Agreed.
For at least a decade, with each new desktop Mac I’d get, personally or for where I worked at the time, I’d always toss the stock mouse in a drawer and get a nice MacAlly mouse with two clearly marked buttons and a big scroll wheel. They were cheap and nobody could say the Mac didn’t do 2 button mice.

Interestingly my MacBook came with one and two button gestures; click with one finger for left, two for right. there are those at Apple who know this is the modern standard.

If you look up the word Anachronism in the dictionary would it show a picture of a one button mouse?

John what are you really saying? We should get rid of SJ and multi-touch or go back 20 years and have Apple put visible left and right buttons on all rodents.  Last I looked you can set the four or five buttons on the mighty mouse via a control panel.  I agree that Apple mice are a unique breed but it takes all of a second to enable them to use context sensitive menus via a right click.  Funny thing is I use a Microsoft mouse on my mac.  It is about the only hardware Microsoft gets right.  We all need our safety blankets.

Big deal. All Macs provide or support multi-button mouse functionality. It takes a click to enable it.

Use a two button—or a ten button—-mouse if you want but don’t encourage Apple do to the mouse what it did to FireWire.

pats and deasys I think you may be missing the point. Yes OS-X and the Mac will support multibutton mice. It even comes with a mouse that is multibutton. But by default it works as a single, with the left and right buttons doing the same thing. This should be changed so that the right button does typical right click things out of the box. Switchers are already trying to figure out the strange world of Mac. There’s no reason to make them go in and reset system setting within 5 minutes of them turning on their Mac for the first time. There’s no reason to make it any harder or to give the WinTel crowd more ammunition.

This is such an old and tired argument. If this is the biggest complaint from users, Apple’s got it made in the shade.

Personally, I would prefer to complain about the need for an “in-between” Mac. More than a Mini, less than a Pro. A headless Mac box that I can use with my own monitor, mouse and keyboard, but with more horsepower than the Mini has. I’m a Pro user at work, but I don’t have the need or enough cash to justify a Pro at home. I’ve had and routinely upgraded the same G4 for 7 years.

I’d love if Apple reinvented the Cube and made it a viable MacMedium.

Apple does it the right way.  Default to simplicity, and let the users who want more control act to take it.

but if it’s the same… why switch?

This is such an old and tired argument. If this is the biggest complaint from users, Apple’s got it made in the shade.

Uh… there’s actually quite a bit more complaints than just that. Perhaps the most glaring example of just how much is wrong with Macs are the amount of brand new macs running Windows instead of OS X.

If Apple gave the switchers two buttons out of the box then they would be asking for a Start button.

I don’t know, maybe it isn’t a conscious decision to have the right button disabled by default. It could be one of those we always did it that way things.

So does this fulfill the obligatory “Complaint about Something” that TMO does about Apple every so often.  It seems like you write these pieces, not because they are important enough to actually spend time on, but because you’ll look too much like you are in Apple’s back pocket if you don’t.

I can understand your desire to seem objective, but how about you actually pick something worth to criticizing.  This is NOT worth the digital ink.

Why only a two-button mouse? Why not 4 buttons? Why not 8 buttons? Why not 120,689 buttons?

I’ve not used an Apple mouse since I first got a Mac in 1992, except for set-up and hardware tests. Of course, I don’t use ANY mouse with my iMac. Instead, I use a Kensington Expert Mouse—a trackball, despite the name. It’s easier to use and has four physical buttons, plus one can define two “gestures” (simultaneously press the front two or back two buttons). To me, a mouse—of any kind—is an ergonomic disaster and a waste of desk space. So, should Apple bow to my preferences and include a trackball, instead of a mouse?

Most of the PC users I know do not use the mouse that came with their home computers.

A few comments about the content of the article:

1) I believe that what we have here is a point of differentiation. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Macs provide sufficient functionality for the user to operate them fully without needing two mouse buttons while PC’s do not. If indeed it is a point of differentiation (and I concede that I may be wrong), why would a savvy manufacturer want to eliminate it? In fact, wouldn’t they want to ensure that it is conspicuously available rather than being a hidden option?

2) For a new user, utilizing a double-button mouse is ONLY simpler if they are already accustomed to using that type of mouse since more sophisticated coordination and learning is involved. By definition, new computer users have in fact never used a computer before!

3) The authors argument is tantamount to saying that it is likely the 2-button mouse should someday be abandoned simply because most computer users have by then been introduced to 3-button mice.

4) Regarding the “default,” it seems to me that the simplest option that makes the tool useable by a majority of people should be the default setting. If so, it is quite reasonable that the single-button mode would be the default.

So Apple should change it because some people are ignorant?

I’ve worked with a number of people who have had trouble with two button mice and remembering what button does what. They certainly would not know how to switch to one-button function if the default was two. The single button makes the Mac much less challenging to the novice computer user. On the other hand, for the two-button savvy user, turning on the second button takes only a moment, one time in the life of the computer. Moreover, by making one button the default, Apple subtly enforces on developers a standard that the second button is a convenience, and is never required to access the features of an application.

Watch my daughters struggle with Adobe flash apps on the web and why there’s this strange menu thing that sometimes comes up when they click.

Then tell me that there’s no merit in a single-button mouse.

The time for discussion of a one v two (or more) button mouse is long gone. It is an anachronism of the 1990s and died with OS9.

I deal with many people in my profession, from the switcher to the new Mac user, to the new to computers, ELDERLY users. In all cases, the new to Mac and computers person has no problem with a one button mouse and the elderly users (those with arthritis, stroke victims, and others with conditions more crippling) find it more difficult and much more confusing to use a 2-button mouse as the menu keeps popping up when they don’t want it! It seems to be only the PC switchers and other long-time 2-button abusers who complain and can’t manage to figure out how to set a preference. Apple sets a default of one-button use for the simplicity of ALL USERS, from age one to age one hundred and beyond! PC people just don’t understand ease-of-use for people who have dexterity problems. Apple understands how to make their machines usable by every age group—not just the young and dextrous!

I’m a switcher - from Sinclair to Commodore to Apple to IBM to HP to Acer back to Apple…  One or two buttons - It doesn’t bother me, but I’m lost without a scroll wheel. And I choose my mice based on comfort and fit - strangely, I’ve never chosen an Apple mouse.

I’m upset that they went from a 3 button mouse to a 2 button mouse. There’s no middle click on the Magic Mouse. I use that all the time (almost as much as a right click).