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Tue, 16 Sep 2003
Apple releases another one button mouse
Apple's announcements today also included a Bluetooth keyboard & mouse. However the mouse is yet another one-button model.
It's 2003 and Mac OS X has built-in support for multiple mouse buttons and a scroll wheel. Does anyone really want another one button mouse, especially one that costs $70? AppleCrap has posted a great review of this new $70 mouse.
I use multiple button scroll mice on all of my machines, including a Logitech wireless keyboard/mouse combo & a Kensington Optical Elite. With software such as USB Overdrive it's possible to assign different functions to each mouse button for different applications. I have my side buttons set to page back & forward in web browsers, spacebar & delete for email programs, and step over & step into for ProjectBuilder & CodeWarrior.
A multi-button mouse can save time and add many convenient shortcuts. There are no advantages to single button mice, when the system uses so many right-click functions which require using the control key if you don't have a multi button mouse. The new Action button in Panther's finder is not a good substitute for a second mouse button.
New Powerbooks
Apple has finally released the long-awaited 15" Aluminum Powerbook along with updated 12" and 17" models.
The new 15" PowerBook is available with a 1GHz or 1.25GHz processor and either a Combo Drive or SuperDrive. The 15" model has a backlit keyboard, which the 12" model still lacks.
The 17" model has been upgraded to 1.33GHz and both 15" and 17" models use an ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 with 64MB of DDR SDRAM.
The 12" has been upgraded to a 1 GHz processor and an NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 with 32MB of DDR SDRAM.
All models now have USB 2.0, and the 15" & 17" models have FireWire 800.