Magic indeed

I just noticed Apple came out with the "Magic Mouse" yesterday.

The same Multi-Touch technology first introduced on the revolutionary iPhone comes to the mouse. It’s called Magic Mouse, and it’s the world’s first Multi-Touch mouse. Click anywhere, scroll in any direction, and swipe through images on its smooth, seamless top shell.

The new Magic Mouse redefines what a mouse should do. In addition to its smooth, seamless top-shell design that acts as one button or two, Magic Mouse features a Multi-Touch surface with gesture support. Scroll vertically, horizontally, and diagonally — a full 360 degrees — simply by touching anywhere on the top surface. With a greater surface area for scrolling, you can get around a long timeline in iMovie, through a lengthy web page in Safari, or around a set of images in iPhoto more efficiently. You can also swipe through pages in Safari or photos in iPhoto with two fingers. It’s the most advanced Apple mouse ever made.

...NO. I really wish Apple would knock this off, it drives me insane. Multitouch was not introduced on the revolutionary iPhone, and this isn't the world's first Multitouch mouse. They should know, since they destroyed the company that made them. They've owned Fingerworks' technology for almost five years now. They own it. They don't need to copy it or reproduce it, they've literally got the guys that invented it working for them right now, and after five years they created a legendary magical mouse that lets you:

• Click anywhere


• Scroll in any direction


• Swipe through photos

I realize Apple users are new to the concept of a functional mouse and might be a little behind on all the advances, but last time I checked mice already let you click anywhere. They also let you scroll in any direction, scroll wheels were added to mice 15 years ago, and rocker wheels weren't long after that. Finally, side function buttons for swiping through photos or whatever else you want are maybe a decade old. Calling scrolling in any direction "gesture support" is absurd, this was gesture support

Apple bought out the best multitouch company there was and took five years to incorporate their technology into a mouse that's only ten years behind the rest of the world. Not that I can really argue with their selling point, it is "the most advanced Apple mouse ever made."

All the cool kids hate Apple

There's an article on ITworld about how even Apple will be hated one day. When that day comes, I want to have this blog post on hand so I can point at it and say "See! I TOLD you they sucked. I hated Apple before it was cool to hate Apple"

Microsoft is a dirty thief, let's iCry about it

I found yet another video of Apple bitching that Microsoft steals all its stuff:

Normally when I talk about operating systems on here I focus on my love of Linux, so it may not be clear that my love for Linux is equal to my hate for Mac OS. I hate the look and feel, I hate the interface, I hate the software, I iHate their iNaming scheme, and I hate its users pretty much on sight. Mac users focus on three truths they latch onto like a religion (speaking of things I hate):

1. Mac is the best


2. Windows steals everything from Mac


3. Windows sucks

At some point they're going to realize that there's an issue in there somewhere. Windows steals everything so flawlessly from their precious Mac OS that they call it "photocopying", but Windows still sucks huge. Stop bitching that Windows steals all your shit as though they're going to stop or something; you can't maintain that you're amazing and yet still complain that people are imitating you and you want them to stop

I multitouched your mom

I'm going to find Apple, and I'm going to shoot them in the face. No, seriously. Not because I hate their OS, I've grown to accept that. This is because of what they've done to multitouch. Multitouch is just about the greatest thing ever, and sadly before Apple got involved nobody had heard of it. If you don't know what multitouch is, I'll use the now-canonical example of the iPhone, although ironically the iPhone uses almost none of multitouch's capabilities. If you're in the map view of the iPhone, and you put two fingers on the display and "pinch" them together, the map will zoom in. Oooo. Basically, multitouch is the ability for a touchscreen to recognize multiple fingers and react to their movements.

I first discovered multitouch years and years ago, probably close to a decade now. It was a small company called Fingerworks, and they manufactured the iGesture Pad:


It's a big multitouch pad that accepts any combination of 5 fingers, either spread apart or together. You can move in different directions, rotate your hand in different ways, spread or collapse your fingers, basically tons and tons of different gestures, and each one can do a different thing. Look at that sexy, sexy device. You want one, don't you? Well, you can't have one. Because Fingerworks is out of business. I live in fear of the day my iGesture Pad breaks, because I'll have considerable trouble replacing it. If you clicked that link I had to them earlier, you know that "FingerWorks has ceased operations as a business". Why? That's what we (I believe the accepted term is "fingerfans") all asked. Just one day, probably 5 years ago now, they were gone. Finally, rumors started circulating that Apple had bought them out.

At first, I thought this might be good news. As I mentioned earlier, nobody had really heard of multitouch except its small group of fans, although demonstrations by people like Jeff Han led to it being rediscovered all over again by a much larger audience who think the technology was invented two years ago. Nonetheless, Fingerworks was struggling as a business, and I figured with Apple marketing their products and improving them, multitouch was going to explode. Oh, silly me. For ages, nothing happened. And we fingerfans were confused. Then the iPhone came out, and its Fingerworks roots were obvious. Sure, now it's a display instead of a simple pad, but it's the same technology, only way suckier. Worse, Apple keeps filing for patents for stuff like, for example, the pinch gesture for zooming. Instead of innovating, they've spent years doing nothing but making sure nobody else can innovate either.

What probably annoys me most is most people don't even realize Apple is doing this. People think Apple invented the technology, or damn close. Quotes like "the iPhone is arguably the first mainstream gadget to successfully implement a set of concrete touch gestures and link them to specific functions" from that Wired article drive me crazy. Apple didn't come up with this at all; they basically stole it from Fingerworks, crushed the company, and then did nothing with the technology but let it sit there. If they don't want to do anything with it, that's fine, but they're blocking everyone else from doing anything either. Multitouch should be huge by now, but instead it's remained stuck for the last 5 years, and Apple is at least partly to blame. The Fingerworks people (who work -- "work" -- at Apple now) probably hate themselves.

As an aside, I tried to look up the wikipedia article on Fingerworks, which used to exist. Now it just links to the article on Apple. Not cool.