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

I Hacked the Magic Mouse

uplab.pro

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 131 posts

Re: I Hacked the Magic Mouse

#61

Post by lloeki »

firexcy wrote: post #50

My contrarian view is that the Magic Mouse _can_ be ergonomic as long as you use to be keyboard-centric and treat the Magic Mouse primarily as an extra-large scroll wheel. Then you'll find the scrolling experience with the Magic Mouse is even better than one with a traditional mouse or a trackpad because you can speed-scroll with any finger, at any angle, and with minimal frictions. I especially enjoy scrolling with…

Anecdata: however nice is inertia scrolling, me scrolling on the Magic Mouse 100% reliably triggers carpal RSI in under 5min: the activating finger tendon transforms itself into a scorching hell in short order.

Re: I Hacked the Magic Mouse

#62

Post by goosedragons »

softskunk wrote: post #2

i think i recall reading somewhere that apple designed the mouse in the way they did in order to prevent people just leaving the mouse on charge 24/7 and hence not using its wireless capability while negatively affecting the battery. i’m not saying i agree with apple’s decision, but i find the perspective interesting.

No, it was entirely to recycle the design and tooling of the Magic Mouse 1 which used AA batteries. The Magic Trackpad 2 and Magic Keyboard came out the exact same day as the MM2 but both of those happily work plugged in and even work wired while plugged in.

Re: I Hacked the Magic Mouse

#64

Post by lloeki »

raverbashing wrote: post #48
al_borland wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a company as obsessed with design as Apple, it's a bad design. A mouse sitting upside-down, or on its side, on a desk is not exactly elegant. Even if it's just for a short period of time every 3 months, it's still an ugly solution. It's on par with the Apple Pencil that charged in the bottom of the iPad. A MagSafe connection to the front of the mouse seems like it would be much better. I have an old AA version of…

> A MagSafe connection to the front of the mouse seems like it would be much better. Yes, but even that would change the aesthetic of the mouse when right-side up. Though yes, I like your suggestion > It's on par with the Apple Pencil that charged in the bottom of the iPad. That's probably worse though. And yes I agree it is bad Basically yes, while charging upside down is ugly I think they kinda accept it because it…

I think GP might have suggested a flush connection that would allow the mouse to stay flat and even operable while charging.

In any case, given the thinness of Lightning, I still don't see how it would be impossibly ugly to have had such a connector at the top end of the mouse, turning it into a wired one during charge. The current Magic Mouse design is a compromised "plywood on the back of a chest of drawers" design.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/445621-when-you-re-a-carpen...

Re: I Hacked the Magic Mouse

#65

Post by raverbashing »

lloeki wrote: post #64
raverbashing wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A MagSafe connection to the front of the mouse seems like it would be much better. Yes, but even that would change the aesthetic of the mouse when right-side up. Though yes, I like your suggestion > It's on par with the Apple Pencil that charged in the bottom of the iPad. That's probably worse though. And yes I agree it is bad Basically yes, while charging upside down is ugly I think they kinda accept it because it…

I think GP might have suggested a flush connection that would allow the mouse to stay flat and even operable while charging. In any case, given the thinness of Lightning, I still don't see how it would be impossibly ugly to have had such a connector at the top end of the mouse, turning it into a wired one during charge. The current Magic Mouse design is a compromised "plywood on the back of a chest of drawers" design…

Well yeah it's not like Apple had great mouse design on Steve's days ;)

Re: I Hacked the Magic Mouse

#66

Post by narrowtux »

zozbot234 wrote: post #45
karmakaze wrote: post #25

The photos show why every magic mouse I've had always wore funny with the 'right button' getting mushy. There's only one microswitch and the right one is just a leaf spring.

> There's only one microswitch Classic Apple mouse design. They never change, do they?

Think about having one plane (the entire glass) pressing 2 microswitches. Debouncing one switch is hard enough, now you've got to debounce 2, and detect if the user was doing a really fast double click, or just pressed in the center of the mouse.

Re: I Hacked the Magic Mouse

#67

Post by bitwize »

ryandrake wrote: post #36

Good for this guy, wow. Nice project. I always thought that the Magic Mouse was really the ideal technology for interacting with a Mac--just too bad that it's so unergonomic. I can't prove it, but I blame a decade of Magic Mouse use for my very painful RSI, which I now have the pleasure of experiencing using any mouse at all. Apple's input devices are beautiful, but they totally blow comfort. It's as if their industr…

> Apple's input devices are beautiful, but they totally blow comfort. It's as if their industrial designers are all in their early 20s and have never experienced joint pain.

Riddle me this: My wife loves the hockeypuck mouse. The only thing that remains of her Tangerine iMac is its orange hockeypuck; I bought her a USBA-to-USBC dongle so she can use it with her MacBook Air.

Fortunately, she uses her computer infrequently enough to be relatively unaffected by RSI issues, so that may have something to do with it.

Re: I Hacked the Magic Mouse

#68

Post by bitwize »

Epa095 wrote: post #53
ryandrake wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tried the vertical mouse, but no help. My wrist seems to be permanently fucked. I use a trackpad 100% now, no problems.

My 2 cents: I had rsi, then I started bouldering. At first I got more pain. The original rsi, but also the 'forearm pump'. But then after maybe half a year the pain dissappeared. Not just the new pain, but the old pain as well.

Building strength seems to help with all sorts of pain issues. I once banged up my arm pretty good in a fall; what helped was going to the gym and doing curls and extensions with whatever the arm could support: five pounds, ten pounds, whatever.

Re: I Hacked the Magic Mouse

#69

Post by aerio »

elzbardico wrote: post #7
softskunk wrote: post #2

i think i recall reading somewhere that apple designed the mouse in the way they did in order to prevent people just leaving the mouse on charge 24/7 and hence not using its wireless capability while negatively affecting the battery. i’m not saying i agree with apple’s decision, but i find the perspective interesting.

Nah, it was a pure aesthetically oriented decision from John Ive. The ergonomics could be a lot better too.

Jony Ive*

Re: I Hacked the Magic Mouse

#70

Post by alpaca128 »

goosedragons wrote: post #60
firexcy wrote: post #50

My contrarian view is that the Magic Mouse _can_ be ergonomic as long as you use to be keyboard-centric and treat the Magic Mouse primarily as an extra-large scroll wheel. Then you'll find the scrolling experience with the Magic Mouse is even better than one with a traditional mouse or a trackpad because you can speed-scroll with any finger, at any angle, and with minimal frictions. I especially enjoy scrolling with…

I find scrolling is even more enjoyable with a trackball. You get an entire ball to spin!

For me nothing beat scrolling with an unlocked scrollwheel on my old Logitech mouse. It could keep spinning for >10 seconds and allowed super fast scrolling. Though FPS games with weapon switching bound to the mouse wheel did not like that feature at all...
Post reply on HN