FAIL of the week: Apple Mighty Mouse | Comments (20)
Posted in Apple on 1st July 2008, 12:28 am by Stuart
The Apple Mighty mouse is an expensive piece of trash. To be fair I do appreciate Apple’s kit, especially when the majority of their hardware is, on the whole, a good blend of form and function.
Now I’m pretty sure everyone remembers the ball mice of yesteryear that were great until the ball mechanism got filled with crap and the mouse started being as responsive as Sly Stallone in an ESP test.
Still someone realised this and optical mice were invented (according to Wikipedia) as far back as 1980. Failure has been averted ever since optical mice became widely available and the world has been much happier with mice sans ball.
However with the mighty mouse what Apple have succeeded in doing is bringing back the ball only on the top of the mouse. Absolute genius! So what happens now is ever so often the ball on the top of your mighty mouse gets full of cruft and the scroll ball stops working. Who’d have thunk it!?
Next you can already imagine that Apple are working on replacing the ball with a Frickin’ laser on the top of the mouse so that anyone who hasn’t already smashed their mighty mouse to a million tiny pieces can get the new improved version which won’t suffer from the same EPIC failings of the original.
I’m on my second – I’ve never bought one of these myself they’ve been supplied by work, however I’m getting really tired of rubbing the scroll ball with mouse up-side down in the vain hope that I’ll be able to scroll through an application again some day.
So with the above in mind. Please tell me, what’s a good mouse that works with a Mac that doesn’t suck Balls!
Still using my original Mighty Mouse, bought immediately after the product first came out. I would clean it using Apple’s recommended procedure (rubbing the ball with alcohol dampened cloth). When that stopped working, I would use an aerosol “air blaster” aimed at the gap between the mouse body and ball.
When that finally stopped working. I googled for something like ‘mighty mouse cleaning’ and watched a couple of videos showing how to take it completely apart. All you need is a small philips head screwdriver, an X-acto knife, a couple of drops of superglue (to put it back together), and fine motor control of your hands. Fixed it 2 months ago, now good-as-new.
Maybe you ought to wash your hands more often before using the mouse…
With the exception of the original series of one button mice, which did nothing but click, Apple mice have been curiously dysfunctional – like the hockey puck mouse or the mighty mouse.
I myself hold a mouse in an uncommon way, twixt thumb and middle finger and only use my pointing finger to click. As a result every ‘Click’ to me is a ‘Right Click.’ To ‘Left Click’ by default I would have to hold the mouse in my left hand.
For may years I have been using an antique, discontinued Kensington 4-button ‘ThinkingMouse’ that gives me six clicks (4 + 2 chords) with one finger. Oh how I wish Kensington would make an updated USB Laser version. Because the mouse is symmetrical it can be used by Righties and Lefties no matter how they hold the mouse, and the Kensington ‘MouseWorks’ software can be programmed for any application. I find it the best time saver since learning how to type.
Unfortunately, not only are they difficult to find but they are ADB (!) and require a Griffin ‘iMate’ to operate and THOSE are no longer supported either!
It seems that the need for a scroll wheel has trumped the functionality of the ‘ThinkingMouse’ and most mice today have only two buttons with the wheel in between. Additional buttons are merely stuck on, usually in the most bizarre places. Yes, I have tried trackballs but I cannot get used to them.
I could see a modern multi-touch 4-button mouse that would accept 8 clicks (4 clicks + 4 chords) AND read a vertical or horizontal scrolling motion of the finger with no moving parts, but Apple would really have to hit a home run with that one. The thing could even light up like an iPhone screen. I’d pay $100 US for a mouse like that.
Edit: the picture link you posted got eaten so I’ve replaced it wth a screenshot of mouseworks — Stuart.
Hi, I use the wireless mighty mouse at home, and a normal mighty mouse at work. I know your problem! It’s mine too
But I still have a solution at work! I have a logitech Keyboard/Mouse Kit wich, according to a colleague, is awesome! It’s a wireless kit wit a white keyboard and mouse and costs about the same as a wireless mighty mouse. Maybe that could be your solution too
The mouse is a high-tech mouse with 1 zillion buttons and an ergonomic shape and weights quite something so you can hold it quite precisely!
Your are so right. Every now and then Apple makes an uncharacteristically stupid design decision.
The original CRT iMacs had a round “hocky puck” mouse that was universally reviled.
Instead of giving us an affordable mini-tower, Apple produced the G4 Cube, an overpriced museum piece with spherical roll-around speakers permanently attached to an external USB amp dongle, a top-mounted proximity-controlled power switch with a mind of its own, difficult to access i/o connectors on the bottom of the unit, and a giant power brick (never shown in the advertisements).
Now we have the mighty mouse with it’s non-serviceable scroll ball, and again with the proximity switches (instead of buttons) that require you to lift one or the other finger in order to properly register clicks.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Apple products. But it’s infuriating that occasionally such obvious design flaws ever make it into production.
Thankfully there are plenty of good third party mice to choose from.
I managed to get a Wireless Mighty Mouse for half the normal price. And even though the mini ball on top becomes less responsive once every two months (mine almost always sticks in the “scroll-up” direction), I am very satisfied with it (I rub it upside down on the ball for a few seconds, and it’s working again normally for 2 months)…
It would be of course perfect if the mini-ball worked perfectly all the time!
My KINGDOM for a decent mac mouse. I was going to write the same thing recently, because that fekking mouse is completely useless.
Thinking of getting the MX Revolution (Logitec) but alas it’s not bluetooth, so you’ve got to use one of your usb ports for the connection,..small price to pay I guess. But then you’ve got the problem (not sure if this is still a problem) of installing logitec software which craps up OSX (reloading takes 20minutes or something….I have that problem and don’t have any logitec software installed)…
So yeah, I second that decent mouse recommendation.
@mike – I’m glad it works for you but seriously you shouldn’t need to break apart a mouse to clean it so that it functions as intended. Over here in the UK this would be a contender for not meeting the “Fitness for purpose” covered under the sale of goods act.
On the subject of cleaning my hands more often; no-one knows this but I do actually wear surgical gloves whilst operating my mac so this really can’t be the problem
@Khaled: Yeah I like the logitech mice but non-bluetooth is a huge failing imho. There’s one mouse in their range which is bluetooth but it looks to be no-where near as nice as the MX/VX ranges.
I’m totally with you on the potential problems around the logitech software for the mac as there was an issue where TextMate was broken by installing the logitech software. Though according to the last comment this problem was resolved in a subsequent update.
I like the logitech Nano for the fact that the receiver is tiny, the downside of the nanon is that the mouse itself is a little on the small side. This leads me to ask why logitech don’t consolidate the receivers across their range to be the same size as I could just about overlook their mice not being bluetooth in that case.
Amen – I loathe that mouse – it never worked reliably and started to give me weird hand cramps. I so, so wanted it to be really great because Apple products are usually a hit for me, but it was dire. Nearly as dire as the hockey puck mouse (in fact in terms of hand comfort, more so).
The majority of users seem to love it so I don’t know why it was a fail for me but sadly it was. An expensive fail
Currently I use a regular sized regular style typical-office-mouse with my typical-office-pc, and I use a tiny travelling mouse (still optical with a nice little scrollwheel) at home for my laptop. I only bought this mouse for temporary travel reasons but I got so used to it I love it.
I also suspect that varying the size of my mouse – between work and home – may guard against RSI/mouse cramp to some extent.
I don’t mind the Mighty Mouse. I like the tactile feedback and accuracy of the scroll ball; I’d tried the Kensington mouse with the tiny scroll pad and it was awful – NEVER responded correctly to my touch.
Granted, I DO have to clean the MM every couple of months, but this only takes a minute and has always worked. I’d prefer there was a better way to clean it, but I don’t see how they could make the tiny ball removable. Works for me.
I’ve been using the wired Mighty Mouse on my desktop Mac and the wireless Mighty Mouse with my laptop Mac for about 2 years. Having used trackballs since the early Mac laptops, I knew what to do. I started cleaning the scroll balls once a week from the date of purchase. I used a damp, slightly soapy cloth and spent a minute or two each week cleaning each one throughly.
I have never had a problem with either scroll ball malfunctioning.
I want all of you to know how hard it was to describe washing my sticky balls without sounding completely ridiculous, but I think I managed it.
This is such a common problem you think Apple would have addressed it by now.
At least you didn’t decide to take the mouse apart using a penknife and end up slicing your finger as a result!
Apple do so much so well why can’t they get a mouse right?
I’m a month into a new iMac with the much maligned mouse. It’s the best mouse I’ve ever laid my paw on, so your article is a good and timely reminder to keep it clean so it won’t become one of the most frustrating.
Thanks.
I recommend the MX series by Logitech, in combination with the wonderful 3rd party SteerMouse drivers.
Many buttons, great scroll wheel, cable (big plus in my book), super-reliable.
Cheers from the Munich office of that company you used to work for in the past.
C.
there are dozens of the bloody things lying all over our office like the sad crappy rodents they are.
The biggest problem I have with the mighty mouse is that the right click detection doesn’t work if you’re left handed – it simply doesn’t detect that one’s right clicked and registers a left click instead. Switching to using my right hand solves the problem (but that obviously isn’t a solution). Unusually 3 members of my family are left handed so I know it isn’t just the way I use the mouse that’s causing the problem.
I wonder when these large companies are going to realise that the whole world isn’t right handed. Microsoft is equally guilty of creating mice that are modeled in such a way which makes them uncomfortable for a left handed person to use.
Anyway with regards to the MM to me the whole idea of having a mouse which looks like it doesn’t have any buttons but actually has two smacks of Apple trying to be too clever for their own good.
I use a Kensington bluetooth mouse now with two real buttons – much better.
Yup. I hate my Mighty Mouse too, both because of the scroll “nipple” and because of the terrible right-button detection.
It’s nice to see various recommendations for viable alternatives at last!
it’s impossible to use the mighty mouse left-handed. i had to switch my mouse to the left hand because of an rsi – but the contortions required to generate a right-click with my left hand threaten a whole new rsi. the might mouse has been banished.
Never had a problem with the mighty mouse – but then I do wash my hands often – perhaps that’s the difference.
@Fred: Didn’t you see the reply to a previous comment – I never do anything without the gloves!
I have used the “mighty mouse” a lot but I have long ago switched to the Logitech V470 Bluetooth mouse at work.
At home I still use the Apple mouse.
The Logitech has given me good performance with almost a bulletproof longevity.
It’s been a good mouse for me so far.
Marc