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It's annoying that windows doesn't get on the interface train. It wouldn't be that hard to make decent touch interface items that are different enough to avoid patents. Apple has always had a leg up, there.
My wife has been on such a spending spree - with 3 and 4 packages arriving from Amazon daily, most days of the week - today she went to the mall, and I was like, "You're buying me a Magic Mouse for my Mac."
The multi-gestures on the touchpad on a MBP are pretty awesome - but regular mouse functions are like any other trackpad - kind of cumbersome. The Magic Mouse is a regular mouse with a built in touchpad that does multi-gestures, basically.
It is also $80. For a fricking mouse.
But... it is also pretty fricking *awesome*. It arrived tonight. I hate buying Apple products. The Mac will die, and I'll have an expensive accessory that only works with Macs.
But I shouldn't have wasted my time with a $20 BT knock off mouse. I should have just dropped the $80 on the Magic Mouse in the first place. It seriously gives you the best of both worlds. I hate Apple for that.
Some thoughts along these lines. I post at Uncensored - because this place is such a ghost town...
Here is the thing about Apple. The Magic Mouse is awesome - it does exactly what it needs to...
But you honestly *need* it with a Macintosh - to really utilize the OS to its maximum. It shouldn't be an optional luxury accessory - it should be included as part of the base package.
Windows has multi-touch gestures that add value to the desktop experience if you want to take the time to learn them - but the OS is designed around a base productivity paradigm that pretty much... well... I guess the solution with a PC is to buy a dual monitor configuration. That is where you get optimal productivity from a PC running Windows. But the OS itself is designed for a traditional two button mouse with a scroll wheel.
OS X really WANTS a multi-gesture pointing device, trackpad or mouse - and it wants a dual button mouse - Apple has cheated on the Magic Mouse in that a click on the right side of the mouse is a right-click, a click on the left is a left click, but there aren't two physical buttons - so they can claim the *aesthetics* of a single button mouse while getting the features of a dual button one. To be fair, my Razer gaming mouse has 7 buttons. Left, Right, two side, two additional smaller mouse buttons, and a wheel click button. That is kind of going in the exact opposite direction of what Jobs wanted from a mouse and does illustrate the difference between Apple's approach and Microsoft's to user experience.
You can navigate around OS X with a traditional mouse fine, in a very traditional MS-Windows sort of way. But adding a Magic Mouse - you see what Apple really *wants* for OS X - and how this makes the 2nd screen MOSTLY unnecessary. I still think not having to page between virtual screens is superior - but - it certainly saves on screen real estate. The problem is - for what they want for the Magic Mouse - you can get a very nice second screen.
But... the extra productivity of a dual monitor doesn't *feel* magic. It doesn't have a lot of WOW factor. The Magic Mouse is kind of a distraction... "Look at this, with this device, you don't NEED the second monitor!" But even with the Magic Mouse and a second screen, the second screen is going to add more productivity value than the Mouse and a single screen.
They *are* good at gimmicks. I bet I'd learn to love that little bar on the new MBPs too, if I had one of those... because it feels *fancy*... doing what a PC can do already, but doing it in an expensive, showy way instead of in a very practical, plain manner.
So far, what I've seen of the Magic Mouse - just brings a limited feature set of the touchpad gestures to the mouse - and adds virtualized iPhone style scrolling and page swiping and features like this. Oh. You're talking about the "bar"!
I mean... I *liked* the Compiz Cube... so... flashy sparkly things... I dig 'em. I think I'd probably like it.
So... here is another thing about Apple/Mac. Every time I start using this 2012 i7... it frustrates me that I can't really *use* it because of Radeongate. So, being a PC guy, I think... "Surely some Chinese vendor has made a replacement bottom with big heat sinks and heavy duty fans designed JUST to solve THIS particular problem. If it were a PC - someone would have made something like this.
There aren't even DIY solutions - really. People just went, "Yup, these Macs cook themselves, and there is nothing to be done about it but use them until they die and then buy another, new Mac and hope they didn't make the same mistake again.
I've considered taking it apart and basically building it into a case - because I don't NEED a laptop.
The frustrating thing too - is that the 2015 model - which still suffers from premature thermal death - is still going for $400 for the i5 model. It isn't as prone to thermal death as the 2012 models.
I *should* really just take it apart, put some Arctic Silver on it after sanding the surface of the GPU and CPU - and then running it until it does die. That isn't bad advice. But... taking the whole thing apart to that level and rebuilding it again is a chore.
It just really pisses me off.
It's annoying that windows doesn't get on the interface train. It wouldn't be that hard to make decent touch interface items that are different enough to avoid patents. Apple has always had a leg up, there.
My wife has been on such a spending spree - with 3 and 4 packages arriving from Amazon daily, most days of the week - today she went to the mall, and I was like, "You're buying me a Magic Mouse for my Mac."
The multi-gestures on the touchpad on a MBP are pretty awesome - but regular mouse functions are like any other trackpad - kind of cumbersome. The Magic Mouse is a regular mouse with a built in touchpad that does multi-gestures, basically.
It is also $80. For a fricking mouse.
But... it is also pretty fricking *awesome*. It arrived tonight. I hate buying Apple products. The Mac will die, and I'll have an expensive accessory that only works with Macs.
But I shouldn't have wasted my time with a $20 BT knock off mouse. I should have just dropped the $80 on the Magic Mouse in the first place. It seriously gives you the best of both worlds. I hate Apple for that.