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If You Can't Join 'Em Lick 'Em

Apple's admission that computer users have more than one finger and therefore can push more than one mouse button is a major break with the company's "I'd rather be right than popular" attitude. It's also another sign that Steve Jobs really is getting serious about going after a bigger share of the PC market. At least that's what I hope. I'd love to see some real competition between Apple and Microsoft for the desktop OS marketplace. And silly as it sounds, that one-button mouse on every Mac has probably been a stumbling block to success for Apple.

I know that right-clicking is second nature for me. When I sit down at a Mac and try to do something as simple as browse the Web it takes a few minutes for me to reeducate my neurons to work with one button.(A personal computer guru of mine, Len Milo, once demonstrated the perfect solution: He sat down at a Mac, took a rubber band out of his pocket and wrapped it around his first and second fingers. Voila. No right-button, no right-button finger, no problem.)

It's a little bit sad that Apple has decided it can't survive by being different so it has become better at being the same. OS X has certainly shown that's possible. The adoption of Intel chips will remove some more hurdles (although I'm not sure why that was ever a big deal). And now a two-button mouse. Look out Microsoft. Apple is smokin'.

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