Comment by usefulcat
8 years ago
> Steve sighed and explained that “iMac was for first-time computer buyers and every study showed that if you put more than one button on the mouse, the users ended up staring at the mouse.”
That's a bit like saying that the worst thing about losing an arm is that now your shirts don't fit.
The iMac mouse sucked because it was round, making it nearly impossible to tell without looking at it whether it was pointed the right way. So when you thought you were moving it straight up, the pointer would nearly always wander off to the side. I never did understand how they could make such a huge blunder, given that the mouse is literally the first control (after the power button) one would typically use to interact with a Mac.
I totally get why so many people hated those mice, but I loved them. I collected them from people who didn't like them so I could keep using them for years. My last one finally crapped out in 2015. Now I'm in a love/hate relationship with the Magic Mouse 2. Which I believe also elicits strong feelings from people.
Not just because it was round, but because it was round without tactile directional cues. DEC had some round mice, which, while not great, did not have the Jobs-puck orientation problem because they had distinct buttons. https://www.oldmouse.com/articles/hawley/DEC-VAX.shtml
I remember having this problem in my fifth grade computer lab, along with disliking the single button.
I’m not sure how they justified filling a computer lab in an elementary school with iMacs, especially since the only things we did on them were typing tests and playing Oregon Trail.
> I’m not sure how they justified filling a computer lab in an elementary school with iMacs, especially since the only things we did on them were typing tests and playing Oregon Trail.
Because it made someone at least four levels removed from your school feel good about themselves that they were able to integrate technology in the classroom.