Apple Pro Mouse
 | |
| Developer | Apple Inc. |
|---|---|
| Type | Mouse |
| Release date | July 2000 |
| Discontinued | August 7, 2005 |
| Predecessor | Apple USB Mouse |
| Successor | Apple Mighty Mouse |
The Apple Mouse (formerly Apple Pro Mouse) was introduced in July 2000 at the Macworld Conference & Expo in New York City. Apple Computer was one of the first companies to ship an optical mouse as the standard input device. While the industrial design of the Pro Mouse was handled entirely by Apple's in-house designers, some of the hardware has been engineered by Sparkfactor Design.[1] The Pro Mouse was included with the Power Mac G4 Cube, also introduced at that year's Macworld. Apple was the first company to use USB mice and keyboards exclusively when they introduced the "hockey-puck" mouse with the original iMac G3 in May 1998. Like the "hockey-puck" mouse and all future mice Apple would make, the Apple Pro Mouse was a USB mouse with a much shorter cord than its ADB predecessors, its 2-foot cord was designed to plug neatly into one of the two ports of the Apple Pro Keyboard's built-in USB hub. The Apple Pro Mouse also featured a unique mechanism to allow for 3 click force settings for the required pressure to click the mouse. The Apple Pro Mouse was originally released on the iMac G3 "Snow."
Combined with a rising tide of suggestions that Apple switch to a typical two-button wheel mouse for their pack-in bundles, the unique design of the Pro Mouse's body inspired jokes that Apple had made a zero-button mouse in response.
The original Pro Mouse was available only in black, which matched the black Apple Pro Keyboard. The cord on the original Apple Pro Mouse had a very high failure rate due to flexing and corrosion. It wasn't until later that the mouse was available in white with the debut of the iMac G4, a revision which also solved reliability problems with a more rugged cord and improved stress relief. In May 2003, the mouse and keyboard were both re-designed, though the exterior of the mouse had few noticeable changes: Apple dropped the "Pro" from the name, and removed the ability to control the firmness of click in the Apple Mouse. From then on, the Pro Mouse was simply known as "Apple Mouse." This white mouse was later included with Power Mac G4 Mirror Drive Door systems, Power Mac G5 systems, the eMac, and iMac G3, G4 and G5.
On August 2, 2005, Apple replaced the Apple Mouse with the Apple Mighty Mouse. The Mighty Mouse featured a 360° scroll ball, touch-sensitive buttons, and a pressure-sensitive "squeeze" functionality by default set to activate the Exposé feature in Panther, Tiger, and Leopard. Soon afterwards, the Apple Mouse was discontinued completely. On July 25, 2006, Apple introduced a wireless Mighty Mouse which uses Bluetooth.
See also
References
- ↑ Sparkfactor. Sparkfactor: Design. Retrieved January 11, 2007.