The one-button mouse: its legacy has haunted Apple in many ways since the first two-button mouse hit the market. Apple was constantly seen as behind the times; even the introduction of the Mighty Mouse and its wireless successor did little to salve this open wound. Even though the Apple faithful knew that two-button mouse support had been in the OS since System 8 or so, critics regularly hit Apple at its “simplistic” one button mouse.
Andru at GearLive has put together the quintessential rationale for the one-button mouse:
I kid you not, ten times a day I would talk to someone who has never right clicked in their life. After they first do it, they will ASK YOU EVERY TIME if they should right click or left click. Now, though we may not be the typical computer user, Apple is always concerned with creating a user experience that is as intuitive as possible. Giving the average person a right mouse button is like giving a bald man a comb.This is a great idea, but it’s unfortunately not true any more, even for Apple-designed applications. iTunes is particularly egregious in this regard: go into the Podcasts section and right click on an episode, you’ll see a whole host of options that you can’t get to from any menu.[…]
Apple has gone through great pains and great expense to study human-computer interaction. Because of these studies, one thing Apple insists on is that every feature of an application should be accessible through menu items. It’s great and even encouraged to create additional ways of accessing features, but at a bare minimum, you should be able to reach it from the menu.
Some argue that by this point, everybody understands the difference between right- and left-clicking—people who argue that have not, in my experience, worked in tech support. In ten or twenty years, that might be the case, but there are still some people who have a hard time getting the idea of clicking and dragging, much less two button clicking.
Don't forget about the MacBook. All of Apple's portables have only a single trackpad button.
I use a traditional chording technique on my MacBook where my left hand rests on the Shift, Ctrl, Option, and Command keys. In many applications these keys are used to effectively expand the number of types of clicks to five or more.
I know many users who have been using computers for as much as twenty years, on both Mac and Windows, but can never seem to remember that the second mouse button exists. Or, have just opted to pretend it doesn't exist because the options on it are too technical.
In any case, hiding podcast controls in a context menu is perhaps another good example of how iTunes doesn't follow Apple's own user interface principles.
Of course, even in the Finder the "Show Package Contents" option is only available when using the context menu on a package. Admittedly an option that you probably don't want single mouse button users to be accessing.
"its legacy has haunted Apple in many ways since the first two-button mouse hit the market."
Actually, the multi-button mouse predates the one-button mouse. See Jef Raskin's rationale for the one-button mouse. http://mxmora.best.vwh.net/JefRaskin.html
I'm with Andru, whenever I was helping a PC user in my old job, I had to specify "left-click." Even that didn't always work. People with some experience right-click because they expect "click" or "right-click," they aren't thinking left vs. right. For beginners, you're lucky to get them to understand when to single-click and when to double-click.
I rarely use right click.
I would be perfectly happy with my old one button mouse.
except for one thing.
the scroll wheel.
and not the damn ball in the MM.
unless they made it user cleanable.
Once again, this issue (much like the widget post) is an issue of power-users vs. grandma & grandpa users. For someone like me, a two-button mouse is a wonderful thing, whereas my mother freaks out when she uses the Mighty Mouse. She'll never need two, three, or even four-button functionality from a mouse, and OS X is designed to let her keep happily using that one-button mouse.
But control-clicking things gets tiring for me, and I love the Mighty Mouse and use it whenever I can. Is either one of us right or wrong? No. It's just a question of how much you use the computer.
I'm with macnuke, I use the scroll wheel far more than the right click.
But I also have a graphics tablet permanently attached to my desktop machine for critical work.
I am for the multi-button interactive device. The keyboard is an example so why not the mouse, especially if it is possible to program them.
I know that there is a "one button" philosophy behind every technology: mouse, remote control, etc. even software. Simplicity is part of design language, but if you have a device that give you multiple possibility, isn't to your advantage? If you want it "solo-button" you just had to set it this way and thats it (the Mighty Mouse comes set by default as a "mono-button").
Finally, this preoccupation divert us of a more fundamental reflexion such as" what should be invented?" instead of cosmetic questions.
Today we're interacting with computers thru the mouse but what about tomorrow?
Just a matter of imagination.
I have no idea what a right click is for. In thinking of buying a new Mac one of the first things I asked the salesman was is it possible to configure the mouse for the usual clicking method.
Apple sticking to the one button mouse has been one of the best things for the platform. This encourages developers from hiding functionality that requires the second button.
I think the best thing Apple could do though is add a left right toggle to their portables. They have already added the option to all their USB / Bluetooth mice and keep one button turned on by default.
This will require developers to think "how can I intelligently add a menu to this feature" while at the same time "how can I speed up access to this feature for power users." Everyone is happy then.
I believe the multi-button mouse is similar to many other technologies because many will not be able to work without it, while others will never touch it.
For me, being an iBook user, I have learned to be quicker with Ctrl-Click than a USB Logitech mouse. I use the contextual menus often enough, while I wouldn't dream of trying to teach my grandfather, who's MM has both buttons as the main click, about what the right click is used for.
To each his own, I guess.
In my opinion the MacBook Pros should come with two buttons, and the MacBooks machines one.
OR even better, have the trackpad button location sensitive, so right click can be enabled in the preferences like it is with the might mouse.
I used to love a two button mouse, until I figured out the keyboard shortcuts. I almost never use the right mouse button now, except to "show package contents" in OS X
I think that any disquisition on muti-buttonness of mice must keep in sight
three components: 1- the device, 2- the software, 3- the user.
Starting with the second item, the GUI of Mac OS was designed from start to be operated by means of a single-button mouse, and it was done after a comparison with other options, as the 3-button solution that was incorporated in X-11. Even today, Mac OS X can be operated without resorting to multi-button devices. In the meanwhile, an imitation attempt of Mac OS gained wide-spread popularity. This os requires, or at least makes much more essential, the use of a second mouse button. This fact made some people wonder whether Mac OS [X] might benefit from a similar critter, and the opinions range from sheer "button envy" to more thoughtful thinking.
At the same time, when Apple switched from the proprietary ADB to the standard USB bus for mice connection, two-button contraptions designed for the other os started to be linked to our beloved Macs, sometimes on the basis of better functionality (do you remember Apple's round hockey mouse?), sometimes just because they were cheaper. An use for the second button had to be found; by simple analogy with the competing os it was immediately identified with the right one (in principle, the "second" button might be the leftmost one as well!) and associated with a function introduced in later versions of Mac OS that required a modifier key: "control clicking". Still, ctrl-clicking in Mac OS X has far lower incidence than right-clicking in the other os (AFAIK: I'm in no way an expert of that piece of code!); from this point of view, it could be argued that it would be advantageous to associate the second button with "double-clicking", but this would disrupt the basics of Mac OS [X]'s GUI and make more conservative Macintosh users like myself cry in outrage!
On the other hand, the incidence of ctrl/right-clicking in other applications, even Apple's ones, is higher and the utility of a second button may grow on this basis.
Summing all up, IMHO,
- I'm glad that Mac OS X doesn't *require* a multi-button mouse
- two- or multi-button mice may prove useful for driving the OS and more so for specific applications.
- Even beyond the standard association "right button / ctrl-click" every single user is free to choose a more complex input device and personalize it for her/his purposes (with support from the OS!). In doing that, functionality is gained at the expenses of simplicity and standardization, but this is of no concern as far as a common ground still exists (e.g., a guest user of that computer can still connect her/his simple mouse and start "normal" working without further changes).
- Personally, I'm not that happy when I encounter a two-button mouse attached to a Mac, because my natural way of gripping such devices, matured from the era of the Mac Plus, makes the right button much easier to be clicked, but the difficulty can be readily removed by reversing the settings.
- The scroll-ball/wheel plays no role in this context, since it is a plain addiction to the computer functionality, for a well defined and circumscribed purpose.
Ever since I switched from "the Dark Side" to a Mac, my usage of the right-mouse button has gone down, for sure, yet I still feel uncomfortable with a single-button mouse.
As a recent switched I could not live without a two button mouse. The first accessory I bought for my mac mini and MacBook was a wireless Mighty Mouse.
I prefer using a 2 button & scroll wheel mouse, configured for Right=click, Left=Control/click and Scroll click=Command/click in Safari for opening links in a new Tab (it's the default setting if no other operation is assigned to the center button).
Using right click for all normal operation avoids a risk of a nasty arm strain caused by having to keep fingers 'hovering' over the mouse buttons. A rarely recognised problem.
i have never used a multi button mouse on OSX, even though i own a mighty mouse, i hate it with a passion and only use either my original single button pro mouse or (more often) the original wireless pro mouse, all single button. this is for my iMac.
on my powerbook, i ditched the extra mouse i got when i first bought the computer after finding out how amazing and time saving the two finger scrolling is. NEVER used a mouse with my laptop again!
the other day, my cousin who has recently purchased a mac asked me what difference she would notice the most if she got one... when i told her macs have only single-button mice she stated: i have NEVER used the right-button in my life, what is it for? i told her: nevermind, you don't need it :D
I want the one-button mouse back. I have a wired mighty mouse and I have trouble left clicking the thing. But that is strictly a mighty mouse issue.
I have since purchased two multi-button mice (one from macally and one from logitech) and I am more addicted to the scroll feature than the right click. I still right-click infrequently.