Apple Mouse

The Apple Mouse began as one of the first commercial mice available to consumers. Over the years Apple has maintained a distinct form and function with its mice that reflects its design philosophies.

Features

Perhaps the single most important feature that sets mice manufactured by Apple apart from others is the emphasis on a single button control interface. It was not until 2005 that Apple introduced a mouse featuring a scroll ball and four programmable "buttons."

All mice made by Apple contained a ball-tracking control mechanism until 2000, when Apple introduced optical LED based control mechanisms. Apple's latest mouse uses laser tracking.

History

In 1979, Apple was planning a business computer and arranged a visit with Xerox Parc research center to view some of their experimental technology. It was there they discovered the mouse, invented by Douglas Engelbart while he was working at SRI International (SRI); the mouse had subsequently been incorporated into the graphical user interface (GUI) used on the Xerox Alto. During an interview, Engelbart said "SRI patented the mouse, but they really had no idea of its value. Some years later it was learned that they had licensed it to Apple for something like $40,000." Apple was so inspired by the mouse they scrapped their current plans and redesigned everything around the mouse and GUI.

Apple Pro Mouse

The Apple Mouse (formerly Apple Pro Mouse) was introduced in July 2000 at the Macworld Conference & Expo in New York City. Apple Computer was one of the first companies to ship an optical mouse as the standard input device. While the industrial design of the Pro Mouse was handled entirely by Apple's in-house designers, some of the hardware has been engineered by Sparkfactor Design. The Pro Mouse was included with the Power Mac G4 Cube, also introduced at that year's Macworld. Apple was the first company to use USB mice and keyboards exclusively when they introduced the "hockey-puck" mouse with the original iMac G3 in May 1998. Like the "hockey-puck" mouse and all future mice Apple would make, the Apple Pro Mouse was a USB mouse with a much shorter cord than its ADB predecessors, its 2-foot cord was designed to plug neatly into one of the two ports of the Apple Pro Keyboard's built-in USB hub. The Apple Pro Mouse also featured a unique mechanism to allow for 3 click force settings for the required pressure to click the mouse. The Apple Pro Mouse was originally released on the iMac G3 "Snow."

Apple Mighty Mouse

The Apple Mouse (formerly Apple Mighty Mouse) is a multi-control USB mouse manufactured by Mitsumi Electric and sold by Apple Inc. It was announced and sold for the first time on August 2, 2005, and a Bluetooth version was available from 2006 to 2009. Before the Mighty Mouse, Apple had sold only one-button mice with its computers, beginning with the Apple Lisa 22 years earlier.

On October 20, 2009, the wireless Mighty Mouse was discontinued and replaced by the multi-touch Magic Mouse. The wired version of the device remains available, but was renamed the "Apple Mouse" as of the same date, due to trademark issues with another manufacturer of a device named "Mighty Mouse".

Design

The Mighty Mouse is made of white plastic and has a recessed Apple logo on the mouse's face. The mouse has four functional controls: a left capacitive sensor, a right capacitive sensor, a track ball with a pressure sensor and side squeeze sensors. The track ball enables users to scroll a page or document in any direction, including diagonally. Instead of mechanical buttons, the touch-sensitive topshell (mentioned below) and the pressure sensing trackball allow the mouse to detect which side is being touched or whether the trackball is being held in.