Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

d43.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 103 posts

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#61

Post by gouggoug »

eykanal wrote: post #10

Longtime Mac user here... for what it's worth, I don't know what the OP is referring to. I use both Mac and Windows regularly (home vs work), and I don't see a noticeable difference. Maybe I've just gotten used to it. Definitely isn't a problem for me.

I'm glad someone posted about this mouse problem. It is the most annoying thing that prevented me from switching to a mac for a long time. I was telling my friends that the mouse was not behaving the same way in Mac Os X and Windows. They were all saying that I was imagining it. I switched to Mac a year ago and got use to it, but I can still feel a difference.

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#62

Post by baddox »

rjj wrote: post #57
baddox wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you use a mouse? I've never been able to notice it with a trackpad (because trackpads are inherently less precise anyway, and seldom used for gaming). It has been painfully noticeable on both Macbook Pros I've owned (one circa Tiger, the other circa Lion).

I was thinking the same thing. I've tried the Magic Mouse, Logitech Anywhere, and Logitech Marathon all to no avail. I returned them all eventually and now I'm back to the trackpad. Just from anecdotal evidence from someone who can detect the lag with 3 different mice, it's not there with the trackpad.

Honestly, I'm not convinced that lag is the problem more so than acceleration. I've never been able to disable acceleration since Tiger, so I don't have that information. Since it's quite reasonable to have acceleration with a trackpad, I've never had any problem with Mac trackpads.

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#63

Post by MarkMc »

bni wrote: post #6

Newish Mac user here. The "feel" of mouse cursor movement is one of the few areas were Windows is superior. Years ago something like this was a big issue in Linux/X.org aswell but recently it has been fixed, atleast it feels like it for me. I have noticed this "lag" with my magic mouse. Until now I have assumed there is something wrong with the hardware in it. Or that the bluetooth connection was breaking up. When I…

Yes! This was my biggest gripe when switching from Windows - the mouse 'feel' is, well, wrong. I played around with the mouse settings, downloaded software to change the acceleration curve - nothing worked!

I'm now used to the mouse behaviour on OS X, but every time I have to switch back to Windows to do some testing I realise what I'm missing.

The mouse is such a crucial part of the experience it's odd that Apple haven't gotten it right.

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#64

Post by wanderful »

netmute wrote: post #13

I noticed the exact opposite to be true. I regularly use Windows, Linux and OSX, and OSX seems to be the only OS that gets mouse movement right. The cursor moves (at least subjectively) exactly like my fingers on the trackpad. On Windows/Linux it always seems either too slow or too fast.

Couple curiosity questions: Which system did you start using? Also, have you done any activities requiring high precision at fine detail, such as gaming or design?

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#65

Post by kitsune_ »

mietek wrote: post #12
colincsl wrote: post #11

Am I the only person that loves the mouse/trackpad feel in OS X? Maybe it's because I've gotten too used to it, but I find it somewhat annoying to switch to Win or Ubuntu because of the different feel they have. I was using Ubuntu for about 6 months last year and never quite got used to how jumpy it felt (and yes, I did play with the mouse settings).

No, you're not the only one. There's simply more switchers than ever before, and they're vocal about their complaints.

It's not just "switchers" that complain about this stuff. If there is one thing Apple can't get right, it's mouse input.

The input lag is one thing. What about the actual hardware? Remember the hockey puck? The pro mouse? The mighty mouse?

There is a joke somewhere in there... maybe about Jobs having to "invent" multi-touch because he couldn't grock the concept of a mouse.

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#66

Post by eykanal »

baddox wrote: post #54
eykanal wrote: post #10

Longtime Mac user here... for what it's worth, I don't know what the OP is referring to. I use both Mac and Windows regularly (home vs work), and I don't see a noticeable difference. Maybe I've just gotten used to it. Definitely isn't a problem for me.

Do you use a mouse? I've never been able to notice it with a trackpad (because trackpads are inherently less precise anyway, and seldom used for gaming). It has been painfully noticeable on both Macbook Pros I've owned (one circa Tiger, the other circa Lion).

Personally, I use a mouse all the time, I'm not a fan of trackpads. I'm not much of a gamer, though, which may explain why I haven't noticed the 1/30th of a second lag.

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#67

Post by r00fus »

colincsl wrote: post #11

Am I the only person that loves the mouse/trackpad feel in OS X? Maybe it's because I've gotten too used to it, but I find it somewhat annoying to switch to Win or Ubuntu because of the different feel they have. I was using Ubuntu for about 6 months last year and never quite got used to how jumpy it felt (and yes, I did play with the mouse settings).

I love to criticize my Mac, but this is one of the areas that I've never found fault - the mouse and trackpad controls are flawless.

Recently I've had to use a Windows laptop (Lenovo) for work and I've yet to find a suitable external mouse - the track (pad|point) on the laptop is over-responsive, and both Microsoft and Logitech drivers are buggy in their application.

Finally (and this is only on my recent laptop) the external mouse and keyboard take ages to "wake up" - and they're USB (the bluetooth ones sometimes require me to go to device properties in order to become visible)! On my Mac, external inputs respond immediately once plugged in, and even bluetooth is almost seamless.

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#68

Post by mietek »

kitsune_ wrote: post #65
mietek wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're not the only one. There's simply more switchers than ever before, and they're vocal about their complaints.

It's not just "switchers" that complain about this stuff. If there is one thing Apple can't get right, it's mouse input. The input lag is one thing. What about the actual hardware? Remember the hockey puck? The pro mouse? The mighty mouse? There is a joke somewhere in there... maybe about Jobs having to "invent" multi-touch because he couldn't grock the concept of a mouse.

The hockey puck was a miserable failure. Other than that, there's no problem with Apple input devices.

In particular, the multi-touch trackpads are the meow part of the cat.

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#69

Post by artursapek »

cameldrv wrote: post #5

If you buy a Microsoft mouse, it comes with a driver that will make the mouse behave like it does in Windows.

I think the complaint in this article is laughably petty. I've never noticed a lag. But on the topic of mice, I bought a Kensington mini-mouse about three years ago that I've used with three different laptops (2 Macs and a Thinkpad) and to this day I've never noticed a difference between any of the computers. I would recommend it just for its size and functionality, it's the best mouse I've ever used. I didn't even have to install a driver for it, it just works immediately when I plug it into my Pro. It does feel faster than the trackpad but I think it's just because of the nature of trackpad vs. a mouse and not because of any noticeable lag.

The model I have is very similar to this one: http://www.amazon.com/Kensington-K72346US-Netbooks-Buttons-S...

It used to be on the Apple store website where I bought it but they seem to have removed it.

Re: The cause for all your Mac OS X mouse annoyances

#70

Post by Flow »

zyb09 wrote: post #23

Got a Razer Deathadder, they come with their own OSX drivers that seem to circumvent the issue. Also sad to see so many Magic Mouse users here ;) I know everybody has their own preferences, but that is not a good mouse.

I have a Deathadder 3g Spawn and I don't use the Razer drivers.

If I look at my mouse in the app "USB Prober" I see OS X uses a 2ms interrupt to poll the mouse. If I'm not completely off that's 500Hz. More than the 125Hz that seems to be default USB polling frequency.

Post reply on HN