I love my iMac. I’ve written about that in the past. I still love my iMac. However, something just didn’t feel right about the mouse. At first I thought it was just getting used to a new computer so I gave it some time. (Of course I use Linux and didn’t have the problem.) Then I thought it might just be the wireless Mighty Mouse’s weight or drag across the desk. So I put the mouse pad back which didn’t make a difference. I also removed one of the batteries to make it lighter. None of this helped. Then I thought it might just be the Apple Mighty Mouse itself. I replaced it with another mouse I had at home, then with another. No luck. My arm and my wrist began to hurt. I felt like I had a depth perception problem or I was just crazy.
After about two months I finally just looked on Google. I searched on something vague, like the mouse didn’t feel right or something like that. Lo and behold the answer to my question was there; it was the mouse acceleration curve.
Turns out, somewhere along the line between Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X 10.5 Apple decided to quietly change the acceleration curve on the Mac. The result is an acceleration cliff; the mouse moves quickly and then, right before the target it slows down…to a crawl. Normally the mouse would slow down incrementally, gradually, allowing the person to place the pointer directly on the target. Once the mouse slows down it creeps across the screen. This was causing me to overcompensate and making my arm ache after a while. Continue reading