Microsoft 1, Apple 0 in Mouse competition
The Wall Street Journal's 'personal technology' column (August 4, 2005) compares Apple's new "Mighty Mouse" with Microsoft's new entry, the Wireless Optical Mouse 5000. Much to the evident surprise of the reviewer (Walter S. Mossberg), the Apple product came out wanting in terms of usability. While the Microsoft product allows easy access to both left and right clicking and web page scrolling, the Apple product makes these characteristics subservient to a slick design. Moreover, Apple has been beaten to the punch by a key feature of the Microsoft mouse, namely that it can temporarily magnify any portion of the screen that the viewer is working with.
In an age in which more of us (unfortunately) are finding teensy tiny little type to be increasingly hard to work with, a simple little innovation like that has the potential to be real 'exciter' feature. Imagine not having to reach for your glasses every time you want to check email or search the web! As Mossberg says, 'stop the presses: Microsoft has beaten Apple on hardware design, at least in this one case'. He can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
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- Posted: Monday, August 08, 2005
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