Fifty Euros of Pure Shame

Cupertino has my loyalty, almost unconditionally. The Mac, the software, the industrial design—all of it. I’m fully in. Which makes what I’m about to say harder, not easier: whoever signed off on the Mighty Mouse should personally apologize to every person who bought one, or hand me back my fifty euros. I’ll accept either.

The scroll ball—that little innovation Apple was so proud of, the thing that was supposed to let you scroll in any direction—stopped working. Not once. Twice, on two separate units. The first went back to customer service after a few months. The replacement lasted a few weeks before the same ball started sticking and stuttering again. I tried every cleaning method I could find: Apple’s official approach (useless), the tape trick, various home surgery guides from the internet. Nothing fixed it permanently.

At some point I gave up and spent roughly a year without working scroll functionality. You’d think that would be intolerable. Eventually you adapt, which is its own kind of depressing—paying for a feature and then quietly accepting its absence. Today I finally decided to open the thing properly before wiping my system. The ring snapped immediately. A side button stopped functioning. I can’t get the casing closed again.

So it’s gone. There’s a specific guilt in throwing away Apple hardware—it looked beautiful next to the keyboard, and it feels like a small betrayal—but if you sell a mouse that can’t be cleaned or opened without self-destructing, you don’t get to keep loyal fans forever. My next mouse is a Logitech, same as my Windows days. I’ll buy another Apple mouse the moment they make one that actually works. That might be a while.