Daniel Hruska The mouse has been an integral part of Apple computers since the Lisa model introduced in 1983. Since then, the apple company has been constantly changing the appearance of its mice. Not only have people's design tastes changed over the years, but so have the ways we interact with our Macs.
Regarding the development of mice since 2000, there are few people in the world who have detailed information about the whole process. one of them is Abraham Farag, former lead engineer of product design engineering. He is currently the Director of Sparkfactor Design, a new product development consultancy.
Farag figures as one of the patent holders for multi-button mouse. Server Cult of Mac had the opportunity to chat with Farage about his time at Apple, the work he did there, and his memories of developing multi-button mice. Although it is Jony Ive Apple's most famous designer, the company has always employed and continues to employ more capable people like Farag.
He joined Apple in March 1999. He was assigned to a project to develop a mouse to replace the controversial "puck" (pictured below) that came with the first iMac. This created Apple's first "buttonless" mouse. Farag remembers her as a happy accident.
“It all started with one model that we didn't have enough time for. We built six prototypes to show Steve. They were completely finished, with all the parting curves for the buttons. The colors were also shown in the final presentation.'
At the last moment, the design team decided to add one more model that reflected the look of one design that gave the foundation to the legendary "puck". The only problem was that the model wasn't quite finished. The team didn't have time to finalize the outlines of the buttons to make it clear where they would be placed.
“It looked like something gray. We wanted to put this work in progress in a box so no one would see it," recalls Farag. However, Jobs' reaction was unexpected. "Steve looked at the entire model line and focused on that unfinished business."
"This is brilliant. We don't need any buttons,” Jobs said. “You're right, Steve. No buttons at all,” someone added to the conversation. And so the meeting ended.
“Bart Andre, Brian Huppi and I left the room and stopped in the hallway where we looked at each other like 'How are we going to do this?' Because of the unfinished model, we had to invent a way to make a mouse without buttons.”
The whole team finally made it. The Apple Pro Mouse (pictured below) went on sale in 2000. Not only was it the first buttonless mouse, it was also Apple's first mouse to use LEDs to sense motion instead of a ball. “The R&D team has been working on this for about a decade,” says Farag. "As far as I know, we were the first consumer electronics company to sell such a mouse."
The Apple Pro Mouse was doing well, but the team was determined to push the concept even further. Specifically, he wanted to go from a mouse without buttons to a mouse with more buttons. Making such a mouse and making it attractive at the same time was a difficult task. But convincing Steve Jobs was an even more difficult task.
“Steve was a strong believer that if you build a good enough UI, you should be able to do everything with one button,” says Farag. “Just after 2000, there were quite a few people at Apple who suggested that they should start working on a multi-button mouse. But Steve's persuasion was more like a war of attrition. Not only did I show him the prototypes, but I also convinced him of the positive impact on AI.”
The project ended in failure at the initial stage. Farag had a meeting in the design studio, where Jony Ive was also present, along with the heads of marketing and engineering. "Steve wasn't invited to the meeting," recalls Farag. “Not that he couldn't—he could go anywhere on Apple's campus—we were simply discussing something that we didn't want to show him yet. We looked at prototypes of multi-button mice and were quite far along in development – we had working parts and even user testing. Everything was spread out on the table.'
Suddenly Jobs walked by because he was coming back from some meeting. He saw the prototypes on the table, stopped and came closer. “What are you morons working on?” he asked when he realized what she was looking at.
"There was total silence in the room," Farag recounts. "No one wanted to become that fool. However, in the end I said that this was all at the request of the marketing department and that it was a multi-button mouse. I further told him that everything was approved through company processes, so we started working on it.”
Jobs looked at Farago, “I'm marketing. I'm a one-man marketing team. And we will not make this product.” With that he turned and walked away.
"So simply Steve killed the whole project. He completely blew him away," says Farag. "You couldn't leave the room, continue the project and hope to keep your job." For the next year, the multi-button mouse was taboo in the company. But then people started thinking about her again and started trying to convince Jobs.
“In Steve's defense - he only wanted the best for Apple. At its core, he didn't want to come up with a product that every other company offered. He wanted to leapfrog the competition, all with the technology of the time," explains Farag. “I think for him, sticking with the one-button mouse concept was a way to get the UI designers to come up with something perfectly clean and simple. What changed his mind was that users were willing to accept context menus and mice with multiple buttons that performed different actions. While Steve was willing to nod to this, he couldn't accept that the new mouse looked like all the others.'
The main innovation that helped move Jobs was the capacitive sensors located directly in the body of the mouse. This achieved the effect of multiple buttons. In a sense, this issue is reminiscent of the iPhone's virtual buttons, which change as needed within each application. With multi-button mice, advanced users can configure the actions of individual buttons, while casual users can view the mouse as one big button.
Abraham Farag left Apple in 2005. In the years that followed, his team created the current model—the Magic Mouse—which improved upon what Farag had helped work on. For example, the trackball on the Mighty Mouse became clogged with dust over time that was difficult to remove. The Magic Mouse replaced it with multi-touch gesture control, similar to the displays of iOS devices and trackpads of MacBooks.
I used to have a "puck" mouse with a G3 and it was absolute ergonomic hell. Even then, Logitech made a two-button transparent/green mouse "for Mac". (obligatory for Marathon and Quaka :) )
So I got used to it right away with Bondi Blue and I still like to use it sometimes. It suits me quite well.
and have you tried playing with that quaka mouse? Or folding a magazine or retouching? Even then he sent a Wacom :)
I have short fingers - it suits me. Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro. Play QUAKE? For me, who has been riding Na Macy since 1987 (SE), really a waste of time...
Nice one, I had a good laugh :)
This is why I like this server. Please, more articles like this, you're doing great ;) You have smart people who write well and catchy, and you just don't see that nowadays :)