I would rather say it's the opposite of a vertical mouse, which is a total eyesore, but as an ageing developer I can assure you that it is ergonomically far superior to all standard (horizontal) mouse.
The current version of the microsoft intellimouse is so nice. I've got the new "classic intellimouse" at work, and I'm tempted to swap out my steelseries gaming mouse for the "pro intellimouse" at home so I can have the same feel everywhere.
I used one of those mice. It was horrid in almost every way. The worst part is that the click had such a low activation force that if you rested the weight of your palm on the mouse it would click, and the side grips were poorly placed. Classic Bay-area "you're holding it wrong" arrogance in design.
However, I have to say that despite that first extremely unpleasant experience with Apple peripherals I actually quite enjoy using my Magic Mouse, and the touch-sensitive surface is one of the more interesting innovations in a field that's largely been stagnant and where most "innovation" seems to be high-DPI lasers and RGB LEDs.
The ability to use touch gestures on the mouse itself (i.e. 3-finger swipe on the mouse's surface to switch workspaces, 2-finger swipes for browser back/fwd navigation, scrolling, etc.) is pretty awesome and not something I've seen anywhere else. I'd never depend on it for getting headshots in counterstrike but for desktop mousing it tracks okay and the battery is quite good.
Had the Magic Mouse, it eats through batteries like mice eat through cheese and got a bit annoyed with it, changed for a cheapo Logitech or Dell mouse, used that for 5 years, then bought an entry level Steel Series gaming mouse which is better in almost every aspect. Then ditched the 2011 Mac @work for a Linux box.
When I was using the Magic Mouse regularly I bought a rechargeable battery replacement that charged via induction on a little pad that plugged into the computer via USB for power. It worked great. (That said I’m using a Corsair Scimitar now and running Linux on my Apple hardware.)
Totally agree with this. Beauty doesn't necessarily translate to easy of use and ergonomic. Specially for people who uses computer for hours, ergonomics is more important than how it feels/looks in short term.
Sometimes, the multi-touch swipe functionality can be quite annoying due to the sensitivity of the mouse. For example, I could be trying to swipe left to exit a webpage but instead it is controlling a slider somewhere on the page. When I am editing text, I can't save the document because the swipe gesture on the mouse is unintentionally controlling another active window. I can somewhat live with this, but its annoying.
As for Apple's standard keyboards for Desktop Mac or PCs, I hope you have a lamp somewhere as they still don't have any keyboard backlight functionality. Even some third-party USB-C wireless mechanical keyboards have this and are much cheaper than Apple's keyboards.
Given Apple's typical expensive pricing with their keyboards, and the lack of a keyboard backlight, you might as well say you're left in the dark.
>As for Apple's standard keyboards for Desktop Mac or PCs, I hope you have a lamp somewhere as they still don't have any keyboard backlight functionality. Even some third-party USB-C wireless mechanical keyboards have this and are much cheaper than Apple's keyboards.
I learned how to touch-type about 25 years ago. Backlit keyboards are superfluous if you know where the buttons are.
I don't like the multi-finger gestures on the magic mouse/ mac trackpad. I almost never have anything more than two fingers on the top of my mouse, and the effort of pulling the third finger up and adjusting my grip to do a gesture is not worth the time saved vs doing whatever action by moving the mouse around. My favourite, though, is the MX Master - the "gesture" button that you can hold and move the mouse to do gestures is extremely easy to use. does not require any additional hand movement, and can be mapped to anything you please. The gesture button has turned me from preferring the keyboard to just one handing with the mouse when I don't need to type. That the Master mouse also has two additional buttons and a horizontal scroll wheel is just the cherry on top.
Can you give me some examples of how you use the gestures in MX Master? I have been using one for users but the novelty of the gesture button wore off in a week. I love the mouse though, and would give the gesture button another try if I can figure out use cases for it.
Pressing the gesture button -> Mission Control/ Super key on GNOME
Gesture + Move Left/Right -> Switch between full screen apps on macOS / Unbound in GNOME
Gesture + Up/Down -> Switch Workspaces in GNOME / Unbound in macOS
I leave some of the slides unbound in some systems because the action doesn't suit the software, with sliding right/left not visually matching switching between workspaces in my GNOME setup, and sliding up/down not visually matching anything except Mission Control in macOS. I don't want the same gestures to be different things on different systems so I just leave them unbound.
That's generally all I need + the horizontal wheel to handle forward/back and scrolling. If there's some other use case you really like, you can set them to the ones I've unbound, or even the forward/back keys. If you're using linux, You can get logiops (https://github.com/PixlOne/logiops) and use it to map everything.
E: I realise I've been mixing up magic mouse gestures and trackpad gestures. The magic mouse doesn't need three finger gestures, but my point about having to change the grip etc. still stands, and I do prefer the logi's use of normal mouse movements for gestures.
I couldn’t use a Magic Mouse to save my life: less than two minutes of use invariably results in severe pain in the tendons on the back of my hand. Add a couple of minutes and the pain becomes excruciating.
There's an irony to Jobs being so adament that the right click button was wrong, when the minimalist Apple mouse ended up with dozens of unique gesture inputs that are far worse for discoverability.
I can't decide my sentiment towards the Magic Mouse. With my last job I had one with a MacBook Pro, and while the system integration was really good, and the function of it was fairly good, the form wasn't.
It looks great on a desk, sure, but it's not that ergonomic, and having to flip it on its back to charge it (thus disabling it), is absolutely useless.
I use a Logitech MX Master 3 nowadays, and while not quite as ground breaking as the Magic Mouse, I'd say it's overall better. The shape of it is great for my (larger-than-average) hands, and the amount of buttons (and additional gestures via modifier button) makes up for the lack of touch surface. The absolute flagship feature though is the magshift mouse wheel, which allows for ratcheted scrolling on Windows, while also removing the ratchet mechanism when you're trying to rapidly flick through a file.
The follow up mouse with the scroll ball was much better - scrolling is useful, and it could be configured to have left and right buttons making it useful for people who know what a mouse is :)
I try to avoid that term, but this is almost the definition of a fanboy: Actively ignores obvious shortcomings of a product and argues it should be loved for a non-functional detail (its marvellous look).
Apple, great products, terrible mice. Particularly this one. And the hockey puck one. And the Magic Mouse. Surely there was a good one at some point (maybe the ADB mouse?) but, I've been using third-party mice for too long now...
> Regardless of what you may think of the Apple Pro Mouse, I believe that there’s something admirable about its stubbornness.
This reminds me of Porsche 911 engine placement.
Famously the 911 engine is at the back of the car which is about the worst location for it, except that Porsche are good at engineering and have persisted in making that location work very well for them.
The no button mouse might not be great on its own but it leads to the no button track pad, which I’d argue is.
Except there's not much your Porsche engineers can do about fundamental physics.
The possibility to kill yourself in a Porsche still exists, the only thing stopping you are the ESC/DSC systems which are, in all likelyhood, not made by Porsche anyway but OEM from someone like Bosch.
Turn off the ESC and given the opportunity physics will still remind you who's boss in the Porsche.
It does give them very unique handling. It's fun to drive an unstable car, and "fun to drive" is one of the main differentiators of sports cars from more mundane options.
I did a silverstone track day a few years ago in a single seater f1 style (but much slower) car with the engine at the back. It was super fun I agree, but also terrifying when I accidentally put it in 1st instead of third at the end if the straight and just instantly spun out. Luckily didn’t hit anyone or anything.
First, to nitpick, comparative and superlative forms of unique are nonsense, something is either unique or it isn’t.
It might be pretty rare though, like rear engines cars: hillman imp, Fiat 500, etc and of course vw microbus and beetle which rather brings us back to the 911
> Just to remind that a open wheel car or a single seat f1 style doesn't have the a rear engine like the 911, but is a middle engine car.
yeah, but then with that pedantry applied the Honda S2000, BMW 3 Series, Mazda Miata, and various other cars are technically mid-engine.
FR/MR/RR is basically useless to talk about with regards to performance dynamics; HPDEs and driver coaching has taught me that 9 times out of 10 when someone mentions where their engine is sitting in the car by using FR/MR/RR , what they're really trying to get across is where they felt their center-of-mass was during the drive.
And to that point, a Formula style car might be mid-engine, but most have a suspension and aero adjusted center-of-mass that is as aft, if not worse, than any Porsche out there.
My first car was a VW Beetle. I didn't know crap about cars, physics, handling, etc. The engine needed work so I had it rebuilt and it had pretty good power (for a Bug). Then one day I was driving fast on winding roads and quickly learned about the flaws of having a rear-engined car. I was lucky to walk away from the crash, though the Bug was totaled. Since then I've always had a fear of driving on winding roads...
It’s only a bad idea for street cars because it makes them harder to drive. For performance, it’s an excellent idea. It gives you better rear wheel traction, and allows you to connect the engine directly to the rear differential. It also allows you to have a flat floor, which makes the cabin nicer, which I’m sure is something they care about.
They fact that they go very fast, and require more skill to drive at fast speeds means they end up killing more people. Porsche used to make incredible, no-compromise, road-legal track cars, with manual gearboxes and very little driver assist. But they’ve toned that down recently, and you’ll never see it from them again. The Porsche Carrera GT was probably the absolute pinnacle of supercar design. But it was very hard to drive, and got a reputation as one of the most dangerous production cars ever made. Killing quite a few people, including Paul Walker. Nobody will ever make anything like that ever again. A novice could take a Veyron around a track, but they’d probably struggle to drive a Carrera GT out of a car park.
The benefits are primarily from the better weight distribution and engine location in relation to the rear diff. The myth of fwd having superior driveability due to better traction is only real when comparing front engine to front engine, like a civic vs a mustang. With the weight in the rear, it’s the same thing in reverse. Oversteer is far more easy to correct but rwd is uncommon so the average joe may be unfamiliar.
WRT Porsche toning things down, a modern 911 turbo S is WAY faster than the Carrera GT was, and the GT3 / GT3-RS models are literally street legal road cars with minimal assists.
It’s not about how fast they are, it’s about how easy the car is to drive. A GT3 is a road car made with road car parts and road car features (even if you buy the ‘track’ add ons, or whatever they call them). It has ‘Porsche Stability Management’, a powerful driver assist, which among other things, is especially good at controlling oversteer. The Carrera GT doesn’t have that, so controlling oversteer is completely up to the driver. It also had the first production ceramic clutch, which was notoriously difficult to use. The tires and breaks of a Carrera GT also really needed to be at proper temperature to work properly.
I’ve driven both, on the street and around a track. I’m not exaggerating to say the average stick driver would struggle to start a Carrera GT and driver it a hundred feet without making the clutch scream. If you try drive fast in one, whether you drive into a tree or not is completely up to you. In a GR3 however, it’s gonna do a significant amount of that work for you.
Having the center of gravity in the back allows for more traction with the back wheels. This then leads to better acceleration since you can pit down more power. This also allows one to accelerate quicker out of corners, again due to more traction. Having g the weight be there over the back wheels also means that the car will tend to oversteer rather than understeer which is preferable when driving quickly. And turn in is quicker, as theres less mass in the front, as long as there's traction of course. The 911 is also one of the most practical car of it's type since it has a large trunk in the front.
Since most of the weight of the car is on the back wheels, do it really need an aileron? I’ve heard ailerons were of discussable usefulness in general already, since they are only useful when turning and problematic in straight line (friction of air, and adding artificial weight, risk of flying), and therefore they needed to be adjusted in live. Is it just for the looks on the Porsche?
I don't think that the possibility to kill yourself in a supercar has much to do with its engine placement.
If you're not a trained driver and you can't control oversteer on a RWD car with the ESC turned off, you're probably going to crash no matter where the engine is.
The handling characteristics are affected by the weight distribution. An otherwise equivalent car with more rearward weight will have a larger moment of inertia during an oversteer condition. This makes it harder to regain control once you reach the limit.
Classic 50-50 distributed vehicles like a Miata or a 3 Series are very forgiving to control once you reach the limits of rear traction, which is part of the reason these vehicle are very popular for entry level motorsports.
At the company I work for everyone gets a MagicMouse. The pattern is that after 2-3 months of usage everyone gives up and switches to one of those Logitech MX mouses - so did I. MagicMouse is so goddamn uncomfortable to use if you ever touched a good comfortable mouse. It is now resting in the back of my shelf.
I ditched it too but for the track pad, I seem to be in the minority here but I find the MacBook pro track pad more than enough for navigating the OS and only really falls short for gaming.
They look nice, but OH GODNESS they are awful to use! And I’m not talking about the buttons, but the general ergonomics. My main issue is that the shape doesn’t embrace the hand at all which becomes painful quickly if used every day.
The magic mouse is exactly the right height for my (big) hands. I rest my forearm and part of my wrist on the desk, rest my index and middle fingers on the mouse surface, grip very lightly with the other fingers, and it's almost a perfect fit.
If I turn up the movement sensitivity I can move the pointer anywhere with almost no hand movement at all. Most of the weight is levered behind the wrist rather than on it so I'm using forearm muscles more than wrist tendons. The fingertip touch scrolling is super-intuitive and equally effortless.
I've used all sorts of mice from industrial Logitech blobs to gaming mice to tiny laptop mice to "ergonomic" designs, and the current magic mouse is far and away my favourite.
Unfortunately I had to use this one and the old hockey puck at work. While the form is different the pro mouse is just as bad as the puck. It gave me a lot of problems with my (meta)carpal bones.
The hockey puck is just worse because it's hard to see which direction is up.
The best mouse Apple ever made, from a comfort and ergonomic standpoint, was the ADB Mouse II [1]. This also happened to be the first mouse I ever used. It came with the Mac Performa 5200, the first computer I ever owned. Since then I’ve used a bunch of Logitech mice and most recently the trackpads on my various MacBooks.
I still miss that original one-button mouse. It was so comfortable to use and so straightforward. The operating system was designed for one-button mice, so there weren’t any context menus or anything like that. Everything was driven by the menu bar at the top of the screen or by visible buttons and toolbars to click on. This made the interface a lot more discoverable. For power users, you had keyboard shortcuts which were also very ergonomic due to the placement of the command key under the thumb, instead of the control key under the pinky.
I bought a pro mouse 2 years ago and used it until few months ago. The biggest reason for giving up this nice looking thing is that, people no longer create UI that are one-button-friendly, especially when it comes to scrolling.
omg that was the shittiest thing out there. So many accidental clicks.
Also, the magic mouse with it's horizontal gestures are insane. I don't understand how some people I know like it so much.
Apple trackpads are king :-) And I'd love to have a keyboard+trackpad combination, basically the bottom case of the macbook. Somehow the positioning of a separate keyboard and magic trackpad doesn't quite work.
I would also love this! In WFH I've been trying out some types of work with an iPad on a gooseneck (to keep it at an ergonomic height) and a Magic Keyboard/Trackpad combo on a pad on my lap arranged a bit like a Macbook but with the trackpad lower (in z, not y).
It works well, except MacOS doesn't enable palm rejection with standalone peripherals since they expect you to put the trackpad beside the keyboard on a desk, so I end up with accidental taps far too frequently.
Yeah I bought a Magic Mouse 2 earlier this year and regretted it instantly. Apple need to stop thinking outside of the box when it comes to mice.
You’re right about the positioning as well. If you have a full size Apple keyboard the trackpad is too far away always. If you have the compact layout Apple keyboard it’s too much of a compromise with keys.
Best outcome for me was turfing the lot and the Mac and getting a Logitech mouse and a TKL layout cherry MX red based keyboard. So much better.
I’m sorry but the Apple input devices are inferior even to the lowest grade no brand stuff from Aliexpress at this point.
I'm happy with the compact Apple keyboards in general, but when I got an iMac Pro at work I wanted to try out its full-sized keyboard since it is nice to have all of those extra keys. To keep the trackpad closer, I decided to put it on the left.
I normally use my right, so it took a few days to get used to it, but I quickly became fluent and the arrangement works much better. I also like it since it balances out my hands a bit more instead of doing absolutely everything with my right.
The standard Model M layout is a left-handed keyboard layout. It was a right-handed keyboard layout when the Model M came out in 1984 and very few PC users had a mouse or any kind of pointing device. But for over 25 years it's been a left-handed layout and no-one has done anything in response, because so much of computing is now a cargo cult.
I've been an Apple user since the late 80s and from a usability point of view, I hate these mice with a passion, when I buy a new Mac, they always go in to a draw and my cheap old Logitech replaces them.
Apart from the ergonomics of how they feel in the hand, it's literally impossible for the mouse to register both left and right click simultaneously, which means if I feel like playing the occasional game, I'm stuffed.
I know, I quite liked the innovations in my first Magic Mouse. The touch surface was pretty cool and it looked and felt gorgeous. I thought I’d try out my nice new iMac with Borderlands. Point at target, right click to zoom, the left click to.... left click... left.... WTF?
Saying people are shallow is probably not wrong per se, but maybe a somewhat pessimist perspective. For example, you could also conclude that beautifully made products are simply more fun to use.
Style is a part of the substance of an object; the two are not in conflict. Apple is simply one of the few companies that cares about style enough to make sacrifices in order to achieve it. And that's something I really like about Apple gear.
Of all these mice, the Magic Mouse (1st gen) is the best - but all of them, without exception, have one flaw: they are designed for people with tiny hands.
Microsoft's original IntelliMouse however? Just perfect - but unfortunately wired...
The best thing about going wired-only is that it cuts down the selection to more reliable stuff when looking for a replacement. There's a bitter note to it because I'd really like to replace my bulky Natural Ergonomic Keybard with a Sculpt. But there is no wired version of the Sculpt.
I vividly remember an elderly customer who had the wireless version positioned upside down and was totally confused by the cursor movement. He thought something was wrong with the computer and asked me for help. I 180ied the mouse and he was embarrassed as one can get. We parted silently and we never shared a word about this with anyone.
Good times!
I once had a support call for a customer whose mouse had stopped working. I told him that I get a lot of calls and I was sorry to ask but: "is it plugged in?"
Customer, who was pretty technical, was very embarrassed.
> there is no substitute for the multi-touch gestures and insanely fast scrolling you can do on this mouse
Oh there so is!
Used Magic Mouse for several years then switched to Logitech MX Master 3 because of bluetooth unreliability on the new mac mini and OH GOD WHY DIDN'T I DO THIS YEARS AGO. It's so much better ergonomically it's ridiculous. Like, are designers at Apple barred from using any third party mice? Do they not realise just how much their design sucks and how much better the alternatives are?
I used to think gestures were neat but you know what works better? BUTTONS! It's so much faster and more reliable to go back and forth in documents and web pages using buttons. The right mouse button is there, physically, unmistakably, never accidentally "pressed" when I had the negligence to touch the surface slightly to the right of its imaginary centerline. Nothing is scrolled if I move my finger a tiny bit during a simple click. The battery lasts MONTHS and gets charged in well under an hour. And yes you can use it while it is charging. Scrolling is fine now, smooth and with proper inertia but you have to install their app for it to work properly. The only case where it kind of breaks a little is on some web pages that hijack scroll with javascript and do weird thing with it designed specifically for Apple's mice.
I honestly don’t see a purpose for a mouse when you have a state of the art, not yet surpassed trackpad. Of course it is mostly regarding the MacBooks, not when you’re using an iMac or Mac Pro even though the wireless versions are also a joy to use, except for the delay you get when you’re used to a built in trackpad
Using a trackpad permanently seems like a recipe for RSI, at least I will have pain in my hand for a day or so if I use the trackpad for more than a few hours.
Ok, try to log in to app.sketchup.com and play around with it. For instance, try holding the mouse wheel button and move the mouse around while doing it, to pan.
Comes down to personal preference. I liked the touch functionality much more than i disliked shallowness and rough edges. It was very much shit for gaming though.
Same for me. It's especially stark if you compare it to something like Logitech's MX Master 2S, which just naturally slips into your hand, has enough of weight for each move to feel deliberate, has great button response and can be charged while in use.
I've been using an MX Master for the past 5 years now, and it's the best mouse I've ever used.
Nothing is perfect though, and here are some flaws:
- The battery is not properly user-replaceable (you'd need to peel the feet off to dismantle and plop in a new one). It's a lithium battery so obviously degrades over time.
- The logitech software is necessary to configure the gestures (you also need it if you want to change the scroll ratchet behaviour). The software is a little bit annoying and autoupdates, not sure what you can do if you're a linux user.
- The gesture button (which is hidden under the thumb-rest side of the mouse) has to be pressed _down_ to activate, which I still find a little awkward.
- Bluetooth on macs can be spotty (reconnects every hour or so on my macbook, which loses the cursor for a couple of second) - the dongle is more reliable, but there's only a USB-A dongle.
It's also not cheap and there's no left-handed option.
The 2S is just a slightly upgraded model with a bigger battery.
Regarding setting scroll wheel settings on Linux, if you set them on a Windows machine, the mouse should remember them, even if you switch to a different machine.
I also swapped the gesture and top button, so pressing down with my thumb switches between free-scrolling and detent mode and I use my index finger for gestures.
Admiring the dedication you put into your blog and detailed information you present.It’s awesome to come across a blog every once in a while that isn’t the same unwanted rehashed material. Fantastic read! I’ve bookmarked your site. Forcrack
https://forcrack.com/autocad-2013-crack/
And after years of using apple mice to the point the cord would eventually break and where I always had to disable the side buttons because I just kept pressing them by mistake i just bought a generic two button mouse for 10€ that is a pleasure to use, a lot more ergonomic and that has already lasted twice the time any apple mouse I have ever had.
One thing it will never be able to do is to look that good on a photograph.
There has never been a great mouse from Apple, except maybe the old Apple II mouse. The hockey puck mouse was terrible. This mouse was terrible. How they were selected to go to production says a lot about Apple's blind sides wrt usability.
It's funny how these pretty, but disastorous from usability perspecive, mice get this much attention where really excelent products like Logitech's MX Master series isn't even known by the geeks singing praises to Apple.
My only qualm with the MX Master S2 was poor Linux support. Everything else grew on me.
I'm not really embarrassed to admit that I didn't know how to use my Magic Mouse for the first year I had it. The first generation was lighter, and my skin didn't slide due to the texture of the glass so I didn't even realize it was touch. I still scroll from the touchpad with my left hand or use hotkeys.
My MX does everything I want under KDE. About 2 years ago the ability to tell me (and warn me) about my mouse battery level just appeared. It was quite nice to have an update that brought changes you wanted.
The MX Series is heavily advertised and omni-present on the internet. I’m not sure that I would say it’s a little-known or obscure mouse.
It appears in the top results on Google for “buy mouse”. The Apple mouse does not appear for me at all.
It also appears in the top YouTube results for “buy mouse”. I only thought I would add this tidbit because I found it fairly disappointing that the MX Master series (which I am not a fan of) was basically the only result that appeared when searching for a mouse. It was disappointing to see how little competition there seemed to be in the space.
It's a tired meme that Apple users simply aren't aware of the wider world outside of whatever Apple makes. Many people choose them over what others might call "really excellent" because they value things that you don't.
228 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 234 ms ] threadHowever, I have to say that despite that first extremely unpleasant experience with Apple peripherals I actually quite enjoy using my Magic Mouse, and the touch-sensitive surface is one of the more interesting innovations in a field that's largely been stagnant and where most "innovation" seems to be high-DPI lasers and RGB LEDs.
The ability to use touch gestures on the mouse itself (i.e. 3-finger swipe on the mouse's surface to switch workspaces, 2-finger swipes for browser back/fwd navigation, scrolling, etc.) is pretty awesome and not something I've seen anywhere else. I'd never depend on it for getting headshots in counterstrike but for desktop mousing it tracks okay and the battery is quite good.
As for Apple's standard keyboards for Desktop Mac or PCs, I hope you have a lamp somewhere as they still don't have any keyboard backlight functionality. Even some third-party USB-C wireless mechanical keyboards have this and are much cheaper than Apple's keyboards.
Given Apple's typical expensive pricing with their keyboards, and the lack of a keyboard backlight, you might as well say you're left in the dark.
I learned how to touch-type about 25 years ago. Backlit keyboards are superfluous if you know where the buttons are.
Gesture + Move Left/Right -> Switch between full screen apps on macOS / Unbound in GNOME
Gesture + Up/Down -> Switch Workspaces in GNOME / Unbound in macOS
I leave some of the slides unbound in some systems because the action doesn't suit the software, with sliding right/left not visually matching switching between workspaces in my GNOME setup, and sliding up/down not visually matching anything except Mission Control in macOS. I don't want the same gestures to be different things on different systems so I just leave them unbound.
That's generally all I need + the horizontal wheel to handle forward/back and scrolling. If there's some other use case you really like, you can set them to the ones I've unbound, or even the forward/back keys. If you're using linux, You can get logiops (https://github.com/PixlOne/logiops) and use it to map everything.
It looks great on a desk, sure, but it's not that ergonomic, and having to flip it on its back to charge it (thus disabling it), is absolutely useless.
I use a Logitech MX Master 3 nowadays, and while not quite as ground breaking as the Magic Mouse, I'd say it's overall better. The shape of it is great for my (larger-than-average) hands, and the amount of buttons (and additional gestures via modifier button) makes up for the lack of touch surface. The absolute flagship feature though is the magshift mouse wheel, which allows for ratcheted scrolling on Windows, while also removing the ratchet mechanism when you're trying to rapidly flick through a file.
> Fun fact: the author of this article now works at Apple in the Design team (@ArmandGrillet, 2 hours ago)
This reminds me of Porsche 911 engine placement.
Famously the 911 engine is at the back of the car which is about the worst location for it, except that Porsche are good at engineering and have persisted in making that location work very well for them.
The no button mouse might not be great on its own but it leads to the no button track pad, which I’d argue is.
The possibility to kill yourself in a Porsche still exists, the only thing stopping you are the ESC/DSC systems which are, in all likelyhood, not made by Porsche anyway but OEM from someone like Bosch.
Turn off the ESC and given the opportunity physics will still remind you who's boss in the Porsche.
I at least understand why Apple want a no-button mouse.
So the engine is behind you but in front of the rear wheels. This is generally thought to be optimal layout for a super car.
Porsche used the mid-engine layout for the 959 for example.
In fact, almost every car have a front or middle engine. The 911 is very unique in this rear placement layout.
It might be pretty rare though, like rear engines cars: hillman imp, Fiat 500, etc and of course vw microbus and beetle which rather brings us back to the 911
yeah, but then with that pedantry applied the Honda S2000, BMW 3 Series, Mazda Miata, and various other cars are technically mid-engine.
FR/MR/RR is basically useless to talk about with regards to performance dynamics; HPDEs and driver coaching has taught me that 9 times out of 10 when someone mentions where their engine is sitting in the car by using FR/MR/RR , what they're really trying to get across is where they felt their center-of-mass was during the drive.
And to that point, a Formula style car might be mid-engine, but most have a suspension and aero adjusted center-of-mass that is as aft, if not worse, than any Porsche out there.
They fact that they go very fast, and require more skill to drive at fast speeds means they end up killing more people. Porsche used to make incredible, no-compromise, road-legal track cars, with manual gearboxes and very little driver assist. But they’ve toned that down recently, and you’ll never see it from them again. The Porsche Carrera GT was probably the absolute pinnacle of supercar design. But it was very hard to drive, and got a reputation as one of the most dangerous production cars ever made. Killing quite a few people, including Paul Walker. Nobody will ever make anything like that ever again. A novice could take a Veyron around a track, but they’d probably struggle to drive a Carrera GT out of a car park.
WRT Porsche toning things down, a modern 911 turbo S is WAY faster than the Carrera GT was, and the GT3 / GT3-RS models are literally street legal road cars with minimal assists.
I’ve driven both, on the street and around a track. I’m not exaggerating to say the average stick driver would struggle to start a Carrera GT and driver it a hundred feet without making the clutch scream. If you try drive fast in one, whether you drive into a tree or not is completely up to you. In a GR3 however, it’s gonna do a significant amount of that work for you.
That's what makes the 911 a weird and unusual car.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugatti_Veyron
Porsche have used rear (e.g. 911), mid (e.g. 959, 917, 956) and front (e.g. 928) engine layouts over time.
The 911 is iconic though and customers like its design so they've persevered with it.
Classic 50-50 distributed vehicles like a Miata or a 3 Series are very forgiving to control once you reach the limits of rear traction, which is part of the reason these vehicle are very popular for entry level motorsports.
This mouse has a nice form.
Regular ones have sides that are curved inwards as they go down to the desk, this allows you to tilt your hand without actually losing grip.
I just dont get how people like the magic mouse.
If I turn up the movement sensitivity I can move the pointer anywhere with almost no hand movement at all. Most of the weight is levered behind the wrist rather than on it so I'm using forearm muscles more than wrist tendons. The fingertip touch scrolling is super-intuitive and equally effortless.
I've used all sorts of mice from industrial Logitech blobs to gaming mice to tiny laptop mice to "ergonomic" designs, and the current magic mouse is far and away my favourite.
The hockey puck is just worse because it's hard to see which direction is up.
I still miss that original one-button mouse. It was so comfortable to use and so straightforward. The operating system was designed for one-button mice, so there weren’t any context menus or anything like that. Everything was driven by the menu bar at the top of the screen or by visible buttons and toolbars to click on. This made the interface a lot more discoverable. For power users, you had keyboard shortcuts which were also very ergonomic due to the placement of the command key under the thumb, instead of the control key under the pinky.
[1] https://www.imagine41.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/apple_d...
Also, the magic mouse with it's horizontal gestures are insane. I don't understand how some people I know like it so much.
Apple trackpads are king :-) And I'd love to have a keyboard+trackpad combination, basically the bottom case of the macbook. Somehow the positioning of a separate keyboard and magic trackpad doesn't quite work.
It works well, except MacOS doesn't enable palm rejection with standalone peripherals since they expect you to put the trackpad beside the keyboard on a desk, so I end up with accidental taps far too frequently.
You’re right about the positioning as well. If you have a full size Apple keyboard the trackpad is too far away always. If you have the compact layout Apple keyboard it’s too much of a compromise with keys.
Best outcome for me was turfing the lot and the Mac and getting a Logitech mouse and a TKL layout cherry MX red based keyboard. So much better.
I’m sorry but the Apple input devices are inferior even to the lowest grade no brand stuff from Aliexpress at this point.
I normally use my right, so it took a few days to get used to it, but I quickly became fluent and the arrangement works much better. I also like it since it balances out my hands a bit more instead of doing absolutely everything with my right.
I particularly like the sign off.
Apart from the ergonomics of how they feel in the hand, it's literally impossible for the mouse to register both left and right click simultaneously, which means if I feel like playing the occasional game, I'm stuffed.
-> bin.
Microsoft's original IntelliMouse however? Just perfect - but unfortunately wired...
I once had a support call for a customer whose mouse had stopped working. I told him that I get a lot of calls and I was sorry to ask but: "is it plugged in?"
Customer, who was pretty technical, was very embarrassed.
Oh there so is!
Used Magic Mouse for several years then switched to Logitech MX Master 3 because of bluetooth unreliability on the new mac mini and OH GOD WHY DIDN'T I DO THIS YEARS AGO. It's so much better ergonomically it's ridiculous. Like, are designers at Apple barred from using any third party mice? Do they not realise just how much their design sucks and how much better the alternatives are?
I used to think gestures were neat but you know what works better? BUTTONS! It's so much faster and more reliable to go back and forth in documents and web pages using buttons. The right mouse button is there, physically, unmistakably, never accidentally "pressed" when I had the negligence to touch the surface slightly to the right of its imaginary centerline. Nothing is scrolled if I move my finger a tiny bit during a simple click. The battery lasts MONTHS and gets charged in well under an hour. And yes you can use it while it is charging. Scrolling is fine now, smooth and with proper inertia but you have to install their app for it to work properly. The only case where it kind of breaks a little is on some web pages that hijack scroll with javascript and do weird thing with it designed specifically for Apple's mice.
The design and aesthetics were just _so_ good, like a sugar drop.
It's too shallow for my hands
It has a rough edge around the back when it should be smooth, the cheap plastic top doesn't line up perfectly with the metallic base.
And does tell you, you are low on battery until the day you need to recharge and you can't use it and recharge!!
It is the epitomy of bad design.
But that said I like the look of the older mice!
Ok, try to log in to app.sketchup.com and play around with it. For instance, try holding the mouse wheel button and move the mouse around while doing it, to pan.
Or panning while scrolling up/down at the same time?
I'm always distrustful of fancy looking mice but I read a list of the features and it looks great
Nothing is perfect though, and here are some flaws:
- The battery is not properly user-replaceable (you'd need to peel the feet off to dismantle and plop in a new one). It's a lithium battery so obviously degrades over time.
- The logitech software is necessary to configure the gestures (you also need it if you want to change the scroll ratchet behaviour). The software is a little bit annoying and autoupdates, not sure what you can do if you're a linux user.
- The gesture button (which is hidden under the thumb-rest side of the mouse) has to be pressed _down_ to activate, which I still find a little awkward.
- Bluetooth on macs can be spotty (reconnects every hour or so on my macbook, which loses the cursor for a couple of second) - the dongle is more reliable, but there's only a USB-A dongle.
It's also not cheap and there's no left-handed option.
The 2S is just a slightly upgraded model with a bigger battery.
I also swapped the gesture and top button, so pressing down with my thumb switches between free-scrolling and detent mode and I use my index finger for gestures.
One thing it will never be able to do is to look that good on a photograph.
(fun = impossible)
I also have a Magic Mouse for My MBP but, except it's touch surface, it's worlds apart.
I'm not really embarrassed to admit that I didn't know how to use my Magic Mouse for the first year I had it. The first generation was lighter, and my skin didn't slide due to the texture of the glass so I didn't even realize it was touch. I still scroll from the touchpad with my left hand or use hotkeys.
Love your tools. If you don't, find ones you do.
So I guess I don't mean that it's lacking functionality, but that Logitech doesn't support it's software on Linux.
I prefer Magic Mouse on my Mac. Actually I mostly use use my trackpad.
I think Apple has nailed their gestures, which makes me prefer their pointing devices over third party.
So yes, MX is known by Apple sheeps.
It appears in the top results on Google for “buy mouse”. The Apple mouse does not appear for me at all.
It also appears in the top YouTube results for “buy mouse”. I only thought I would add this tidbit because I found it fairly disappointing that the MX Master series (which I am not a fan of) was basically the only result that appeared when searching for a mouse. It was disappointing to see how little competition there seemed to be in the space.