A lot of us care about the charging port being on the bottom. It’s ludicrous. I can leave any top of the line Logitech mouse plugged in all the time and never have to even think about charging.
I honestly think it was a conscious decision. The problem with most wireless mice I see in our office is they end up being left constantly plugged in and are essentially wired mice. By placing the charge port on the bottom they are actively prohibiting you from using it as wired mouse.
Intentional design choice so that people wouldn't leave it charging.
People leave the keebs/trackpads connected where I work and it's not uncommon to have them balloon up because of the spicy pillow.
Though; it's obviously more about aesthetic than anything else... I would argue that the (genuinely ergonomically terrible mouse) does not need to have a charging port on the top due simply to the fact that you can get 30minutes of usable charge from less than 5s of charging time.
If you really can't leave your mouse for 5s (from dead, despite plenty of warning) to use it for the next 30 minutes then likely you have larger issues in your life.
I have used the mouse, yes— I understand what you're pitching, but I think that ultimately the user can decide whether they want it to be a wireless mouse or a wired mouse, depending on their needs.
Putting it on the bottom did nothing but remove that optionality for the user, and that can be really frustrating.
Unless the reason it charged so quickly was because it connected to the bottom of the mouse, I don't see the justification.
> it at one point had a charging port under the mouse
I've read that the motivation for this decision was to ensure that the customer would use the device wirelessly as intended. I guess it could be beneficial for the battery as well.
I think you're right, but it's not in Apple's ethos. As an example see the Apple Magic Wireless mouse that has its charging port on the bottom specifically because Jobs didn't want users to ever use it as a wired mouse.
The whole charging port on the bottom of the mouse isn't just for visual design. It's intentionally made to force you into using it exclusively wireless. If it were allowed to be a wired mouse far more people will have crappy experiences with the cable constantly snagging on things. Yes, technically you could plausibly run it wired until its charged enough but now there's the extra inconvenience of managing a cable. I know this all comes off as 1st world problems - and it certainly is - but Apple has always been about refining the experience. Besides, if the battery on my mouse does die, I just plug it in, go make some coffee, and come back to a mouse that'll last me for at least another week before another recharge. Fully charged, I've had it run for at least a month. The whole charge from the bottom is one of the biggest non-issues ever.
Some of us who use the mouse always want to keep it plugged in all the time because the extra cable on the desk is less important to us than (a) having it not occasionally glitch due to Bluetooth and/or (b) not wanting the extra burden of having to charge it. I guess scheduling the charging is minor if you don’t have ADHD, but it’s still one more stupid thing to take care of that really isn’t necessary.
How does the design of a rechargeable mouse encourage you to forget to charge it. It makes no sense.
The original whine fest is about not being able to use the mouse while it’s wired. That’s because Apple wants you to enjoy using it wirelessly. It’s not hard and if you make a mistake, you can charge it to last a day in the time it takes to make coffee. No big deal. If you forget to charge it overnight, there’s a new chance tomorrow.
Oh and the Magic Mouse 2 features a 1986 mAh battery at 4.2v which really is quite a bit more energy than your pair of batteries of 2500 mAh at 1.2v. Unsurprisingly of course, otherwise we’d all have cellphones running on aaa batteries.
You’re not the target audience, you don’t need to tell Apple you’d want the charging port to be somewhere else, it’s a pretty obvious choice they can think of themselves. Clearly they purposefully made the different choice. And between you and Apple it’s probably also clear who is selling a ton of mice and who is not.
No one would assume that a mobile phone requires to be plugged in to work. With mice it is not as clear cut. And looking at my magic mouse, I wouldn't know where they would put a charge port without making its wireless use worse. So I prefer it as it is. Would be nice though, if wireless charging would be possible.
Being able to use it while it's still charging is a really useful fallback scenario, though. Imagine if you couldn't use your phone while it was charging, if it was unusable until it was fully charged again. No one would put up with it. Yet a mouse is vitally important too!
If you've reached the point when you need a backup mouse for your primary mouse, then the primary mouse has failed.
The point isn’t that there are solutions to keeping it charged. The point is it’s a needless concession for Apple to make when other wireless mouses have found elegant ways to achieve simultaneous use and charging. This wasn’t an instance of Apple reinventing something that will later seem so obvious.
I use the wireless Apple keyboard and trackpad, which both have similar battery lives, but when the battery runs out it always somehow happens to be right before a meeting where I really need to plug it in and use it right now
(and these days when everything else is USB-C, instead I'm scrambling to find where my damn lightning cable has gone)
Although I get why they would not put the port on the back - their Lightning cables are not built for the repeated motion/strain of a plugged-in mouse. Anything more strain than plugging your phone in and setting it down causes the cables to break down in months.
I do not understand why you expect this from the company that tells phone users ‘you’re holding it wrong’. You’re using it wrong. It’s not a problem, just use it right. It’s just a small thing.
Apple isn’t going to change their products just because you can’t remember to charge them. Their target audience can. They aren’t going to switch to inferior batteries because you can’t use the product right, because most people can use the product right with no problems. And they aren’t going to make people use their wireless mouse while permanently attached to a wire. It’s not a better product if it allows that. So they don’t.
And if you don’t like it there’s a market full of wired and wireless mice on batteries or whatever you want. Probably a lot cheaper too.
Once a month I need to flip the thing and plug it in. The amount of hassle is almost zero. It charges quickly enough that on a few minutes of charging it can limp along for another hour or so.
I've had other cordless mice that needed to be charged in a special cradle, which is basically the same thing, and I never heard anyone bitching about "hilariously backwards" design. Most people reviewing the product thought that was convenient.
In practice, I find that it's really a non issue. With a traditional wired mouse, you keep it plugged in all the time. In this case, you only keep it plugged in an hour or two every week or two.
It can still be used while charging. So when charging it's not any different than a wired mouse.
I have one on my desk. It's the biggest non-issue ever. Do you ever need to go to the bathroom? Or get up and get a drink of water? Plug it in, and by the time you come back, you have enough charge to last you the rest of the day. Remember to plug it in overnight, and you've got at least a month of charge. It's just a ridiculous complaint that it can't be used while plugged in. It's a wireless mouse - why would you want it to have a wire?
Even a docking station would suffer from the same problem because people would just put the mouse onto the dock every time they were done using it. Also, I don't think contact charging is as fast as cable charging. The point is to only charge it when you absolutely need to.
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