Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Apple's Mighty Mouse

With x86 OS X coming up, Apple figured it would be a good idea to take multiple-button mice a little more seriously. However, they didn't want to freak out their single-button fans. So they came up with a really interesting little piece of technology:

Apple - Mighty Mouse
Meet the mouse that reinvented the wheel. The scroll wheel, that is. At $49, Mighty Mouse features the revolutionary Scroll Ball that lets you move anywhere inside a document, without lifting a finger. And with touch-sensitive technology concealed under the seamless top shell, you get the programability of a four-button mouse in a single-button design. Click, roll, squeeze and scroll. This mouse just aced the maze.

This mouse has no buttons. It just has one big top, making it look like a single-click mouse. However, its top is touch sensitive, and thus able to detect if a number of key areas are simply being touched. Its sides are force sensitive, thus making it able to tell if the mouse is being squeezed. So you can get the functionality of lots of different buttons IF YOU WANT and otherwise you can treat it like a one button mouse (with, perhaps, an extra squeeze button or scroll wheel).

I wonder if this mouse has a good way of rejecting false clicks though. I like to rest my hand on my mouse, and sometimes I like to take my hand off the mouse and put it back on later without clicking. Will it get confused and start clicking?

It should be interesting.

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