Although companies like Apple never do anything by accident, users were stumped when it revealed its Magic Mouse 2 in 2015 with charging port inconveniently located below. It’s a problem that still plagues the mouse seven years later, and it’s apparently a problem that Apple is determined to preserve for years to come, as discovered Matty Benedetto.
Benedetto is best known on the web for the YouTube channel, Unnecessary Inventions, where, as the name suggests, it features inventions that the world doesn’t really need. That includes everything from an iPhone case that stores and launches candy to the mouth of a user, until a strange approach to a standing workspace with elongated keyboard keys instead of a raised desktop.
Like many other loyal Apple users, Benedetto loves most things regarding the Mighty Mouse 2, except that when its rechargeable battery runs out, it has to be flipped over and rendered useless in order to charge. So, through the power of determination, 3D printing, and YouTube clicks, they designed what they assumed would be a smart solution to the problem.
Starting with a Lightning charging cable with a right angle connector on the end, Benedetto designed and 3D printed a riser for the back of the Magic Mouse 2 that rolls on a pair of metal ball bearings. The riser allows the mouse to still slide around a desk while connected to a power source and recharging, but it turns out Benedetto’s ingenuity was no match for Apple’s determination.
The problem they immediately discovered was simple but puzzling: when the Mighty Mouse 2 is plugged into a power source, it stops working. It recharges fine, but the rest goes dead until the Lightning charging cable is unplugged. Why is this the case when Apple’s wireless keyboards continue to work while a charging cable is connected? Apple claims that a two-minute charge gives the Mighty Mouse 2 nine hours of power, so charging port issues aren’t really that big of an issue. But from our own tests, we found that it just isn’t.and when a Magic Mouse 2 dies, it actually requires several two-minute charges throughout the day to keep it going.
To give Apple credit, in recent years it has been addressing and fixing various questionable design choices, including problematic laptop keyboards, removing the touch bar and even the new Mac Studio full of useful ports. So there is still hope that the Magic Mouse 2 will perform well, or that the Magic Mouse 3 will help us forget these dark times.
