Why Apple Ships the One Button Mouse

Sunday, Jan. 30 2005 | Author: jeremy

Andru offers some theory as to why Apple has not shipped Macs with a two button mouse yet. Makes sense to me. One argument he uses is that most novice computer users are not even aware that there are functions applied to the right mouse button.

How many times have you been talking your mom or grandmother through a task on their PC and said “Right-click on this.” The usual response is “right what?”.

One of the other reasons is that Apple wants developers to follow their interface guidelines.

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7 Responses for "Why Apple Ships the One Button Mouse"

Derek

January 30th, 2005 at 10:45 am
1

I haven’t heard of anyone not knowing what a right-click was in about 5 years… Even my mother in law that needs help checking her email knows what a right-click is. I think it’s high-time Apple added another button and a scroll wheel to their default mice.
norgus

January 30th, 2005 at 11:54 am
2

Oh yes definately, I see people who don’t know theres a right mouse button with features assigned to it all the time.

I also see people wondering what all those keys on the keyboard are which don’t contain letters.

Come on, computers should be user friendly. People so stupid they have ’special needs’ should be seperately catered for with either third party applications or by a clear option somewhere along the line.

Lets take the safety catch off of all guns, because it makes them easier to figure out as well!
cameron (desk003)

January 30th, 2005 at 5:33 pm
3

sites dead.
Scrivs

January 30th, 2005 at 7:02 pm
4

They got /.’ed
cliche

January 31st, 2005 at 10:32 am
5

That’s total BS. It’s saying that the right button isn’t there because most users don’t even know what it is.
1. Any hard data on percentage of users that don’t know how to right click?
2. Is Apple’s core market novices?
3. Even if a person doesn’t know how to right click, does it hurt to have the button there?
4. Ever seen anyone NOT use the scroll wheel if it’s available?

I’m suspecting that one button mouse became an icon of the simple elegance of Apple, and they’re having a hard time letting go. But look at Sony. They lost the VHS market, because they didn’t let go of their Betamax. They lost the MP3 market(both memory and hard drive based), because they didn’t let go of their Atrac. And they’re losing a lot of the market (including me) with their cameras and pda that only use the memory stick instead of SD. It’s foolish not to adapt to a superior, and clearly more popular format.
Quagmire

March 30th, 2005 at 7:45 pm
6

I would not say that Mp3 or VHS are more superior than Betamax or Atrac, in fact both of Sony’s formats were higher quality than the competition. But Apple should let go of the one buttoned mouse
Tam

March 18th, 2007 at 7:42 am
7

wow,

I still know a lot of non computer literate people who have no idea what a “right-click” is let alone any advanced fonction.
I do believe that apple is marketing towards these same people as the main stream for their customer with advanced devices for advanced users. The mighty mouse look nice, but is really expensive and I read a few really bad reviews on it. I am really afraid about the compatibility issues there might be with my new Windows laptop based.

Regards.

Tam

PS: I wont spit on one if I get offered it though, I am not a Mac fan, but not toptally stupid as well. ;)