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22 years later, Apple introduces the Mighty Mouse (yes, it has more than one button!)
Apple has finally realized that maybe, just maybe, its customers would like a second button on their pointing devices. I welcome you, Mighty Mouse. It only took 22 years!
The mouse actually looks nice and has some new features, such as the scroll wheel that lets you scroll in any direction — not just up and down. (I’ll bet that graphic designers working on large artboards will find this particularly handy.) Apple’s marketing writers went all out with the fluff in explaining how they managed to keep the sleek, unsplit top look while still having two buttons: “Touch-sensitive technology under Mighty Mouse’s seamless top shell detect where you’re clicking, transforming your sleek, one-button mouse into a two-button wonder.”
It’s about time. Mac OSX has right-click contextual menus all over the place, but with the standard Mac single-button mouse you had to hit control while clicking. And that’s just a pain. But the alternative, purchasing another mouse and getting rid of my pretty Apple mousethat goes so well with my pretty iMac, seemed unthinkable. An ugly blue Logitech instead of my clear white Apple beauty? No!
You know you’ve caught the Apple bug when they announce a mouse for $50 (when you already have a perfectly functional mouse) and you’re eager to throw the money at them. Luckily for me, though, the Apple Store here in Dallas had sold out of them by lunch. Maybe I can talk myself out of it by tomorrow, when they plan on getting more in.
But that seems unlikely.
Tue August 2nd, 2005 5:25 pm
Filed under Gadgets
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It looks awesome! I’ll probably wait till they release a Bluetooth version.
Dang I’m a day behind in my tech news. That’s like 500 years in any other industry. That mouse looks pretty badass though. I’d get one in a heartbeat if I had a Mac. You’re already buying the most expensive computer (with no expandability) out there. Why not drop $20-$25 more on a 2-button mouse than all those Gatesians out there?
just remembered my other comment. Isn’t Mighty Mouse trademarked, or copyrighted, and not by Apple? (which is it for an original character?)
Mike — good news! the mouse works with PCs. Hooray!
And Macs don’t have “no expandabillity.” You can upgrade hard drives, optical drives, RAM, etc. I have upgraded RAM, and will probably upgrade to a DVD burner soonish.
And yeah, Mighty Mouse is owned by Viacom. Apple has used the name with permission, if you look at that page.
Oo, now I know what else I want for my birthday.
A big hug?
What does the page about Viacom’s © say? Something like:
“We realize that the name Mighty Mouse was indeed copyrighted, but we figured hey, these are Macintosh fans here. We’ll just charge them 5 times what it costs us to make the product, kick Viacom down a few bills, and still laugh all the way to the bank. We’d drive our Saab to said bank, of course.
We drive Saabs because they are different.”
I bet it does.
Piffle. A big hug will not right-click for me, now, will it?
Unrelated, but interesting: http://www.nbm.org/liquid_stone/home.html
Josh: I’m a recent Mac switcher… I might just write a full post instead of a quick comment reply!
The gist being, I love my Mac. hugs it
Mal: Interesting… I had never given concrete much thought. Weird. And hugs are a currency that can buy right clicks, right?
You know, you may want to talk to the people at Macintosh about that “currency” of yours.
Similarly: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3791795.stm