The Meme Lives On: Magic Mouse's USB-C Charging Port Still on Bottom

[BR3W]

I don't care what their decisions were and software can easily manage battery health so that doesn't fly. I l know of plenty of items that don't work when plugged in and others that intelligently manage charge.
Let's agree to disagree.

Whether you care or not, the reality is you simply don't know why they don't want the mouse useable in a wired format. The only thing we can know is that they don't.

And no, battery health cannot be "easily" be managed via software. That's objectively wrong for a variety of reasons one of which is you simply don't know how easy or difficult it would be to code this into OSX.

Lastly, I'm not going to agree to disagree with someone making an invalid argument based on their personal assumptions. Your assumptions are indefensible and I think your argument is wrong and I will continue to debate it with you every time you make it.

 

[Chungry]

Lets put this all together for the Apple employees, shareholders and shills that see nothing wrong here:

16 years of the same design!

No inductive charging.

Aesthetically the mouse looks better, sure, with the port on the bottom. This was and continues to be a conscious decision.

Apple’s design ethos is that “design is how it works.” The mouse can’t work well (at all?) while the charging cable is plugged in. A conscious decision, to ensure the mouse is only ever used wirelessly.

No internal updates to sensor to improve polling time that would result in a smoother user experience across a broader offering of surfaces.

No ability to pair with more than one Mac or a Mac and an iOS device.

No haptics to mirror the trackpad or provide feedback (low battery or otherwise).

No wireless charging.

no lights or LED notifications to signal a low battery on the mouse surface to alert the user.

Battery charging intervals vary wildly from twice a month sprawling out to a few times a year depending largely on usage.

Low battery notifications show up too late/ battery status needs additional software like toothfairy for heavy users due to inability to customize notification parameters.

Bonus time:
The Magic Keyboard with numpad lacks Touch ID and is still on lighting.

Good job Apple!

 

[H2SO4]

Whether you care or not, the reality is you simply don't know why they don't want the mouse useable in a wired format. The only thing we can know is that they don't.

And no, battery health cannot be "easily" be managed via software. That's objectively wrong for a variety of reasons one of which is you simply don't know how easy or difficult it would be to code this into OSX.

Lastly, I'm not going to agree to disagree with someone making an invalid argument based on their personal assumptions. Your assumptions are indefensible and I think your argument is wrong and I will continue to debate it with you every time you make it.

I work with batteries on a daily basis, many types, quantities and sizes. YES battery health can be managed with software and yes it is easy. Advanced battery management has been around for years. Quite frankly to stop it being used while plugged in can EASLIY be managed with software. Your point here has no teeth.

Whether they wanted it or not there are two possibilities. It either works plugged in or it doesn't. It functions as a mouse or it doesn't.
Whatever their reason, they chose the design that precludes it.
Anyhow feel free to have the last word, I'm out.

 

[BR3W]

Lets put this all together for the Apple employees, shareholders and shills that see nothing wrong here:

16 years of the same design!

Good job Apple!

Yes, you listed a number of deficiencies that you find with the Apple Magic Mouse that should obviously lead you to never purchase it. Apparently Apple prefers you not buy their Magic Mouse, either. Perhaps they don't want anyone buying an Apple Magic Mouse.

This doesn't seem to be much different than Microsoft never updating their trackpad mouse. As far as I know, there is only one person in the world who buys it--my friend of over forty years for reasons I have never been able to understand. MS probably doesn't want to make them anymore but yet they exist on the shelf for whomever wants to struggle with that 90's era technology.

 

[applezulu]

How that would degrade it? 🤦‍♂️

Because of the complete irrationality of all the clamoring for the wireless mouse to have a front-end charging port so it can be operated as a wired mouse, it's only just dawned on me how -other than aesthetics- doing so would degrade the mouse.

The answer is that it would make the mouse vulnerable to damage from constant, repetitive leverage applied to the charging port while using it as a wired mouse. Over time, using the mouse while leaving it plugged in could sufficiently damage the port to the point it becomes unreliable or inoperable. Then, because this is Apple we're talking about, the class-action lawsuits would inevitably follow.

Put the charging port on the bottom so it can't be used while charging, and the problem is solved.

 

[BR3W]

I work with batteries on a daily basis, many types, quantities and sizes. YES battery health can be managed with software and yes it is easy. Advanced battery management has been around for years. Quite frankly to stop it being used while plugged in can EASLIY be managed with software. Your point here has no teeth.

Whether they wanted it or not there are two possibilities. It either works plugged in or it doesn't. It functions as a mouse or it doesn't.
Whatever their reason, they chose the design that precludes it.
Anyhow feel free to have the last word, I'm out.

Great! I work with software on a daily basis. No, battery health can't be managed with software easily. That's not accurate from a software side of view. More importantly, it's a strange point you want to dig into because it was merely one example of a functional determination. Perhaps the cost of developing it is too much to bear compared to the sales of the Magic Mouse...or perhaps their decision is not related to battery health at all.

It functions as a wireless mouse and doesn't function as a wired mouse. The reasons for them making that decision are only known to the design team. Anything else is assumption.

You invited me to answer your question how it could possibly be function over form and I provided several examples. Since you didn't like my response, you asked me to stop talking and I refused. So thank you for "allowing" me to have the last word. The next time you don't want to engage in a good faith discussion simply don't invite others to respond directly to you. Easy peasy as my children say.

 

[NT1440]

After so many years of complaints in this forum, I have no sympathy for people who can’t plug in at night AFTER it starts notifying you the battery is low.

 

[applezulu]

Question for you. Regarding the Mighty Mouse only, (ignoring ALL other criteria such as charging time);
In terms of function, is it best to have the charging port on the bottom of the device...........
View attachment 2443629

or the front of the device............

View attachment 2443632

Please answer ONLY that question.

It's better to have it on the bottom. If it's on the front, some people will just leave it plugged in. Eventually all the repetitive motion will damage the port (at least for some people), making it unreliable or inoperable. When that happens on your no-name mouse there, you will throw it out and buy another one, without giving it much thought. If that happened on an Apple mouse, a class-action lawsuit would inevitably follow.

So, since it is a wireless mouse after all, put the port on the bottom, it never gets damaged, nobody has to throw out an otherwise perfectly good mouse, and there are no lawsuits.

 

[erihp]

a real innovation would be charging the mouse from the harvested energy of moving it around.

need to charge it? use it!

 

[Chungry]

Yes, you listed a number of deficiencies that you find with the Apple Magic Mouse that should obviously lead you to never purchase it. Apparently Apple prefers you not buy their Magic Mouse, either. Perhaps they don't want anyone buying an Apple Magic Mouse.

This doesn't seem to be much different than Microsoft never updating their trackpad mouse. As far as I know, there is only one person in the world who buys it--my friend of over forty years for reasons I have never been able to understand. MS probably doesn't want to make them anymore but yet they exist on the shelf for whomever wants to struggle with that 90's era technology.

This is a radical take, but hear me out: discount the cost and offer a SKU without it. It will reduce waste for those that don’t want a compromised experience and prefer to spend that elsewhere. This is actually in keeping with their 2030 goals. But they won’t because of the same hypocritical leaning that pushed fine woven plastic.

 

[Chungry]

It's better to have it on the bottom. If it's on the front, some people will just leave it plugged in. Eventually all the repetitive motion will damage the port (at least for some people), making it unreliable or inoperable. When that happens on your no-name mouse there, you will throw it out and buy another one, without giving it much thought. If that happened on an Apple mouse, a class-action lawsuit would inevitably follow.

So, since it is a wireless mouse after all, put the port on the bottom, it never gets damaged, nobody has to throw out an otherwise perfectly good mouse, and there are no lawsuits.

Whataboutism at its finest. There’s no proof to back any of that up

 

[oMean]

I’m less annoyed about that and more annoyed about how crappy a mouse it is. Come on Apple sort your mice out!

remember the apple mouse with little ball. I really really liked it. but cleaning the little ball was really really annoying.

 

[Chungry]

remember the apple mouse with little ball. I really really liked it. but cleaning the little ball was really really annoying.

I ‘member the Mighty Mouse! Cute little bugger with a spot on its head. We used to clean them by flipping upside down and racing the ball on a pre-wet alcohol cloth

 

[Tagbert]

a real innovation would be charging the mouse from the harvested energy of moving it around.

need to charge it? use it!

The real innovation would be powering the mouse by harvesting the power of people whining about where the port is located. That would be a massive power source.

 

[erihp]

The real innovation would be powering the mouse by harvesting the power of people whining about where the port is located. That would be a massive power source.

hahahahah even better!

 

[Chungry]

hahahahah even better!

If we hadn’t squashed Tesla’s technology because of big oil we’d probably have true wireless charging mice

 

[AppelGeenyus]

No, that's not true. I explained it already and I'll reiterate:

If the design team decided that they felt it was ugly to have a port along the edge of the mouse and designed the port in the bottom to address that aesthetic concern it would be form over function.

If, however, the design team was concerned with customers using the mouse as a wired mouse for a technical reason, such as, wanting to preserve battery health, that's a function over form decision.

You're attributing the form over function conclusion to Apple without enough evidence because you don't know what decisions guided their design.

EDIT: also, while you may not like this, it's also a function over form argument if Apple concluded amongst themselves they don't want the mouse used in a wired format and made the mouse unusable while wired for that reason. Wireless vs. wired is a functional decision--not form. That's not a purely aesthetic decision, which is where your argument becomes faulty.

Gold medal mental gymnastics.

 

[cjsuk]

remember the apple mouse with little ball. I really really liked it. but cleaning the little ball was really really annoying.

My ex wife killed mine by dropping it. The entire inside unclipped itself. I then found out it was glued together and had to be cut open to fix which destroyed it. That made the impossible to clean ball look insignificant to the other design flaws.

 

[bluespark]

This. The charging port location is silly, but my real problem with the mouse is how un-ergonomic it is. I find it hard to believe they could not come up with a new design in all this time.

Finger mice, which this is, are extremely ergonomic. It of course is not a hand-cupping mouse, if that's what you meant.

 

[halo9]

So after Thursdays earning call there was one last surprise for the media behind closed doors.

Apple has released the iDesk for Mac users. It comes with special features including a cable management system in the top of the desk that allows the magic mouse and keyboard to be plugged into the usb-c cable*1 and be used at the same time, with no unsightly cables distracting your workspace. By utilising a special grid structure cut into the recycled aluminium desk, it allows Apple users seamless movement of the magic mouse with the cable attached and no restrictions in usability. This breakthrough will supercharge productivity for Mac users. The iDesk pricing starts at $1899 and is available with a range of optional accessories. One of the upgrades that users are most excited about is the iHole, a finger sized cutout in the desk surface to allow users to poke their finger through a hole in the desk to turn on/off their new Mac Mini. There is 2 preconfigured options for the hole location, left or right. The iHole upgrade is $249. Other available upgrades are the iDesk drawers*2 and iDesk wheel kit, taking it's design cues from the Mac Pro wheel kit*3

*1 - The Apple iDesk is only compatible with the new Apple Magic Mouse and Keyboard with Usb-C ports. The Apple magic mouse and keyboard with lightning ports cannot physically connect to the cable system and use of a usb-c to lightning adapter will cause the mouse to be raised above desk height and inoperable.
*2 The iDesk drawers are unable to be used when a Mac Pro is mounted in the drawer space.
*3 The Mac Pro wheel kit is not compatible with the iDesk and seperate purchase of the iDesk wheel kit is necessary.

 

[azhava]

After so many years of complaints in this forum, I have no sympathy for people who can’t plug in at night AFTER it starts notifying you the battery is low.

I mean, if the battery life of a device which needs to be charged once every 4-6 weeks is so anxiety inducing, people could just plug it in at the end of every day when they're done using their computer - or even at the end of their work week and leave it plugged in over the weekend. Charge it overnight every night or even once a week and you'll never have battery life under 100%, it uses virtually no power.

I'm not interested in any of the Logitech or other third-party mice because they feel cheap and plasticky compared to the Magic Mouse, and their scroll wheels never work as smoothly as sliding my finger on the MM. I also don't want to have to install their kludgy third-party bloatware to make my mouse work. I get that they're more ergonomic than the MM, but I hate the way they operate and that they feel so cheap.

 

[MDJCM]

yah but magsafe/qi charging thx

Both those options still render the mouse unusable during charging. But sure, MagSafe would be nice.

 

[erihp]

Both those options still render the mouse unusable during charging. But sure, MagSafe would be nice.

with a proper charging setup that wouldn't be a problem. you put the mouse on the special spot and it stays topped off.

 

[Haiku_Oezu]

Looking forward to seeing THAT RDJ image for the next decade

 

[applezulu]

Whataboutism at its finest. There’s no proof to back any of that up

I don't think you know what "whataboutism" means. As for proof, Apple hasn't publicly explained to anyone their reason for putting the charging port on the bottom for all the years they've been doing it, so nobody has "proof" of any explanation, including all the complaints that this is Apple putting form over function, etc. In a vacuum where "proof" is not available, any explanation has equal footing for consideration. My hypothesis offers a functional (rather than aesthetic) reason why they might choose to put the port on the bottom. If you think that's not a good hypothesis, you should say why, rather than demanding "proof" from me that hasn't been required of anyone else in eleven pages (and counting) of comments here.