We have a desktop iMac with a Mighty Mouse. The mouse scrolling action started becoming unreliable, naturally just past warranty expiry. I tried various cleaning suggestions found in online searches. Nothing properly solved the issue so we gave up on the scroll ball. That was so long ago that I had forgotten that we initially used the scroll ball.
The Mighty Mouse scroll ball was fine while it worked but with it being a sealed unit with no sensible means of cleaning inside this mouse was never fit for purpose. We were forced to compromise and do without the mouse’s scroll ball function. Online searches reveal that this was a widespread problem. Any company of integrity would have recalled this flawed product and provided a properly designed replacement mouse that could easily be cleaned. Apple failed its customers!
The Apple mouse that came with our PowerMac 6100/66 was completely reliable over the nine years that we owned the system during which it was heavily used for a business. The rest of the system also gave good, reliable and long lasting service. The StyleWriter 2 printer was faultless in spite of those nine years of business use including printing many faxes. There was one problem with the 6100/66 when the L2 cache failed after about seven years and was replaced. There were initial problems with the functioning of the 6100/66 as Apple was stupid enough to supply it with only 8MB RAM, expecting virtual memory to be a suitable substitute. It was not. We soon installed additional RAM in the 6100/66 and had no further trouble.
Apple used to make user-friendly products that were reliable and long lasting. In recent years it has elevated Style over Substance. As long as it looks good is all Apple cares about and whether or not it is fit for purpose, reliable and provides long lasting service has been ignored. Fragile iPhones with a planned obsolescence/throwaway build and OS have flooded the market. This has worked fine financially for Apple as long as there has been an ever increasing market. Now the world market for smart phones is approaching saturation point and Apple is overexposed to this market. Perhaps Apple will regret abandoning its previous great quality and ease of use approach, particularly in those other market sectors.
The above comments also apply to Apple’s software. Many iWork users have been upset with features being omitted from later versions and backwards incompatibility. OSX had and still has problems. Last year I made the mistake of “upgrading” the iMac from Mavericks to Yosemite which proved to be unstable. Fortunately we left the 11” Macbook Air on the Mavericks that it came with. In August I went through the laborious process of taking the iMac back to Mavericks. Apple seems to be deliberately obstructive and unhelpful to users who want to revert to a previous version of OSX. However Mavericks has restored the iMac to its previous satisfactory performance.
Back to the issue. The only problem on the iMac now is scrolling too often causing the window to reposition. In the past it happened very occasionally but it has become more of a problem in the last few weeks. Perhaps something has changed? Maybe the mouse is dying? I will see if I can borrow another mouse to see if it will remove the problem. Thanks for the suggestion.
If the mouse does need to be replaced what do members suggest we should obtain that will provide all the functions of the Mighty Mouse but will not clog up or can be easily cleaned?
Last edited by Carrier; 3rd December 2015 at 18:33.