[freehunter]

I'm not sure that's the case. This feature (which is entirely optional and can be disabled) is looking for skin. Metallic ink tattoos don't look like skin, and only a small percentage of people have such tattoos on their wrist. However, a massive percentage of people have hands that are shaped like hands, and yet the Apple of old made a mouse that doesn't seem to be designed for anything even remotely resembling a human hand.

They've literally always been form-over-function. They may have caught this issue and said "those people can disable this completely optional feature".

[jacobolus]

Their “puck” mouse design was intended to ameliorate RSI by encouraging a grip with only the fingertips. Unfortunately, nobody got the memo about the “proper” way to hold the mouse, and tried to grip the mouse the same way they were used to... which of course sucked. (And it was also difficult to guess the orientation of a round object.)

It’s definitely a bad design especially given the context of existing mice, and a case of poor communication, or insufficient user testing, or even hubris maybe. Your dismissive summary of their intentions is not at all fair, however.

[freehunter]

I make no judgment of their intentions. Merely stating that even back in the day, Apple was known for making some questionable design decisions. Good intentions or bad intentions, it was not a highly functional mouse.

[phs2501]

I do grip mice "properly" with just my fingertips, and the puck mouse still felt incredibly horrible.