Create Film Scores

N.B.: This article was written in September 2005.

When Apple introduced the Mighty Mouse in August of 2005, I marveled at the manufacturing genius behind a great idea: instead of having a vertical AND an horizontal scroll-wheel, why not having a small ball which would then be moveable around with 360° freedom? I bought the Mighty Mouse on the very first day, convinced that Apple had done it again – they had found the way to make 360° scrolling a breeze. Unfortunately, it seems Apple’s didn’t learn from history – weird for the company which sold the first commercial computer mouse ever.

Microsoft launched the optical Intelimouse Explorer about six years ago because they understood the real problem in the little world of computer mouses. Dust. By removing the bottom ball and replacing it by a laser beam, they got rid of users’ biggest issue – after a few days or weeks, the mouse’s sensors placed around the ball would be so dusty that they wouldn’t work as well, resulting in poor accuracy. It was time to open the mouse’s bottom, remove the ball, and take 15 minutes to quickly clean the sensors.

With the Mighty Mouse, the ball is back and the sensors as well, so when my scroll ball started acting weird (I would need to scroll many times to have any effect on the computer), I immediately thought about a dust issue. I mean, you’re moving the scroll ball with one of your finger, and although I am trying to have my environment as dust-free as possible, what best than your fingers to put small and greasy dust particle inside your mouse?

I decided to check it out.

As described on Ars Technica‘s article, Dissecting Mighy Mouse, to access the scroll ball, you actually have to open the whole mouse, which, knowing Apple, isn’t a very easy thing to do. Opening my Mac mini or iPod was easier than this: Not only do you have to be very careful and precise, but you also have to know that, once opened, and if you’re lucky enough not to break anything (which I was), you will not be able to have your mouse back without putting some instant glue here and there.

After around 20 minutes of playing around with two tiny screwdrivers, and following Ars Technica instructions, I was able to access the scroll ball case, which I then unmounted from the mouse.

First discovery: there is indeed dust around the scroll ball’s hole – not a lot, but it made me think that, if dust can accumulate on the scroll ball cover, there should be a lot inside the case. Looking at the scroll ball case, I was not far from the truth:

You can see around the ball the accumulation of dust particles.

I then decided to remove the plastic cover and take a look inside:

Bingo! Dust everywhere. On the main sensor (below the ball) and on each of the four cylinder-shaped sensors around the ball (which are originally white). It took me about 30 minutes to clean all the sensors, so that they would be all white again. Overall, here is all the dust I removed from the scroll ball case:

Now, please keep in mind:
   - The black desk was perfectly clean before I started opening the mouse
   - This dust comes only from inside and outside of the scroll ball case.

This will not be too surprising to users out there who had a regular mouse couple of years back.

Now, here’s my conclusion. Most of the negative points mentioned here and there about the Mighty Mouse may be acceptable to some users (it is for me anyway). However, not taking dust into account when designing the 360° scroll ball is, in my opinion, unacceptable. I can’t believe Apple didn’t even think about a way to easily access and clean the sensors.

I used the Mighty Mouse for less than a month and a half and the scroll ball was already acting weird (I can’t imagine how the scroll ball will act after two or three months of daily use.) Now that it’s clean again, it works perfectly, and it will probably do so for the next 4-6 weeks. But who wants to take the risk of opening this mouse (and, if not breaking it, of having to put it back together using glue!) every time one wants to clean it? And, honestly, who still wants to spend time cleaning a mouse’s sensors? Wasn’t this supposed to be history?

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