buttons and a scroll sensor) on our Macs, while the one-button Apple mice that shipped with our Macs sit in their boxes doing nothing.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
RUMOR: Apple may soon debut two-button mouse – March 15, 2005
Why Apple ships a one-button mouse even though Mac OS X supports multi-button mice – January 29, 2005
Macworld Poll: 34 percent say Apple Mac one-button mouse a mistake – April 07, 2004
Why no Apple two-button mouse? – September 17, 2003
The time has come for Apple to ship a two-button scroll mouse standard – June 09, 2003
Should Apple reconsider the one-button mouse? – October 23, 2002
huh .. mouse sales are lagging?
probably because mac mini users already have a mouse.. and mac users have one too…
*shrug
i’m glad apple is doing this, though… it would be kind of annoying if people thought apple was in the stone ages cuz they had one button
http://www.dvforge.com/themouse.shtml
WHY RE-INVENT THE WHEEL. LET MACMICE MAKE SOME MONEY.
‘MacBuddy’ sounds disturbingly like Bill Palmer. In any case, neither Palmer nor ‘MacBuddy’ are friends of Apple, or the Mac line. They both want Apple to fail – hence the hatred of anything new and different.
Two button mice are a smaller leap than M68k -> PPC.
Two button mice are a smaller leap than [kludge] -> PCI.
Two button mice are a MUCH smaller leap than [kludge] -> OS X/BSD/NeXT.
Two button mice are a smaller leap than computers -> consumer electronics (ever heard of iPod?).
Two button mice are a smaller leap than . . . fill in the blank.
I’ll never understand why Mac zealots freak out whenever Apple does something different.
there’s no previlege frame of reference people. so try to see others point of view as you would like others to see yours.
to some mac fans apple can do no wrong… come on be objective.
i think it’s funny that people think button+click (was it ctrl+click ar apple+click or maybe option+click) is easier than right-click.
right hand/left hand… ride side, left side… confusing? for spacially challenged perhaps.
In addition, when you want to use a KVM with the Mac box, as advertised on the website, one-button mice suck with Windows.
looking down at your keyboard, figuring out which ctrl-key to use… and then clicking with the mouse?
Please, the mouse is a visual feedback thing, which shouldn’t require input from the keyboard to function properly.
how am i going to surf with a sandwich in my hand?
and what about the war amputees?
Let’s face [Magic word] it, apple doesn’t do the two-button mouse for ONE reason… sales of the one button mouse would massively slow down and it would mean that they were wrong to have forced it on their users for so long. Ego. Pride.
If a ONE button mouse was so great, there wouldn’t be any need for ctrl-Click to exist… as ctrl, basically adds… lo’ and behold a mickey-mouse patchwork version of…
right-click.
Requiring two-hands, one of which has 101 keys to choose from and one is just a click is not easier than changing fingers.
and using the ‘e’ vs. Shift ‘E’ is a silly comparison… as one rarely types with one hand (keyboards, unlike mice, require two hands, and you don’t need to click your mouse to get a capital, now do you?)
Imagine that… for every capital, you had to click your mouse… that would be fun, wouldn’t it?
Sergio,
It you want to kill the pop-ups, you can do the following:
– If using FireFox, use the Adblock extension. It works wonders.
– If using Safari, open the activity window, and add the domains that offend you to your /etc/hosts file and send them to 127.0.0.1.
Works pretty well for me.
The one-button mouse has to stay as standard. Why? To ensure that the software developers continue to make all selections available through menus per good UI design.
I was using Popkin Software Architect on a PC this week (it was torture looking at the XP’s drab gray and last millenia default fonts). Anyway, about 35% of operator choices can’t be found on regular menus – you must use right-click to find it. What a mess!
[‘MacBuddy’ sounds disturbingly like Bill Palmer.]
Do I win a prize? Do the others that have the same POV – regarding THIS particular issue – also win prizes for being Apple Enemies?
Thanks for proving that many folks never actually read or certainly never TRY to understand Apple’s argument FOR a one-button mouse. And almost never offer a ‘reasoned argument’.
The ad nauseum appeal for this makes NO sense. Perhaps you could do as you shouted for the ‘FireWire Crybabies’ to do, ‘Just buy the one you want!’
[In any case, neither Palmer nor ‘MacBuddy’ are friends of Apple, or the Mac line.]
So, although I’ve been using Macs since June 1984, and I (and others) suggest that Apple is correct in ‘staying the course’ with the one-button mouse – because of ALL the REASONS that ‘you’ CHOOSE to ignore – you regard me an enemy of Apple?
Remember what Steve said; Microsoft doesn’t have to lose in order for Apple to win. Well, Apple doesn’t need to ‘throw away all of the important things that make the Mac a Mac’ in order to claim the 21st century.
[They both want Apple to fail]
If by succeed you mean that Apple must become Microsoft, then yes I, ‘MacBuddy’, want Apple to fail – at becoming Microsoft. I really would like to see folks – like you, cheer more for Apple when they act like Apple. Your insistence that Apple become Microsoft is disheartening. Maybe Ford could do better in their market if they started selling Korvettes and Mountie Karloes, and Pepsi could do better if they sold Pepsi Classic.
[hence the hatred of anything new and different.]
New, doesn’t always mean better. Have you forgotten: the Apple logo in the center of the menu bar; or many other ‘improvements’ that Apple later changed? Too bad.
[Two button mice are . . . fill in the blank.]
…available from 3rd party suppliers (a feast of scraps?) for those that think they need them and choose to buy them?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
[I’ll never understand why Mac zealots freak out whenever Apple does something different.]
Yes, you also don’t seem to understand why Apple CHOOSES to keep ‘some things’ the SAME. That my friend seems to be the difficulty.
–
Oh and, appears as though – perhaps due to some sort of computer generated schizophenia – it’s possible for me to be a ‘MacZealot’ and a ‘AppleEnemy’ in the same moment!
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
[MW: Daily.] We all must endure the daily plea for an Apple two-button mouse.
There will NEVER be a 2 button Apple mouse. Mark my words! I am never wrong!!!!! You people are idiots!
And even if Apple puts out a 2 button mouse, it will not sell at all!!!!
Bow down before Bill Palmer the Mac God who knows better than you!!!
MY magic word is “race”
So should I “race” out and get a 2 button mouse, or is my “race” just better than yours?
Oops, did I say that out loud?
I’m not sure the One or Two button mouse should be that big an issue, Mac OS X supports both anyways, buy and use what you prefer.
I DO think the scroll wheel is essential, and more important that the extra button.
And no, I’m not some windows user, the PB 17 I’m using now is my 6th Apple Computer, since my 1984 Apple ][e
Two-button mice on a Mac would be a step backwards into the 1980’s world of complex user interfaces.
Universal keys and buttons such as the Function Keys are more confusing and offer very little additional assistance unless you have a particular function in a particular location that you use frequently. We should be moving towards FEWER keys and buttons, not more; greater simplicity not greater confusion.
Rather than spending your time trying to convince the world to stay in the past, why not spend that time thinking of better and easier ways?
Apple has been hiding a MAJOR feature of Tiger. Gates will scream in anger and cry in pain. You’ll see it in April.
I checked out some Apple Patents a while ago and found that Apple had patented an iPod style solid state scroll wheel for mice… maybe this will be the two button mouse we’ve been waiting for…
dang!! just use what works for you…!!!
Scroll wheel would be nice.
Most people have no concept of what the second button does. I support 60XP users, and over half cannot even grasp the concept of single click vs double click. They double click every goddamn thing on the screen, web links, toolbar buttons (which remember the second click and apply it to whatever pops up underneath the cursor…this is custom software not the windows toolbars). These people have no idea what the other mouse button is for, and asking them to figure it out is excruciating.
You should really give these people back their pens and pads, nra1871.
That certainly would make my life easier. The point is the vast majority of the public (those who use IE, Word, Excel, Outlook Express and pretty much nothing else) don’t grasp the concept of the multi buttons. They don’t learn how the computer works, they memorize a few specific keystrokes and mouse movements, and thats it. Someone one time told them to click here and then here to accomplish something, and any deviation from that has them calling for help. Trying to get them to figure out the right button is painful
Well, I’ve read reasons why power users want a two-button mouse. (Great. Go buy one!) And I’ve read reasons why Apple still need to only offer a one-button mouse.
Apple KNOWS that not ALL of their customers are ‘power users’. This is why the OS supports multi-button mice, but why they continue to only offer one-button mice – with systems.
Newbies need time to become Nerds,
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” /> then they can CHOOSE to ‘upgrade’.
My ‘Feast of Scraps’ comment in an earlier post, addresses these ‘upgrades’. Apple hopes these upgrades will be met by after-market suppliers, (or leaves them deliberately to be met – depending on your POV.)
Cheap price and now 2 buttons. Game over.
0, why those google ads? Think hard. But don’t hurt yourself.
No popups on a this pc running firefox btw.
I love how every post violetly defending the one button mouse whenever a poor review of a mac came out with “reason #1 why you don’t get a mac is because of the one button mouse” has turned into a violent defense of the two button mouse that Apple hasn’t even released yet. I myself don’t really care. I like the great look of an unbroken line of the current mouse but I grew up on PC’s and used the second button a lot. I don’t, however, miss the second button enough to buy one for my current Mac.
Hey SkyyBlue – I too freak out about the vocal powers of my OS. I can walk into my office and say “Computer, get my mail” and it does. Too cool. Still not seamless enough to be 100% functional, but I bet with a faster OS on a faster computer the processing will break down my spoken word into commands with true accuracy.
macbuddy et al.
i am a longtime mac user. they’re the only type of computer we’ve had in our house since before i was born (although i do have a pc laptop now… one of my stupider decisions)
shortly after i bought MY first mac, i went out and bought myself a GOOD mouse. i’ve actually always been amused by this, because it’s a wireless microsoft intellimouse explorer – and it’s a wonderful accompaniment to my computer. (it does amuse me that the only thing i use by windows that consistently works is hardware, but that’s another story…) keep in mind that i’d grown up with the single button mouse.
a multi-button mouse simply offers far greater functionality than any single button mouse can.
in the end, this is a matter of personal preference, though. i think most “power users” will find that a multi-button mouse is preferable, but it really doesn’t matter to me.
all i know is that i think it’s a good idea for apple to make a multi-button mouse. i do think it should be optional, but whatever they end up doing, people will still buy macs.
MDN magic word: “lead” as in, “Apple doesn’t always lead the way…”