Is it just me, or do Apple think that we live in this weird sorta utopia where everything has a touch screen, and a button is something to be embarrassed about.
I bet Steve Jobs has no belly button, it's a dial like on the iPod, and it uses fluff free engine technology.
Just seems to me that these things are sold to gadget hungry technophiles rather than professionals. I'm looking at my mouse at work, laser, 2 buttons, 1 scroll wheel - I look where I want the mouse pointer to be then my hand almost magically makes it go there. It won't replace a tablet, touch screen, and to be honest I don't see what real benefit it has to a pro over a conventional mouse. A scroll wheel is tactile, micro-switches are tactile - I don't need to drag photographs around, I do need to be sure when I press the mouse button, I do actually like the clicky scroll wheel that actually feels like your doing something when using it.
My mouse at home cost 1/3rd the price of this, it's a laser mouse, and it's so accurate that I can draw a pixel width line across the screen with it (if I'm careful
). I just don't see what the benefits are, besides impressing your IT-illiterate friends.
My mouse doesn't need to know if my hand is just resting on it, because me and my mouse have an agreement - if I want to click, I press the button, if I want to scroll I roll the wheel.
I do like Apples designs, they are always neat, and that magnetic cable idea is just genius, I've seen many laptops put to sleep because of dodgy power connectors. What I don't like is how they are always trying to move away from convention, and sometimes convention knows better. First their mouse has 1 button, now the whole mouse is a button, that does everything, even things that your wouldn't really need your mouse to do.
We have to wonder what is next after this thing... a keyboard with no keys perhaps, or a joystick that is just a stick. Some of us like tactile gadgets, and with the design of the iPod I thought that Apple got that too, having a wheel that is responsive and high quality made the iPod what it is today - using other media players is like squeezing a head pimple in comparison, damn horrible little joysticks and chrome-plastic button stupidity.
Personally, I'd rather see a cost effective entry level mac laptop - to compete with netbooks which are being eaten up by the low-skill end of the market. Maybe that should be a concern given the lack of anyone buying anything right now.
Horrifically long post I know, I think they annoyed me with that laser mouse spiel, they make it sound as if other mice are made from chocolate and would melt in your hand if you put a laser in one of them. Like it's been written by a marketing troll with absolutely no real understanding. It's so accurate that they fail to mention how accurate it actually is - we just know it has a lazer beam in it.
