All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
The news couldn't be more shocking if the Catholic church suddenly announced it was embracing contraception: Apple is moving to a two-button mouse. Sharp-eyed beta testers of Apple's new operating system, Mac OS X, have noticed that the pre-release software supports mice featuring more than one button.
In the world of the Mac zealot, this is huge. Apple's famous one-button mouse is as symbolic of the easy-to-use Macintosh interface as the icons and windows. But these days, it is often derided as a hopelessly outdated anachronism and the debate -- one button or two? -- has been raging in Mac circles for a while now.
To its devotees, the one-button mouse represents elegant simplicity. To detractors, Apple (AAPL) is the only computing platform among dozens still clinging stubbornly to an archaic tradition.
Those who would do away with the one-button mouse say it prevents easy access to commands that in other operating systems are available with a simple "right click." Instead, Mac users risk their carpal tunnels by constantly scrawling across the screen to menu bars at the top.
John Bafford, a Web developer who runs OS X Talk, an information clearing house for Mac OS X, was one of the first to notice that the new operating system supports multi-button mice, as well as a scrolling mouse wheel.
Presently, support for multiple mouse buttons is only built into Cocoa, the part of the operating system for writing and running pure Mac OS X software, Bafford said. But he noted Apple will be adding it to Carbon, that part dealing with older Mac software that has been modified to run on the platform.
The upshot: "There's no specific date but they are adding it to Mac OS X," he said.
Mac OS X, which is currently in public beta testing, is due to be released early next year.
In an admirable example of doublespeak, an Apple spokewoman simultaneously confirmed and denied support for mice with multiple buttons in OS X.
"Mac OS X will provide support for a variety of USB input devices such as game controllers, joysticks and trackballs, including third-party input devices that might have multiple buttons," said spokeswoman Alicia Awbery.
"But at this point we have not announced any plans for Apple to offer a two-button mouse and as you know, we don't comment on unannounced products."
Bruce Tognazzini, founder of Apple's famous Human Interface Group and a frequent interface critic, said the move to a two-button mouse is about time.
"The two-button mouse is seven or eight years overdue," he said. "There's no point of harming the efficiency and behavior of the system any more by having a one-button mouse."
The one-button mouse, introduced in 1984 with the original Macintosh, was central to the Mac's ease-of-use philosophy.
The "father of the Macintosh," Jef Raskin, recalls fighting with other members of the Mac design team for a single-button mouse. Apple based its mouse on a three-button model developed at Xerox's famous PARC research center.
"It was faster and more efficient, and much easier to learn and remember how to use," Raskin wrote in a memoir. "I had observed that people (including myself) at PARC often made wrong-button errors in using the mouse, which was part of my impetus for doing better."
David Morgenstern, a Mac veteran and former editor of MacWeek, said Raskin didn't even want the mouse to "double-click" -- he wanted a one-button, one-click device.
"Mac users have always said Windows is so complicated you need another button to get to all the features," he said. "But 95 percent of the world uses a two-button mouse. It certainly is the natural evolution of the Mac's interface. People like the two-button mouse, so why should they be denied?"
Third-party developers have added "right click" functions to Mac software for some time. Users of most Web browsers can bring up "right click" menus by simply holding down the mouse button.
And mouse manufacturers like Kensington, which makes a line of popular multi-button mice for the Mac, have developed software that adds "right-click" functions.
Even Apple seems aware of the shortcomings of the one-button mouse.
In recent years, the company has added "contextual menus" to the Macintosh operating system. But to activate them, users must hold down the control key while pressing down the mouse button, which more or less defeats the purpose.
Could MacOS X Be 'Holy Grail'?
Could MacOS X Be 'Holy Grail'?
New iBooks Slower? Not So Fast
