Apple’s new Magic Mouse 2 has some new tricks up its sleeve, but according to a behind-the-scenes look into Apple’s Input Design Lab, perfecting the new eco-friendly mouse with a gliding sound that was just right wasn’t as easy as a click.
The top-secret laboratory where Apple designs its Macintosh accessories opened its doors before today’s product launches, revealing all the insane details Cupertino’s hardware wizards obsessed over in the new iMac, Magic Mouse 2, Magic Trackpad 2 and Magic Keyboard.
Everything from the chemicals used in the smaller iMac’s new 4K displays to the size of the keys on the new keyboard got mercilessly scrutinized.
Learn all about the painstaking details that went into the products with these 10 juicy bits from writer Steven Levy’s trip to the lab:
Apple designers hated the sound Magic Mouse 2 made while gliding across a desk:
“It had just changed… kind of… the sound,” Apple VP for Mac Engineering John Ternus told Levy. “They all make a noise — the question is getting a noise we like. It sounded… not right.”
To fix the mouse sound they changed the foot architecture:
“It was a little bit sticky — not in an adhesive sense but it didn’t glide the perfect way we wanted it to glide across the table,” according to Apple’s VP for Ecosystem Products and Technologies, Kate Bergon. “We changed the foot architecture, and it changed the friction characteristics of the sound.”
“When we did the previous mouse we spent so much time dialing those feet, the material, the geometry, everything, so that it sounds good and feels good when you move it on the table,” says John Ternus. “But then you change the mass of the product and you change the resonant frequency of the product and all of a sudden the feet that we loved weren’t great anymore. They weren’t what we wanted.”
Engineers had a bakeoff to find the best new mouse feet:
Ternus explains that the process “involves getting a core group of people from engineering and design together and looking at different samples and saying, ‘Yeah, this is the one, this sounds right!’ And then we go for it.”
The new iMac wants to challenge what a computer can do:
“Its job is to challenge what we think a computer can do and do things that no computer has ever done before, be more and more powerful and capable so that we need a desktop because it’s capable,” says Schiller. “Because if all it’s doing is competing with the notebook and being thinner and lighter, then it doesn’t need to be.”
The iMac’s display has a wider color pallete:
“We’ve given these a wider color gamut. Basically means they have a bigger palette of colors they can display,” says Apple’s Senior Director for Mac Hardware Tom Boger.
Apple had to invent new tech for the new colors on the 4K display:
“Color is a big deal, but [previously] we didn’t have the pieces to do it,” says Ternus. “Eventually we found this path with our LED suppliers that got us everything we wanted without the environmental downside.”
Apple had to create a new way of coding the LEDs to generate high intensity reds and greens that pass through a color filter. The alternative of adopting Quantum dot technology used by rival tech companies was rejected by Apple because it uses the toxic element cadmium.
The new display is really for pros:
“The pros are so tuned to [color palettes], they will see it immediately,” says Apple Mac Product Marketing VP Brian Croll. “The consumer will look at it and say, ‘Gee, I don’t really know why, but it looks better.’”
Microsoft’s new products validate Apple’s approach:
Photo: Microsoft
“It’s amazing that one event validated so much of what Apple does, and held us up as the gold standard,” said Phil Schiller. “And that’s flattering.”
Apple will never put a touchscreen on the iMac
“From the ergonomic standpoint we have studied this pretty extensively and we believe that on a desktop scenario where you have a fixed keyboard, having to reach up to do touch interfaces is uncomfortable,” says Schiller.
The new keyboard is smaller, but has bigger keys
“We did a lot of development early on and probably went down a path that was more extreme than it needed to be, so we backed up a little bit,” says Kate Bergeron. “We made the surface area as much of the keys as you can, and minimized the border around that keyboard to take up as little space on the desktop as possible. It weighs less than the one before, and it maintains rigidity.”
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
23 responses to “10 insane details about Apple’s new iMacs and Magic peripherals”
I don’t understand why Microsoft product validate Apple approach. From what I understand, the Surface line is pretty popular now.
If you read the article, it says “Microsoft’s full-blown entry into computer hardware” is what validated Apple’s approach. Apple has always done both hardware and software, while Microsoft was just software. Now, Microsoft makes phones, tablets, and laptops, thus indicating the combined hardware/software approach was right all along.
Also, he may mean Microsoft compared their new products to Apple as a benchmark, making Apple the “team to beat” as they say. Samsung never bashes HTC or LG because they are nobody. Samsung only bashes Apple because they are the only true competition. So, calling out Apple seems to indicate that of all manufacturers, Apple is the one that Microsoft is trying to top.
Apple, how about having an option for a wireless keyboard with a numeric keypad. Is that asking too much.
I know I love my Magic Trackpad at work & home. But I have to have a numberpad, at work so I’m stuck with the wired keyboard.
I guess that wasn’t an insane detail (that I care about also) that was worth adding.
This is gross. You plagiarized Levy’s nicely written article and turned into a less engaging 10 point listicle.
I really like the fact that Apple is trying to widen the color gamut … but won’t you have to use something besides the sRGB to notice the difference ? Browsers, and most JPGs from digital camera are already dumbed down the the common core of possible colors. Adobe 1998 or something might enjoy these new monitor capabilities. Or am I missing something ?
Re: jpeg – change your camera setting to shoot RAW.
I am 64 years old and have been a professional in the computer business since 1977. That is 38 years. Most of the people who design computers these days and write about computers were not even born when I started working with a computer. – I came to remember this when I read above about the possibility of making an iMac with a touch screen and that it might be uncomfortable. And this where my age is relevant. – It was around 1986. At my workplace we actually used a PC computer with a touch screen. I have forgotten who produced it. But it was hopeless to work with. There were mainly two problems: 1. You got tired in your arm in just a few minutes. 2. When somebody tried to point to something on the screen they often hit an area which activated the edit-function or some other function. – Of course the screen was not touch based as our screens are today. Around the edges of the screen a lot of little green lights formed some sort of grid across the screen. And when you put your finger on or very near the screen you would block some part of the grid. And that would initiate some function to be performed. – It was in the same time-period that the MS Dos operating system got upgraded to v. 2.11 which suddenly allowed the user to create folders on the floppy disk. You were no longer limited to 99 files on the floppy disk. It was also at that time that the first religious debate over operating systems started. Some people loved MS Dos. Other people loved PC Dos. The debate looked exactly like the debate over Android vs. IOS and all the systems we have used in between.
Dude, there are already millions of PCs with touchscreens validating that form factor – check almost any manufacturer besides Apple.
Apple is just saying that because their OS doesn’t support touch yet. It’s just like when they did extensive studies and determined that 3.5″ is the perfect size for a phone – remember? They only said that because that’s all they were selling at the time.
Since the form factor has been validated I guess that nothing more is to be said! Perhaps people nowadays do not get tired in their arms and shoulders. How would I know. When I got my iMac I never looked back at the Windows world.
No, i agree with you. I’ve used a touchscreen PC in a professional environment and it’s a nightmare. If you have something like a Surface or an iPad, people “get” that it’s touchscreen and it’s largely optimized for that. But at a retail store I worked at they had a touchscreen desktop set up to capture customer information, complete with an onscreen keyboard. Most customers got frustrated about 60 seconds in and moved on. They ended up replacing it with a regular desktop.
I’m currently looking for a job. I’ve been in several retailers where they have touchscreen employment kiosks. To tell the truth, I would rather fill out a paper application than use one of those stupid things.
You are definitely a fanboy, you that can´t admit that someone is right because you hate their choices of brand. His points are valid, desktop computers are not meant to be touch based, it is exhausting. If there millions of pcs in that form factor I find it funny people call apple out on reality distortion and having gimmick products. Enjoy your pc FANBOY
The 3.5 screen was a bit small but the device size was the right size. Bigger phones are idiotic, tablets were meant for editing gaming etc.. The phone was meant to do calls and minor editing and media consumption. Apple made a mistake following the trend but that is what people nowadays demand because they no longer call, they just text. Making bigger phones is not innovation is just making people a faster horse as ford said.
View this page on a desktop. Then put your hands on the screen and act like you’re going to type something.
Are your arms getting tired?
I rest my case.
Oh dear Apple, how I sometimes hate you! Not that I mind the new devices as a matter of fact after initially disliking my new macbook 12 keyboard like many, I traveled with it and now every keyboard other than the macbooks feels like a old IBM M keyboard, with key travel forever. So, yes, secretly I was hoping for you releasing a new wireless keyboard…..but no you couldn’t just leave it at that. No you had to redesign the magic mouse and the trackpad as well…. yes you sell them separately, but it is totally clear you cannot just leave the new keyboard alone with the old magic mouse or trackpad….so $300+ later, I write in frustration and with the knowledge that I might truly have a problem…..I guess thank you for listening……
“Apple will never put a touchscreen on the iMac
“From the ergonomic standpoint we have studied this pretty extensively and we believe that on a desktop scenario where you have a fixed keyboard, having to reach up to do touch interfaces is uncomfortable,” says Schiller.”
Yet they just made a 12.9″ Ipad with a keyboard you have to reach out and touch.????
Ipad is on the desk all the time? With desktop You have to reach to monitor, which is ergonomically on the height of Your eyes, so You have to rasie Your hands all the time. With latops or Tablets with keyboard i see sense – desktops no way.
Are you really that unimaginative? You type and touch-screen on a horizontal tablet, but a desktop or laptop screen in vertical.
Try working on your tablet for a hour while it’s vertical and your tired arms will soon set you straight.
I would much rather have seen the time wasted on the sound the mouse makes over a surface, used to create a port where the traditional wire of the classic mouse connected, so one can use it whilst it’s charging.
The Surface is actually a highly competitive product. There’s absolutely nothing in the industrial design that falls flat – it’s a well designed machine. It’s just that the well designed Surface is still saddled with desktop Windows. Microsoft needs to commit fully to a mobile environment and split their OS like Apple has with iOS and OS X. If and when they see their way clear to do that, the Surface will become a much more dominant product.
As much as I like their computers and iOS devices, I’ve never cared for Apple’s peripherals. I think they’re way overpriced. I would rather buy aftermarket products.
About two weeks ago, my dad’s old iMac died. I met him at the Apple Store at the mall by us so he could get a new one. I saw the keyboards and mice they had on display and guessed he wouldn’t like them either. After I finished setting up his new iMac, I showed him the devices. I was right. I just paired his old keyboard and plugged in the USB receiver for the mouse and put the new ones in the drawer in case he needs them.