While the exact reason has never been documented, if you look at that mouse's design, you'll see that its first generation had a regular battery compartment on the bottom. When gen 2 arrived, they fully reused the same shell and only replaced that bottom part to now be an integrated battery with a charging port instead of a compartment for AAs. Moving the charging port would've required a brand new design, since every edge of the mouse tapers way too much for a port to be placed anywhere else. They would also probably need to change more of the internal structure, as opposed to just swapping a battery module and changing the bottom lid. In this case the constraint seems to just be about functionality and manufacturing. Apple has made many controversial design decisions that have no functional justifications in the past, yet people keep bringing up the mouse.
The reason people talk about the mouse is that it's one of the worst ideas they ever had.
At the time, I remember someone claimed that the reason was that they were afraid people could leave it plugged in for convenience. Apple thought that would lead to a worse experience because their mouse was designed to be used wirelessly. I think it was actually more related to aesthetic "icks" by the designers, because people would have disconnected the cable if it was in the way.
This is not even close to the worst ideas Apple ever had, even if you're only talking about mice.
The original USB mouse (for the first iMac) was round, so you couldn't orient it in your hand without looking at it constantly.
And it came with a very short cord (because there was a port on the right side of the keyboard to plug it into). But then the laptops got updated with USB ports and they were only on the LEFT side of the case.
For at least a year or two you could not buy an Apple mouse for your Apple PowerBook and use it in your right hand, because the cord was too short to go around the case.
Eventually they shipped a "Pro" mouse with revolutionary elongated shape and longer cord. (...and optical tracking, and what looked like zero buttons, which were pretty neat)
Yet it is one thing I love very much about my MX anywhere 3. The wire connection is simply more performance and I get to use it when I did not charge. It is also compatible with any non-Bluetooth device.
> I think it was actually more related to aesthetic "icks" by the designers, because people would have disconnected the cable if it was in the way.
A lot of people really will just anxiously leave the cable in the whole time if given the opportunity. I have a wired/wireless Logitech mouse and I confess that I hardly ever remove the cable. Between this, and the space and connector issues of adding a "normal" cable connection as referred to in the grandparent, we have two reasons to think that Apple's decision wasn't all that clearly bad, let alone one of their worst.
Nobody leaves the cables attached. Except wanna be pro gamers who think a couple milliseconds will help them more than practice to "git gud". Every mouse I have is wireless, and I almost never use them plugged in, except for the one on the server that get used so rarely it's self-discharged should probably be wired but I simply don't have any wired ones left. Just plug them in overnight every once in a while, golden.
Honestly, as a user of the mouse, I think the main reason people talk about the mouse is bike shedding. Charging isn't a problem in actual use, but everyone sure has an opinion on it.
There are plenty of contenders for 'worst ideas they ever had' and this just isn't up there.
That's a quote from Steve Jobs about how basically all of their competition (except Google) had made the mistake of trying to ship desktop software on phones. The problem with the stylus is that it's a hardware workaround for a software problem: the sort of cost-reduced engineering you get when a company wants to "have a mobile strategy" without actually putting in the time and effort to make something good.
The Magic Mouse is the exact same kind of "we couldn't care less" cost-reduction. The charging port is on the bottom because that's the only place you can put a charging port with the existing all-glass design. Because they re-used an existing design intended for removable batteries. This is such an uncharacteristically un-Apple move, and one so obviously detrimental to the design of the device, that people (including myself) actually psyopped themselves into thinking Apple had deliberately designed the mouse to enforce wireless usage.
And, to be clear, Apple has never done that.
All their other peripherals with rechargeable batteries in them will let you use them fully wired if you plug them in. In fact, if you somehow engineered a way to move the charging port somewhere less stupid, the Magic Mouse probably would work plugged-in, too.
If you see a charging port on the bottom, they blew it.
I agree, I always found the charging port location to be a total non-issue. The battery life is long, charging is fast, and you get warned that the battery level is low long before the mouse dies.
While I get the feeling you appreciate the, erhm, efficiency with which Apple modified this product, the problem is that Apple is not supposed to be efficient. They don't need to save money on the engineering process because they are not hurting for money. They sell themselves as being a design-forward company that prides itself on making bold, not expedient, choices. To take a shortcut like that shows a lack of respect for the customer to whom they are charging premium prices for these items.
