Okay, it may not be the most spectacular part of the computing experience — but Apple has always had a special place in its heart for the l’il critter that helped launch Revolution #1.
Here’s a quick stroll down memory lane, starting with the very first Macintosh mouse (which clearly shared some DNA with the common chimney brick).
Savor for a moment one of Apple’s most wretched mistakes: the hockey-puck mouse that shipped with the original iMac. Having no obvious “up” or “down” by feel, it sent cursors flying in all the wrong directions. A classic case of over-design. For consumers it was a major annoyance, for pros (it also shipped with the Power Mac) it was an outright insult.
Fortunately, chief designer Jony Ive recovered from that one. Form and function then lived happily ever after as we got the multi-button mouse with no buttons, the innovative scroll wheel (on the questionably named Mighty Mouse), and now, fresh out of the oven, the Magic Mouse. Clearly, this is the mother of all mice — now standard with the new iMacs and also available separately.
I tried one the other day and, creepy as it may sound, it actually made me smile. The entire mouse is a button, the entire surface is touch sensitive. You scroll or flip through pages simply by sliding a finger or two. It really is one of those “what will they think of next” moments. And it gives you the feeling that Apple puts more thinking into their mouse than most computer makers put into their PCs.
