As Apple has developed the world's first computer mouse with no buttons

"Apple" mouse underwent a long series of design changes from "besknopochnogo" design and multi-touch control to wireless technology and laser control. Apple Computers were included with the mouse since the release of Lisa in 1983, and since then the company has constantly changed shape and configuration of the mouse, to cater to the changing tastes.

Recently the web has been published patent on multiknopochnuyu mouse. Abraham Farag (Abraham Farag), a former senior mechanical engineer for product design at Apple, was partly responsible for the Many innovative changes mouse design, and he does not mind sharing his thoughts on the new patent, as well as memories of former job.

Farag joined Apple in March 1999 to work on new mouse, which would replace the controversial mouse-washer that comes bundled with the original iMac. So there was the first "besknopochnaya" mouse - and Farag says it was a fluke.

According to Farag, it all started with a model they do not have time to finish. "We made six beautiful options to show Steve. They were fully prepared, up to the layouts for buttons, various plastic parts and colors. " However, at the last moment he changed the idea of ​​the design team, but in the end it was not enough time for revision, so that the resulting variant was not even layouts for buttons... But there is nothing: it was necessary to show the result to Jobs. Farag remembers: "She looked like a gray ball. We even wanted to hide it in a box away from prying eyes... Steve looked at the range of potential options and stopped at this unfinished model with the words: "This is brilliant. We do not need any buttons. " Someone had assented to it in return. It seems that at this meeting, and ended, leaving designers wondering: how did they make a working version of the mouse without buttons?

And the team unscrew releasing besknopochnuyu mouse Apple Pro Mouse in 2000. It was a breakthrough not just the world's first mouse with no physical buttons, but also the first optical, without rubber wheel, mouse for Apple. And even though the product has proved successful, the team decided not to stop there and come up with a new solution, the opposite: a lot of buttons. But it's not like Jobs, who was firmly convinced that a button is sufficient if the user interface is good. And argue with Steve - it is virtually useless, everyone knew it.

The design team decided to do everything in secret and developed the same design multibutton mouse, made prototypes. They held a meeting at which Jobs was not invited, but invited Johnny Quince. And it so happened that Jobs has passed and all saw, criticizing to the nines.

So the idea, and stalled.

For several years, this topic is not raised. However, later, Jobs was inspired by the idea of ​​a mouse with sensors built into the surface so as to simulate the presence of a few buttons. Later, after leaving Farag from Apple in 2005, this idea was embodied in the form of the first multi-touch mouse Magic Mouse in the world, published October 20, 2009. The evolution continues ...