- 2005.04.01
CUPERTINO
- APPLE COMPUTER (BG BUX), the last (and only) manufacturer of
single-button mice, today revealed its design for a new, ergonomic
two-button mouse.
Called the iWalk™, the two button mouse uses a unique
elliptical trainer design to move the mouse. The user actually
operates the device with his/her feet, using a motion not unlike an
exercise machine. Now you can type, mouse, and get fit
simultaneously.
"This new design gives the user a rolling, natural feel to
mousing, as opposed to linear mice which just scrape across the
table," said Deirdre Crosstrain, an Apple spokesperson. "You'll be
able to step up to the next level of human-computer interface with
this."
The new design utilizes two iFeet™, so it can
gather twice as much information in the same motion, increasing
resolution and decreasing the need to move the mouse as far as in
traditional designs. In addition, each iFoot™ has one button,
giving the entire iWalk device one more button than Apple
traditionally uses.
"Users will be able to use the left button for calling up menus
that depend on the job the user is trying to do," said Crosstrain.
"This is an entirely new concept, and it shows that Apple stepping
up to the plate of innovation once again. By tomorrow, everyone
will want a two-button mouse. In fact, everyone will have a
two-button mouse."
The iWalk device uses wireless technology so users can avoid
tripping over their shoelaces mouse cord.
Analysts responded positively - but with reservations. "Can you
plug it in an iPod™ somehow?" said Delbert Numbweed of
Reuters. "If you can, it will sell like gangbusters."
Others were more effusive. "It's the most incredible thing I've
seen since the development of those little sucker-style hooks you
can put on your bathroom mirror to hold your rings," said Penny
Pinochet of the Pennywise free newsletter distributed in local
restaurants in Muncie, Indiana.
Not everyone loves the device concept. A spokesman for Microsoft
said, "Microsoft pioneered the development of two-button mice as a
downgrade from the original three-button mouse," said a generic
talking head (frankly, they're kind of hard to tell apart). "Apple
is just copying us - and not very well at that - once again
highlighting the innovation we've all come to expect from
Microsoft."
Gort Blanche of ApplePun, a website using a clever puns to play
off of the fruit-named company's name, said of the device, "Apple
has once again tread upon the competition and developed the sole
product which can run roughshod over similar devices. They'll leave
everyone else in their tracks, and this product will, through its
amazing industrial design, set a new standard (something like 7-1/2
wide) for the development of human interface."
Later in the day Microsoft announced a new mousing interface
designed after the stick-shift in a 1968 Volkswagen Beetle, which
will require users to use both feet, their right hand, and push on
the transmission with their posterior in order to make a
three-dimensional contextual menu appear.
This new interface device, code named iBug™, will be
available sometime in 2018, along with the first public version of
Microsoft's new Foghorn™ operating system, the successor to
Windows XP.
