Apple's New Mouse Retains Flawed Charging Design
- Reference: 0175339109
- News link: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/10/28/1919238/apples-new-mouse-retains-flawed-charging-design
- Source link:
[1] https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MXK63AM/A/magic-mouse-usb%E2%80%91c-black-multi-touch-surface
[2] https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/10/28/169206/apple-updates-the-imac-with-m4-chip
[3] https://apple.slashdot.org/story/17/09/30/0544225/apple-is-really-bad-at-design
hmmm.. (Score:3)
The battery in the $5 mouse from Dollarama that I am using has been running for several months on a dollar store Panasonic Battery.
Re: hmmm.. (Score:3)
I honestly want someone from Apple to explain to me why Chinese knockoffs smart watches allow notifications to go to my phone and my watch simultaneously as well as last >10 days on a charge, yet my supposedly superior Apple Watch (at 4x the cost) lasts barely a day and doesnâ(TM)t allow for this.
The only reason I use the Apple Watch instead is because my cheap Chinese knockoff for $27 didnâ(TM)t track swimming.
Ridiculous.
And that is why.. (Score:3)
I don't own or use an Apple mouse on any of my devices. At work I even use an HP wired mouse, it works.
This just a stupid form over function decision to the detriment of its users.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd argue that this doesn't even count as form over function because it still looks stupid when charging.
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And I agree with that too.
Pointless whining (Score:2, Insightful)
Charge it at night. Use it for months. Charge it one night.
Of all the massive things to complain about when it comes to Apple, this has to be the most ridiculous overblown one.
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Which night should people charge it? There's no battery meter.
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There is a web server inside the mouse which will tell you how much charge is remaining. You can also download the app which will send you an iMessage on the night it needs to be charged.
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I don't understand how this helps when the mouse is dead and needs recharging? You are trying to justify stupidity. Why would you put a charging port underneath when it could very easily be placed in the front?
It's like saying why even bother with seat belts and airbags since you can see the accident coming so just hit the breaks.
It's a terrible design in functionality and don't get me started on ergonomics. The design reminds me of this skit; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bhrBdgYTV8
Re: (Score:2)
Why would you put a charging port underneath when it could very easily be placed in the front?
There may be a technical reason.. they choose to build a charging circuit that does not support charging while the unit is operating and they want it that way - in this case if the port was in an accessible position: People might think their mouse is broken, since they plug their mouse in and cannot operate the mouse while it is in charging mode.
Having the mouse powered on causes an additional load on the battery
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> There may be a technical reason.. they choose to build a charging circuit that does not support charging while the unit is operating and they want it that way - in this case if the port was in an accessible position: People might think their mouse is broken, since they plug their mouse in and cannot operate the mouse while it is in charging mode.
No there isn't. Every other single wireless mouse on earth manages to be used while charging. This excuse is pure mental gymnastics.
The 'load' of the mouse sensor and wireless circuitry is measurable in the milliamps , and the charging input in amps. There neither needs to be any load on the battery while charging it as the USB input can handle the load, nor any issues with damaging the battery if loading it instead of taking operational power directly from the USB connection.
There is absolutely no jus
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No.
1) It would be the only device they make that does this.
2) It's not powered off. It's still responding to BT endpoint queries.
You could move the goalposts on 2 and say, "well maybe they just can't handle the additional load of the capacitive surface and the emitter/sensor", but hopefully the need to move those goalposts will help you understand your hypothesis doesn't hold a gram of water.
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It's not powered off. It's still responding to BT endpoint queries.
hm. Safety feature, so the mouse is not in the user's palm when the battery overheats during charging and blows up in a fiery mess.
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> It's not powered off. It's still responding to BT endpoint queries.
> hm. Safety feature, so the mouse is not in the user's palm when the battery overheats during charging and blows up in a fiery mess.
And yet, the Magic Trackpad can be used while plugged in. I think the "strain on the cable" theory is the most plausible, but even that is still pretty lame. If Logitech [1]could pull it off [amazon.com], surely Apple can.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-MX-Master-3S-Graphite/dp/B09HM94VDS/ref=asc_df_B09HM94VDS/
Re: (Score:2)
> And yet, the Magic Trackpad can be used while plugged in.
And the Magic Keyboard. And your iPhone. And... every single wireless device that Apple makes, except for this.
> I think the "strain on the cable" theory is the most plausible,
Couldn't disagree more. It's laughably implausible from where I'm standing.
> If Logitech could pull it off [amazon.com], surely Apple can.
You mean every single wireless mouse manufacturer on the planet.
There's a more reasonable explanation- hold a magic mouse, and ask yourself "where would you put the hole, without screwing up its very pretty lines?".
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One wonders why my Magic Keyboard isn't a similar explosion risk.
The reason is aesthetics.
If you look at the magic mouse, they'd have to leave a big gaping hole somewhere in its smooth lines. They don't want to.
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> There is a web server inside the mouse which will tell you how much charge is remaining. You can also download the app which will send you an iMessage on the night it needs to be charged.
... You think this is an acceptable substitute for a simple battery level indicator?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know anything about a web server, but when I wrote the Linux kernel driver for the Magic Mouse, it used a very simple USB HID packet to report battery level. I haven't used one with my Macbook (which I got long after I wrote that driver), but the Macbook usually shows battery level for Bluetooth-attached devices, so I expect it does the same for Apple's peripherals.
Re:Pointless whining (Score:4, Insightful)
At least be informed: the battery level of any Apple wireless device is visible in the Bluetooth menu/settings. It's been there since... well, at least for the many years I've had a magic mouse.
There's also a pretty visible notification that pops up telling you it's at 10%, which still lasts for a long time on these devices.
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As someone who is informed: Precisely zero people are regularly going into their Bluetooth menu to check the battery settings, and no 10% does not last a long time on these devices. If it happens at the start of a busy day you may not make it to the end. Bonus points if you remember the time between the warning and the end of the day, only to find the day after that your mouse is flat.
That low battery warning is something that a normal consumer with a standard consumer friendly mouse would use as an indicat
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If you're on a Mac you'll get a notification when it's getting low and that you should charge. *DAYS* in advance.
You're not going to be surprised.
As people have said elsewhere, there are actual things to complain about with these mice for most people. Comfort (for instance, it's not great for my carpal tunnel, I much prefer the trackpads personally), the way the alternate buttons work, all sorts of things. But the charging thing? It's overblown.
Re: (Score:2)
Overblown? Sure. But it's also the easiest thing in the physical design to change. They could very easily keep the shell (minus the new hole for the port obviously) and shift around the internals all while sacrificing nothing, not even form or beauty or whatever they pretend to care about. Either Apple's hardware designers are naturally bad, or Apple leadership forces them to be bad.
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Overblown- yes. It's not something that really impacts people (in some amount of cases approaching all).
However- that doesn't mean criticism over its stupidity is unwarranted.
Because let's face it- it is stupid.
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I don't know. I bought my aunt an iMac. That mouse is pretty fucking stupid.
You literally have to turn the fucking thing upside down, and leave it that way, to charge it. And ultimately- just why?
Why can't they, like every other fucking company on this planet, put the charging port in a reasonable spot.
It's fucking stupid.
Goofy! (Score:2)
Nobody in his right mind uses an Apple mouse. Besides all the obvious flaws, they weight a ton. Whenever I get a new mac, the first thing I do is put the Apple mouse in a drawer and plug in the lightest mouse I can find. Usually that's a $7 wired Logitech. I keep a stash of them at home. My wife beats the crap out of them, but at $7 each, that's not a problem. None of that carpal tunnel for me.
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To each their own, I guess. I don't like lightweight mice, or keyboards. Not only do I actively use it, but my Magic Mouse is the lighter of the two mice I actively use. The mouse I use on my PC (Logitech G502) even without the add-in weights is heavier than the Magic Mouse.
The one thing I really think Apple got right was making the whole surface of the mouse active. Finger scrolling in whatever direction you need, while simultaneously moving the pointer with your wrist, is really nice.
This is a purposeful design decision (Score:1)
"The port location... renders the mouse unusable while charging."
They don't want folks to use it while it's charging. It's a wireless mouse so they designed it to be non-functional while it's plugged in.
Users might have to adapt a little bit. Reasonable people can disagree with the decision. But people who write about technological design should not be entirely confounded by this 10 years after the launch.
Re: This is a purposeful design decision (Score:1)
Just because that's how they want you to use it does not make it good design. It's stupid design, especially since you don't know when it will run out of battery until it abruptly does in the middle of work. Being told not to use your mouse when you actively want to use it is very dumb.
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What part of "Apple wants its products to be used in the way it thinks all users will want it to be" moto of Apple did you miss in the memo? That's the story with practically every Apple product. The last Apple product I bought was in 2016 and was a used 2011 Macbook Air because of the form factor and portability, and I immediately installed Parrot Linux on it without even booting it into MacOS. Some of their products are pretty nice if you can circumvent their O/S on them.
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It is brilliant design. It does exactly what Apple is intending: Don't use your mouse while charging. Don't damage your charging port by pulling on a cable. Keep your mouse free from any entanglement while working.
"But I urgently want to use the mouse, and I don't care if it is still connected to a socket!" Then buy another mouse to your liking.
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> It is brilliant design. It does exactly what Apple is intending: Don't use your mouse while charging. Don't damage your charging port by pulling on a cable. Keep your mouse free from any entanglement while working.
> "But I urgently want to use the mouse, and I don't care if it is still connected to a socket!" Then buy another mouse to your liking.
If your charge port is going to be damaged by mousing around with the cable attached, it wasn't made very well in the first place, IMO.
That said, who actually buys these things? I don't know anyone who uses a mouse. Trackpads are so much more user-friendly for pretty much all purposes, and they don't have any problem being used with a cable connected, because like all reasonable input devices, they don't move around.
Mice have always sucked, whether you're talking about roller ball mice or optical mice. T
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I don't care about the charging of the Apple mouse because I'm happy with a Logitec that runs for a year on a single battery.
But what I don't understand is you like a trackpad, I find it hopeless and prefer the red clit (Trackpoint) of this Thinkpad.
To each his own :)
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Oh, shut the fuck up.
Don't damage your charging port by pulling on a cable. Did you have a straight face while typing that?
Re: This is a purposeful design decision (Score:2)
The mouse is part of the price of most desktop macs, so you have to buy it. If I am being forced to buy that mouse I'd at least hope it's good.
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> "The port location... renders the mouse unusable while charging." They don't want folks to use it while it's charging. It's a wireless mouse so they designed it to be non-functional while it's plugged in. Users might have to adapt a little bit. Reasonable people can disagree with the decision. But people who write about technological design should not be entirely confounded by this 10 years after the launch.
When literally every other wireless mouse in existence has this one figured out, it's completely valid to complain about a crap design no matter how long after the launch. I have a super cheap wireless mouse that can plug in (at the front of the mouse) and still be used just as a wired mouse while it recharges. I don't see any detriment to the mouse or the user in this design. Apple just doesn't like seeing ports on their products while in use. Which may make sense to a designer, but designers that aren't a
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> When literally every other wireless mouse in existence has this one figured out, it's completely valid to complain about a crap design no matter how long after the launch. I have a super cheap wireless mouse that can plug in (at the front of the mouse) and still be used just as a wired mouse while it recharges
Right next to my Apple wireless mouse is an Apple wireless keyboard. When I get the "Keyboard battery very low" message, I just plug it in for an hour while I keep on working. Why can't my mouse work the same way?
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Bullshit.
My PC laptop has had the same wireless mouse that I charge and use while charging for almost 10 years, which is about 9 years past what Apple wants you to own that device for.
Speaking as a MBP owner.
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So its stupid on purpose?
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> "people who write about technological design should not be entirely confounded by this 10 years after the launch.
Maybe they should if it continues to be confounding after 10 years. Maybe they should if it is actually MORE confounding after 10 years of iteration and hindsight.
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It's a terrible fucking design. That opens it to criticism for as long as they continue perpetuating that stupid fucking design.
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This is thunderously stupid attempt at justification.
Why wouldn't they want folks to use it while charging? Are their engineers so incompetent they can't make a mouse that can handle charging while in use, like every other rechargeable wireless mouse does? The users want to use the mouse while charging, there is zero technical justification for not making that possible.
They aren't confounded by how Apple wants this to be not used, they are confounded by how fucking stupid this design was in the first place,
Apple is f*ing losing it (Score:2)
New product lines no one wants, non updates to old products that could use actual updates. Where's the wireless charging mouse and mousepad, never think about charging it again. Tim Cook is past retirement time.
Doesn't surprise me (Score:2)
"Looks" appears to be very important for Apple products. Having an open hole would be considered ugly. But, to be fair, I looked up picture of the mouse and putting a hole on the lower part of it where it can continue to be used while plugged in doesn't appear to be practical. Does it tell you that it's about to run out of juice so that you can charge it at the end of the day for the next few months?
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> "Looks" appears to be very important for Apple products. Having an open hole would be considered ugly.
Perhaps we should talk about how it "looks" to have your mouse sitting there on its side, rendered unusable because the charging cable is plugged into the bottom... while you're sitting there, having to use a second mouse.
I had a rechargeable bluetooth travel mouse 15+ years ago that would let me continue to use it while it was charging.
Not surprised (Score:2)
Why am I not surprised? Apple has always been a design company. Form over function in pretty much all their design. The only reason to put the USB port in that location is because they think it it looks better like that.
Mitch Hedberg (Score:2)
Escalator temporarily stairs - sorry for the convenience.
All rechargeable mouses suck (Score:2)
Let me swap the damn battery. And use AAs not AAAs. Same with game controllers.
Re: (Score:2)
Looking at the dimensions for this mouse, it wouldn't be able to fit a AAA in there even if you lubed it with Vaseline or grease.
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> Looking at the dimensions for this mouse, it wouldn't be able to fit a AAA in there even if you lubed it with Vaseline or grease.
New Magic Mouse (USBC) - Black Multi-Touch Surface
Height: 0.85 inch (2.16 cm)
Width: 2.25 inches (5.71 cm)
Depth: 4.47 inches (11.35 cm)
An AAA battery measures 10.5 mm (0.41 in) in diameter and 44.5 mm (1.75 in) in length.
Seems to me you could fit quite a few in there, even with shitty apple design.
Re: All rechargeable mouses suck (Score:2)
Don't buy the shittiest one from Amazon and your opinion will improve
Re: (Score:2)
The very first version of the Magic Mouse (2009-2015) did actually use two AA batteries.
The Mobee Magic Charger replaces the batteries in that model with a rechargeable battery pack that allows the mouse to be charged wirelessly through induction. I find it weird that Apple hasn't copied that for the Magic Mouse, considering that its phones, watches and earbuds to that.
Meh (Score:2)
Vote with your dollars. Buy a real mouse, and buy a real computer while you're at it.
It's odd... (Score:2)
I bought one of those Jellycomb wireless trackballs a few years ago, and I've never charged it.
And yet it just seems to keep working. Almost like magic. I figure give it a few more years and I'll have to find the USB charging cable, but from an EE perspective, I'm honestly impressed.
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Sometimes I wonder if some of those trackballs have a way to scarf some small amounts of energy when moved around, but not so much that it gives perceptible resistance.
For me, at work, the generic Dell mice work well enough, assuming they have a scroll wheel. For home/gaming, a Bad Dragon mouse is relatively inexpensive, and once you set up the macros and buttons, you don't need the included software. Their MMO mouse is pretty solid and has a nice DPI control.
It's an overall Apple plan to return to... (Score:2)
Single tasking operating systems.
Can we convert mouse motion into electricity? (Score:3)
When you use a mouse, a common gesture is to quickly snap your wrist back to reposition the mouse and continue moving the pointer. Always wondered whether some internal mechanism couldn't be derived to capture some of that motion and convert into a trickle charge.
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> When you use a mouse, a common gesture is to quickly snap your wrist back to reposition the mouse and continue moving the pointer. Always wondered whether some internal mechanism couldn't be derived to capture some of that motion and convert into a trickle charge.
OK, Reagan. We're not falling for that again!
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Of course. But nothing's free.
The cost is resistance to the motion. People can be very sensitive to the mass of their mouse. Having one that resists rapid movements, even by a very tiny amount, could be pretty unpalatable. That being said, there are probably plenty of people who wouldn't care... So the next question becomes- is it really worthwhile? I'd love to know the answer to that.
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Any harvesting of energy to charge your mouse ultimately results in that energy being provided by your wrist, i.e. increasing potential wrist strain. Additionally most such energy harvesting mechanisms rely on some form of mass/spring to generate the charge. Having such a dynamic component in your mouse will also affect your pointing accuracy.
Apple used to make great mice. (Score:2)
Back in the 90s they had one of the best options on the market, the Desktop Bus Mouse II. The placement of the ball, yes a ball, was position towards the front making cursor control very precise for the time. I could draw with this mouse and would switch between it and my Wacom for vector stuff. The overall shape of the mouse was comfortable to use.
Then Jobs came back and while he deservers all the credit in the world for making Apple the power house it is now, it was under his direction that we got th
Re: (Score:2)
That stupid fucking hockey puck would give me the nastiest thumb cramps. A pox on the house of whoever designed that shape.
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> Back in the 90s they had one of the best options on the market, the Desktop Bus Mouse II. The placement of the ball, yes a ball, was position towards the front making cursor control very precise for the time. I could draw with this mouse and would switch between it and my Wacom for vector stuff. The overall shape of the mouse was comfortable to use.
>
> Then Jobs came back and while he deservers all the credit in the world for making Apple the power house it is now, it was under his direction that we got the hockey-puck mouse -- which at least where I worked quickly got replaced as I'm pretty sure it instantly caused Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and then later the magic mouse. Awful mice IMO. I would not be surprised to find out that the vast majority of hockey puck mice ended up in landfills or crippled their users.
+1. I used an ADB Mouse II with an ADB-to-USB adapter with my desktop machine up until I stopped using desktop machines.
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The position of the ball is one of those innovations that have been lost in "modern" technology.
The centre of gravity and the point of pointing is the same point: and it is right in-between the user's fingertips.
It was actually not found by Apple, but by (what later became) the design house IDEO, in their work for Microsoft to design the 1987 [1]"Microsoft Mouse" [ideo.com], colloquially called the "Soap bar mouse".
The designers had done a lot of user testing, and found that the new ball position had a measurable effect
[1] https://www.ideo.com/case-study/a-hand-friendly-precisely-controlled-mouse
No Image (Score:1)
Really? Why did I have to perform a search to find out what the charging port looks like? The summary links to Apple's product page. It has one overhead picture of the mouse. Not even a side image so you can tell how tall it is. No back image, though tons of companies don't show product backs. It's nearing 2025. Why are companies still too lazy to put in the tiniest effort when selling their products online? Scammers do a better job listing their fake products than real companies do of their actual
Car can't be driven while fueling (Score:2)
I mean is that next? Once and awhile to let your mouse charge isn't a big deal, especially since you can charge it for five minutes and get enough use out of it to plug it in that night to charge it. In addition you have a ton of ways to tell how much power it has left...so..you know, be an adult and charge it before it's dead?
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Don't be stupid.
There's a valid reason you can't refill the explosive fuel of your vehicle in motion.
Now military pilots? They can. You, though? No.
But the real analogy you were looking for was:
What's next? Stopping your light rail/subway train to charge it?!?!
Can the stupid design be mitigated against? Of course it can. But why the fuck do we have to?
Maybe... (Score:2)
You're holding it wrong!
Obvious Fix (Score:2)
They just needed to make a small charging dock that you sit the mouse on when not in use. This is an obvious fix if you are married to the stupid design of that comically small and useless mouse they make. The thing is nothing but a hand cramp waiting to happen, I vastly prefer the trackpad.
Logitech mice last for a year on a single battery (Score:2)
For years, I resisted wireless mice and keyboards because of having to replace batteries. But I don't mind doing it once a year. No need for recharging.
Eh (Score:1)
Doesn't 5 minutes of charging give you a week of usage? Cue the outrage.
Re: (Score:2)
> Doesn't 5 minutes of charging give you a week of usage? Cue the outrage.
Not in my experience. It takes about 30 minutes to charge.
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>> Doesn't 5 minutes of charging give you a week of usage? Cue the outrage.
> Not in my experience. It takes about 30 minutes to charge.
Sorry... I meant to say "to last a week". It takes over an hour to fully charge.
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I'm surprised it doesn't support wireless charging. When not using it you could just park it over a charging pad. Same for a wireless keyboard. Bonus, you could set your phone on the same spot when using the mouse.
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I mostly WFH so mine sits upside down with a cable sticking out of it's butt 27 days a month looking really stupid in the process
All this, simply so they can force users to have wireless mice, seems, like I dunno, they fired Johnny Ives (ok, he "decided to retire", right) they can make sane decisions at some point