I saw this mouse over at product dose this morning and it made me think. It seems like the iPod aesthetic was never successful with mice. Sure, Apple has their slick (although ergonomically flawed) design. But, Logitecha and MS have managed to avoid it all together.
It does have that shiny plastic and some simple forms in the detailing. But, the overall form is swoopy (I need to go back and read that designer lexicon post again). It has some interesting material changes too.
All mouse design since the IBM AT/XT 3 button door stop wedge have been pure styling exercises. Gaming buttons and web scrolling are about the only feature driven design updates. Shelves of mouse designs in big box electronic retailers attest to this.
Laptop touch pad have become ubiquitous, quickly obsoleting the mouse, mini-mouse, mini thumb-joystick, etc. Other input devices, track / space ball, joystick, are application specific. Perhaps some combination of touchpad and qwerty keyboard as standard issue pc accessory is in the future?
That’s an interesting observation. I suppose when designing for PC however, you use visual language of PC peripherals which already exist such as printers/keyboard/other mice. You are looking to compliment the ‘desk landscape’, not to created conflicting styled products. For example, I can see that mouse you posted being the pride and joy of some games-mad Alienware computer owner.
In my opinion I think Logitech and MS mice have a completely utilitarian styling to them. They almost look busy even as static objects. Where as the Apple mouse looks like it’s having a nap when it’s not in use.
My flatmate has the Apple mouse. It runs out of battery ridiculously fast, which is just what you want from an overpriced mouse.
It would be interesting if Griffin were asked to design a mouse for PC users though, as they completely cashed in on the irush.
I was thinking about swoopy vs architectural forms actually. It seems like a natural place for swoopy forms is objects that are psychological extensions of the human form which is pretty swoopy.
The more a product has to fit in within rectilinear architecture the more appropriate a cleaner aesthetic like that of Bang and Olufsen becomes.
Just a thought