Whoa, didn't realize that was Jony Ive! Good job Jony! Gave both Ferrari and EVs bad press with a single product launch!
A good lesson in not messing with a good thing. If they had just put an electric motor in a classic Ferrari body, it could have been a nice moment for the energy transition.
I think it’s basically recalcitrance. Same as they suddenly turn into the world’s worst devs every time they have to make software for Windows. Apple hates mouses, but many people won’t consider not using one, so they reluctantly make an expensive, pretty, and absolutely terrible mouse to get you over the hump of the macOS switch then keep pushing you along to where they really want you: the giant touchpad, where they do have a moat, and which trains you for the rest of their ecosystem. They even sneak half of that touchpad into the mouse itself, and half of the mouse out, so the transition is oh so easy.
I have been a desktop trackpad user for so long now, I literally don’t want to use a mouse for anything except playing video games. The amount of flexibility offered by a good trackpad just wins most of the time as it is plenty accurate for quickly jumping around on one axis.
With a large enough trackpad, you could even move to a 1:1 type of movement, or add that functionality to a layer for the best of both worlds (like gyro enhanced aiming in games).
I’ve worked with some designers who did what you described with their huge tablets. Use the stylus to turn it into a giant touchpad. Works pretty good.
This is off-topic and it’s especially a waste of attention because it’s a social media meme, not a real problem. People who actually use them don’t spend time talking about it because it means every few months you plug it in long enough for a coffee break, and in return you can use it for many years without the connector breaking.
Even if you set aside the stupid charging situation, it's still a bad mouse. The multitouch capabilities are not well used by the software, and it's the only mouse I've ever used that routinely sends scroll events while I'm just trying to click or drag. Their laptops are pretty good at rejecting accidental touchpad inputs despite those touchpads being quite large, but the mouse is a constant source of unintentional inputs.
This! It is a bad design because it is a compromise. It is flat because of the need of multitouch, which doesn't get used. And because of this flatness it is not ergonomic to hold it.
It is neither a good trackpad replacement nor a good mouse design.
I can’t say I’ve ever had that problem. Multitouch still works great on the one I bought in 2010 after near daily usage. You’re not required to like it, of course, but I think it’s a question of personal preferences more than an objective good/bad verdict.
Do you use a Magic Mouse? It’s really not that bad if your only computer use consists of social media and the occasional budgeting spreadsheet.
And before you mention it, yes the charging cable. In reality, plugging it in for literally 1 minute will get you enough battery to last hours. 5 minutes will get you an entire day. Normal people plug it in and go get a coffee or pee and then it’s fine until they log off for the day. Could it better? Of course, but it’s not so large an issue that they are losing customers on it, so it is what it is.
You’re not the target market for an Apple mouse and that’s okay.
You’ve convinced me. I hope on the next iPhone, they make it so you have to put the MagSafe puck on the front where the screen is instead of that back where it is now.
Unfortunately I had to learn this when I got my first mac.
You don't have to go very deep into the ecosystem to encounter things that... well, things bottom out at shallow.
Looking back... glossy displays. flat keyboards without curvature to center your fingers on the keys. more and more hurdles to using macos as a technical person. prematurely missing USB-A. memory/storage that's not expandable. Dongles everywhere as a checkbox item/workaround.
and of course, anything that superficially seems to be a mouse.
Man did I despise that keyboard. I went from hating that to adoring my M3. Which feels good because I loved my MacBook before those butterfly switches, and again I love my MacBook now.
I almost left apple entirely over those stupid switches lol.