> a disrespectful "form over function" principle which people also don't like
Which some people don’t like.
Apple may have accepted the in their view minor inconvenience of not being able to use the mouse for half an hour or so every few days to get a cleaner look of the device, knowing full well that some people would complain about it.
If they had put the charging connector on the outside, I bet some people (possible even some of the same people) would have complained about the looks.
Also, even assuming it is a design flaw, I don’t see it being an obvious design flaw. Maybe Apple knows it doesn’t work well with a cable attached (modern environmentally cleaner cables tend to be stiffer. How stiff is the cable they supply it with?), or that permanently charging it wil shorten battery lifetime (yes, that’s preventable, but they may have had other constraints, e.g. time to market. Reading https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Magic+Mouse+2+Teardown/51058, it’s not all proprietary chips inside)
I think it's a question of being able to do something, even though it's not great doing it, but the alternative might be worse.
I have a Logitech MX something or other which has the charging port where the cable would be if it was wired, so I can charge it while using it. But as you say, the provided cable is so stiff, it's a total PITA to use it. In practice, I never charge my mouse while using it. But if the battery were completely drained and I had to use the mouse right now (it's connected to a desktop, so no touchpad), I could, instead of having to wait around for 10 minutes or however long it takes for the mouse to become usable again.
Speaking of mice, the best one I've had was a Logitech G703 or similar, which would convert to wired mode if you plugged in the charging cable to the computer. The cable was also quite great during use, much suppler than on most common wired mice.
I have always wanted that feature! Ideally Bluetooth but wired if plugged in to the charging cable or with the option of the dongle for wireless.
My use case is when the drivers don't work setting up a Ubuntu PC rather than high speed gaming. The dongle is always lost so the charging cable is always going to be helpful.
Whilst at it, I want some USB storage on there too plus the full sensor suite that you can expect on an Android phone for things like where north is, how light it is, G-forces, GPS and so on.
Clearly there is no market for such a gadget, so I have compromise devices for now. I would want to get the Logitech ones but - left handed!
Well, this particular model was of the "gaming" persuasion, so I'm surprised it even had blinky lights, since the goal was to be light. The MX master is a freakin' brick, so they could probably stuff all kinds of sensors in there without any issue.
The G703 didn't do bluetooth at all but had a small "lightspeed" dongle which was absolutely the best wireless experience I've ever had on a mouse. My current MX doesn't feel laggy, but whenever I switch to my wired "gaming" mouse, it somehow feels more responsive. I didn't feel any difference with that mouse. Note I'm not actually a gamer, I just love these mice because of the high sensitivity, very low weight and on-board memory. There may be better wireless options out there.
Too bad the scroll wheel started behaving funny, I was actually thinking that since they were supposed to be able to take a beating while playing, they would last forever as "office" mice.
> The dongle is always lost so the charging cable is always going to be helpful.
Logitech were actually nice enough to provide a female micro-usb to female usb-a adaptor, so you could actually keep the dongle on the charging cable. And even though the provided cable had some kind of weird mechanical connector surrounding the usb port, which would fit "securely" to the mouse, you could actually use any random micro-usb cable to charge the mouse if the connector wasn't absurdly thick. This was a nice touch, because the battery life was pretty terrible so I always had to have the chargin cable on hand. I had to charge it basically every week when using it heavily. My MX master has a much better battery life.
1. I was answering the question "why people bring it up so much", so your "some" is irrelevant, as is whatever Apple thinks.
> cables tend to be stiffer
2. That would be a non-obvious justification for the obvious design flaw, but still not something that would make it flawless
But also
> it doesn’t work well with a cable attached
You don't need it to, the only difference vs. today is that in those cases where you've forgotten to plug the mouse to recharge it you'd be able to continue work (yes, with some downsides of a stiff cable attached), so that's still a marked improvement over the design where you can't use a mouse at all
> time to market.
how does that explain not fixing it in the time after it hit the market? (but more generally, see 2.)
Which some people don’t like.
Apple may have accepted the in their view minor inconvenience of not being able to use the mouse for half an hour or so every few days to get a cleaner look of the device, knowing full well that some people would complain about it.
If they had put the charging connector on the outside, I bet some people (possible even some of the same people) would have complained about the looks.
Also, even assuming it is a design flaw, I don’t see it being an obvious design flaw. Maybe Apple knows it doesn’t work well with a cable attached (modern environmentally cleaner cables tend to be stiffer. How stiff is the cable they supply it with?), or that permanently charging it wil shorten battery lifetime (yes, that’s preventable, but they may have had other constraints, e.g. time to market. Reading https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Magic+Mouse+2+Teardown/51058, it’s not all proprietary chips inside)