July 24, 2006: The world gets its first glimpse of Apple’s new wireless Mighty Mouse, a multibutton Bluetooth device with super-accurate laser tracking.
Photos of the accessory come to light through an Apple filing with the Federal Communications Commission. Apple will launch the device the very next day.
Apple finally breaks the one-button barrier
The wireless upgrade came a year after Apple broke with years of one-button orthodoxy by releasing the wired Mighty Mouse. After decades of insisting that one button was enough, starting with the Lisa computer’s launch in 1983, the company finally conceded that productivity trumped simplicity.
While the one-button constraint simplified the experience of using a mouse in the early days of personal computing, it proved unnecessary by the 2000s. After all, many Mac users had been using mice for the majority of their lives by that point.
The wireless version of the Mighty Mouse took things a step further into the modern era. Its hidden controls, laser tracking and Bluetooth freed the Mac peripheral from the common cable and confirmed Apple’s penchant for disguising complexity beneath a surface that looked almost too simple to be useful.
The Mighty Mouse came with two buttons, a miniature trackball for scrolling, and side squeeze sensors — greatly boosting the functionality of Apple’s pointing peripheral. To get around Apple CEO Steve Jobs‘ hatred of visible buttons, it retained the “no button” design of the company’s previous mouse. (That design came about after Jobs accidentally approved an unfinished mouse prototype.)
Wireless Mighty Mouse: Now with lasers!
Photo: Federal Communications Commission/Apple
Users loved the Mighty Mouse. It faced only minor criticisms for things like the inability to click both right and left buttons at the same time (which continues with Apple’s current mice), and the fact that the scroll ball eventually became clogged with dirt and required cleaning.
Unlike the wired version, twin AA batteries powered the wireless Mighty Mouse. Apple said the new laser tracking tech in the wireless model, which replaced the original device’s optical tracking, made the Bluetooth mouse 20 times more accurate.
The wireless version cost $69 (plus whatever you’d spend on the AA batteries). The Apple Magic Mouse superseded it in October 2009.
Did you own a wireless Mighty Mouse? What is your favorite Apple mouse in history? Leave your comments below.
