“Microsoft’s mystery touch device is actually a competitor to Apple’s Magic Mouse,” Electronista reports.
Advertisement: Introducing the new Magic Trackpad. Let your fingers do the clicking, scrolling, and swiping. Just $69 at the Apple Online Store.
“Both a leak and a store listing point to the Arc Touch Mouse having its namesake touch surface instead of traditional clicks,” Electronista reports. “It was originally the result of a research project into a multi-touch mouse whose details were published just as Apple was shipping its own device.”
Full article here.
Tom Warren reports for Neowin that Microsoft “plans to unveil [the] new Arc Touch Mouse in September.”
“Microsoft plans to introduce the multi-touch mouse as a cheap alternative to costly touch displays for use with Windows 7,” Warren reports. “It’s understood this is a basic implementation of touch and will likely not support multi-touch initially. It’s expected to retail at approximately $70 according to some online price listings.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Derivativesoft. Stay tuned for the uni-touch “Arc Touch Trackpad” at least a year late, too!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “jax44” for the heads up.]
Soooooo saad…
The only matchingbof the word ” magic” and Microsoft will be when….. pft…. Microsoft vanishes in thin air.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Stop it … I … can’t … breath!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
“Magic Mouse killer”?
Like ‘The Wicked Pussy of the West’? No?
‘M-Con Mouse Bait’?
‘Sticky Nots’?
Whatever it is, I’m sure it will be cheesy….
To be fair to MS, they were already working on it when the magic mouse shipped. Also, I know it might be blasphemy to some, but I think MS has always made good mice, so it MIGHT be interesting to see where they plan to go with this.
Tell you what though. If MS makes a touch-sensitive mouse that allows a right click WITHOUT needing to lift your left finger, they will be a step ahead of Apple in my book – in mice, anyhow.
I find it interesting how MS and other companies like it always announce future copy cat projects months in advance while Apple at least tries to surprise people with new products.
It is as it they all are trying to such the air out of the room with their “Hey, we thought of that too” jumping up and down, trying to get attention.
“It’s understood this is a basic implementation of touch and will likely not support multi-touch initially.”
Why bother?
So, wait…
It’s coming out several months after Apple’s Magic Mouse, probably won’t “initially” support multi-touch gestures and even costs (a little) more? Gee, sign me up for one immediately!
:-p
I always thought that innovation was when you were first to market, not copying what others have done.
No multi-touch? And $70?
Another brilliant name from M$: Arc
Go Steve Ballmer! If Apple can do it than Microsoft can … could have … is researching it … is looking to one of their vendors to figure it out … I am sorry, real people are not willing to give up their mouse!!!
Microsoft’s copying department is 2 generations behind on this. This is getting sadder and sadder.
@kcwookie
Yes, M$ is good at that, not innovation but using that word in almost any statement they make
Is Arc aKin to Zune?
So, it will comes out when we move to Magic Trackpad and abandon the mouse in boatload
@ deepdish
This tactic in the computer industry goes back more than 40 years. The classic pervayor of this type of information was IBM. DEC/Univac/Burroughs/etc. would come out with some new system and *immediately* IBM would send out their team of salesmen to tell their customers that they should not consider the new equipment from the competitor but rather should wait for the next generation from IBM that would have all those “bells and whistles” plus so much more. In reality, when IBM finally did ship something it was less capable and *way* late, but the IBM sheep bought into the lie time and time again.
For Microsoft it is a matter of preaching to their huge installed base. If someone wants a touch device, why worry about possible compatibiltiy issues of integrating an Apple Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad when Microsoft will have something “good enough” out “soon”?
I thought the ‘arc’ was scuttled on Mount Arrarat. There should be two dead mice on board, they’re mummified. Wot a larf!
The beautiful thing about this new MS mouse is that you will need to use a stylus to implement touch gestures on it.
OK…let me get this straight. Microsoft is going to create a touch mouse. Didn’t all the MS fans just get through telling us that it had to have a right mouse button, an actual physical button? Didn’t they tell us that $70 is too much to pay for a mouse? Didn’t they tell us that if every single feature possible was not implemented perfectly and immediately, out of the box, then it was a complete failure?
I’m surprised the trolls can even show their faces these days; MS is simply a joke.
Oh no!!! Apple is doomed…NOT!
You’d think Microsoft would try to innovate instead of badly cloning yet another of Apple’s successes.
They had to choose between two default microsoft notions: find places for more buttons or copy Apple. Eventually, the latter is always their road ahead.
Have to say that I am generally a big fan of Microsoft’s mice, and not a huge fan of Apple mice. I do, however, like the Magic Mouse even if it is not as magic as I had hoped. I have tried many third party applications and still cannot get good pinch behavior.
Isn’t the magic trackpad the magic mouse killer!
Magic Mouse? That’s so last paradigm. Too late, again M$.
Hey M$…
The puck is over here!
Based on some of the comments here, it appears some of you have not found Better Touch Tool at http://blog.boastr.net/ . I have been using it for about a year. It provides any kind of touch/click/swipe you want and it’s FREE. It is truly amazing and gives you total control.
It adds the capabilities I think Apple should have shipped. Check it oout.