Why did Apple design a single mouse button?

The first time I saw Mac was in 2001, when Horn had a stray singer who made music, called Old Guo, disheveled, hard jacket, often in the afternoon orange sunshine, holding the guitar, sitting in front of the Mac Pro tuning and composing. I remember clearly that the version of OS X is 10.2 Jaguar, a technology-filled metal drawing interface that allows us to use Windows and Linux for the program Ape's eyes are full of grabbing eyes. Strangely, the mouse does not use the same as the normal PC mouse as the first half of the fork, but a seamless semicircle, which let us imagination.

I went over and asked, "Is this thing a mouse? Why don't you have a key?"

Guo Go lazy twist, eyes upward, nostril, he told me, this is called a single mouse, Know Satan? Click on the left button, hold down the control click, right button! Orange in the sun hit in Iraq's face, the nose on the glasses become colorful, I was so hopeful, the sunshine is my slap ...

I went out of the office with a few programmers, and Apple wasn't the most design-oriented company, was it? is not the most humane company? Why does the production of the mouse will leak the right button? We look at the building across from the old East gate of Tsinghua University, plunged into a long meditation.

In my young programming age, this is one of the few problems that bothers me. Until one day I used the Software design Kiss (Keep It simple, stupid) principle made a very reluctant explanation: single mouse, easy to fool can also use!

A few years later, I found evidence to support myself in "Apple Five", written by Luo Yonghao, in his "Apple fans" article:

2005, slow Apple finally launched the double-button mouse, many have been hard to insist on using Apple's unique mentally retarded single mouse, mouth also said that "complex society, simple Apple" and "look different" Apple fans are finally installed, and rushed out to buy, Also on the Internet to notify each other pair, Apple mouse has the right button! The Apple mouse has the right button! Yes, Apple only in a short span of more than 20 years on the mouse plus the right button, this is how great the speed of development ah, to know that the bicycle was born nearly hundred years, only people to it with the brakes.

The first time I tried an Apple computer in a friend's office (he was a super Apple fan), surprised to find that the Apple mouse does not have a right button, and more surprised that I found that Apple's operating system is to support the PC double-button mouse, but my baby Buddy said he has been using a single Apple original mouse, but also told me, in fact, No need to use a double button mouse, on the Mac, you just click the mouse while holding down the control key can be called right button menu ... I looked at him, very distressed to say to him, brother, do not do so, better for themselves.

　　Complex society, simple Apple, unconventional, to simplify. This is probably why Apple insists on using the single mouse button for so many years ...

This knowledge continues until I read a book titled "Software Stories: Who invented those classic programming languages", and the eighth chapter in the book, which serves the public computer: a long way from gooey to Macintosh, talking about mouse buttons, I think I finally found the reason why Apple first introduced the single mouse button.

In the user interface area, a very important point is the number of keystrokes on the mouse, this debate continues to this day, and now you can still see a key, two keys, three keys and a mouse with n keys (I've never used a mouse with more than three keys), and every designer can find the reason for the mouse button.

Xerox The first mouse is three keys, and then the researchers worry that three keys will confuse users, the company eventually to market the mouse to assemble two keys. Microsoft has copied Xerox's idea intact, using a double button mouse.

Apple finally chose the single mouse button, just for the sake of novelty? Apple does have its own user philosophy behind the choices. Tribble, an Apple designer, recalls passing video arcade games in Seattle and repeatedly watched children play complex war strategies, and many beginners didn't see the instructions, just by standing around and watching experienced players play one or two times.

Tribble said: "The key is that you watch others do so, you can learn, you do not need to operate manuals."

This is the way Apple is used and carried on the MAC in Lisa, to the fullest extent of the simple and easy to learn concept. Let's just say, like in med school, a teacher teaches a new skill: see it, do it yourself, and then you can teach someone else.

　　This is a way of visualizing everything, and Mac is a visual thing ... That's why we use a single mouse button. When you have a button, you can watch and learn, and if you have a lot of buttons, you can't see how others clicked.

Until now, most of Apple's products do not have instructions, so they will make the software and hardware simple enough. corresponding to a single mouse, may be the iphone/ipad on the shiny home button, no matter how long you walk on the screen, gently press home button, you can safely back to the main interface. The feeling of home!