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New 'Magic Mouse 2' and Apple Wireless Keyboard With Bluetooth 4.2 Appear in FCC Filings

Outside of looking nice, I have no idea why a mouse or keyboard have to be wireless. It's a nuisance to change batteries for items that never really leave my desk or proximity from my keyboard. Sure, the batteries last a long time, but it seems unnecessary to deal with batteries for items that are quite literally never off the desk.

I'm interested in an Apple backlit keyboard, however. I might pick that up if this is truly backlit.
 
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Lankyman said:
I whole heartedly agree. Whilst the aesthetics of the current MM may look good, unfortunately it has the ergonomics of a house brick. A feature of the new keyboard also causes me concern. The current barrel at the front lifts it at just the right angle for the typist. A completely flat keyboard is not a good position to adopt for any serious typing.

Perhaps Apple will suggest it can be raised by placing a book under it. :rolleyes:
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On the contrary, most modern ergonomics studies suggest that lifting the back of the keyboard tends to kink the wrist in a way that is superficially pleasant, but leads to carpal tunnel in the long run.
 
ShadovvMoon said:
I don't understand why people think the removal of AA batteries will mean that the keyboard will be flat. The wired keyboard doesn't have batteries and yet it isn't flat... Apple will probably just put the new battery in the same spot as the old one.
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I don't get where people got the idea of non removable batteries for both - mouse and keyboard.
Illustrations clearly show removable "latch" for mouse. Can't really comment on keyboard though, although I suspect it follows the same design as the current one...
As far as numerical keypad goes, have a look a the drawings - the size says it all - NO numerical keypad.
BTW; Why would anyone want battery draining backlight is beyond me...
 
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CelestialToys said:
I can touch type with my eyes closed. Why do I want a backlit keyboard? Because I'm not always using the keyboard to type, I'm often using it to press one or two keys in sequence which don't naturally fall under the one hand I'm using whilst I'm controlling some other device.

Not everyone is using their keyboard in the same way that you would use a typewriter, and not everyone is using their machine in a well lit environment.
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All great points. But I would argue that a wireless device is not what one should use if backlight is
abhibeckert said:
If the mouse has force touch and the keyboard is backlit, then battery life could be drastically shorter. Not to mention Apple will want the mouse in particular to be as light as possible, so they are definitely going to skimp on battery size.

I prefer swapping AA batteries (which are rechargeable) once a month to having to plug it in to charge every day when I leave the office.

It's premature to complain when all we have is a rumour but there are definite advantages to AA or AAA batteries.


Pfft. The magic mouse is the best mouse money can buy. The multi-touch gestures (especially when combined with a third party app to configure custom actions) are vastly superior to any features you might have on whatever other mouse you think is better.
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so, what you're saying is, like always on macrumors, we are getting ahead of ourselves and making assumptions about featured and battery life of s product that hasn't even officially been announced?

I don't disagree that swapping AA is more convenient. How much more? I have no idea. Two AA already lasts me a month of heavy use, multiple months more when it's not in use. I highly doubt they're going to go from that to something that needs to sit on a charger nightly.
 
Cape Dave said:
Also a num pad. I mean really, this is 2015.
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This. I'm currently using every brand except Apple for wireless keyboards because they don't do one wide enough to use comfortably. Don't get me wrong, I like the compact laptop style one for more restricted work-spaces, but if you've got space and hate cable clutter, then why should the choice be between wired and tiny?

I'm not sure how I feel about losing the "barrel shaped" battery compartment; I quite like it as a design feature and it does seem to give the keyboard a great deal of solidity, I can't imagine a keyboard needs a much larger lithium ion battery than a set of AA's would take up.

I also wish they wouldn't ditch AA's completely; personally I think it'd be more useful if a device could take both, draining the built-in battery first and then the replaceable one, as this would allow you to immediately recharge by swapping in a new replaceable battery, then recharging the internal one overnight. The freedom of a wireless keyboard isn't much use when you suddenly have to tether it to recharge it after all, so I'd much rather see a best of both approaches.
 
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Amazing Iceman said:
A mouse is for people who are not able to learn to use the Trackpad. Once you use the trackpad, the mouse feels like crap.
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This is a ludicrous statement. Try precision photo editing on a trackpad, or video editing, or any kind of video game.
 
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I've just overlaid the current keyboard over the FCC filing image, and, if things are to scale, it shows that the new keyboard could be wider. Alternatively, if we eliminate the battery area, things seem above board and nothing exciting.

keyboard.jpg keyboard 2.jpg
 
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Dear Apple,

Please make this.

Yours sincerely,
Everyone with a Mac mini in their living room.

Bonus Idea: The trackpad has a single colour OLED display. You hold a function key and it displays a numerical keypad, calculator, home/pg-up+down etc.

kb.jpg
 
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Where's the Force Touch trackpad? I used the Magic Mouse with my iMac for years, customized it with Better Touch Tool, etc. but could never come to like it. It was uncomfortable to hold, never tracked on my desk surface very smoothly, and the surface area was just to small to initiate most gestures reliably for me. I switched to a Magic Trackpad and it was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders every time I use that computer. Would love a Force Touch one now though to keep all my gestures fully the same as on my Macbook.
 
APlotdevice said:
I don't want a li-ion in my wireless mouse! It means I'll either have to throw it in a dock or stick a cable on it, the former making the mouse completely useless for a period of time and the latter defeating the purpose of having a wireless mouse!
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Mice where the charge cable goes in the same place as a normal mouse cable are fine. Worst case is you have to put up with the equivalent of a wired mouse for an hour or so every week or two - hardly defeats the object of a wireless mouse. Cf a mouse with AA batteries when the stores are shut and you don't have any charged. If you're sufficiently organised to ensure a constant supply of new or recharged AAs then you can probably bend your mind to the rocket science of remembering to charge the mouse in while you eat or sleep.

The move to low-power bluetooth should improve the battery life. As for the eventual death of the battery - we're talking a recharge cycle every few weeks rather than the daily hammering that phones/iPods get - and while you might pass your IBM Model M down to your grandchildren, its not like the typical sub-$100 mouse or keyboard is built for the ages anyway. Magic mice certainly don't live for ever.
 
Yeah, I'm not too worried one way or the other whether they continue to use AA's or switch to built-ins. I happen to have a good charging setup for batteries, so my current devices always get rechargeables, but I would wager that most of the world ends up using disposable batteries in them so switching should have a significant environmental impact.

Do hope that the battery life improves on the new models. The Magic Mouse has always had poor battery life compared to my Logitech mouse at work which lasts months on a charge (but uses proprietary wireless, not bluetooth). Actually, that mouse uses a single AA battery, (an Eneloop included with it) but recharges via usb which is a pretty nice design.
 
Amazing Iceman said:
A mouse is for people who are not able to learn to use the Trackpad. Once you use the trackpad, the mouse feels like crap.
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The trackpad is great for general use, but the precision just doesn't cut it for graphics work, and really doesn't work for some games.

Mind you - the Magic Mouse has always felt like crap to me so I wouldn't use that as a comparison, but, surprise surprise, people with different habits and different sized hands prefer differently shaped mice. If you have no problems doing a Vulcan salute then you might be able to use gestures on the Magic Mouse, and then I can only imagine what a left-handed person would do with the large, sculpted "ergonomic" mice I prefer.
 
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I just hope they cure the rollerball on the MM2. All my Magic Mice have had the rollerball die on them. You can keep them going for a while with cleaning but sooner or later (usually sooner) the rollerball dies.
 
For years I would have agreed that a mouse was better, but Apple's current trackpads are so good that I have now switched entirely to trackpads on all of my computers as I've actually found that my fine pointer precision is better on the trackpads than even with my top-of-the-line mouse. The glass trackpads are not affected by the surface you use them on the way a mouse is - even with my mouse on a dedicated pad, small bits of dirt or slight variations in the surface make the movement always slightly irregular. I find the surface of the trackpad to be much more consistent and I can use the acceleration to quickly move the pointer to the region I need and then a slight roll of the finger to precisely move it. Force Touch extends the capabilities further because you can now click on any portion of the pad with exactly the same amount of force.
 
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ShadovvMoon said:
Just like how an iPad is a superior work tool when compared to a pc. Oh, wait...
(I love my laptops trackpad but I generally use a mouse with my desktop)
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I've switched over almost exclusively to the trackpad with my iMac. I prefer it to a mouse. Every once in a while I need to use a mouse if I'm doing certain tasks (e.g., precision editing) but for the most part I'm more efficient with Apple's trackpad. The gestures are very helpful.
 
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Cape Dave said:
Can you say backlit??? Otherwise, it is useless. Also a num pad. I mean really, this is 2015.
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Numpads are not for everyone: it'd be a no-buy for me (for example) if it only came in that option. I fully agree it should be a choice: and with the bt-upgrade it should be no problem at all. Also the backlit keys shouldn't be a problem (a big miss on the current keyboards), hopefully on black keys.... I use a logitech K811 atm and it'll go for three weeks wit 8 hrs of use daily (has backlit keys and capability to connect to three devices, the latter i don't use often enough). My mouse has the mobee wireless charger in it but i forget to charge it all the time. I also had to replace the aaa-batteries in the mobee with eneloops, because the other ones were low quality.

Now to read the specs because noone said anything about force touch and i want that very badly (works as a charm on my watch)
 
Dreadnought said:
It's about time Apple! And please fix the following: when putting the mouse off with the off button on the back it shouldn't wake your Mac from sleep mode! Does anybody else have this frustration?
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It sees movement... i think you can set it to not ever wake your mac (a keypress replaces it). Better would be to wake only on click?
 
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