Om Malik says Jef Raskin should get design credit for Apple’s new mouse.

As for the trackball, the description clearly intends it to manipulate the cursor, something the Mighty Mouse and all other mice do not do, for good reason (that is what moving the mouse is for).

But anyway, I hear Gil Amelio wants credit for inventing the iMac, the iPod, and restoring Apple to prominence!

I worked with Jef after the Cannon Cat project, and the man had great insight into interfaces, but most importantly he was dead on in focusing on people first, and technology second.

Its too bad nobody in Redmond, or nearly everyother technology company ever learned that lesson. Especially the damn cellphone companies, aka an “information appliance” for the unwashed masses.

BTW: here’s an old quip of Alan Kay’s: “Apple has always had a three button mouse. It’s just that two of the buttons were on the keyboard.”

Despite what people say, Raskin was not opposed to the mouse and the GUI, he just thought they were too expensive for “appliance cumputing” (they cost about $300 back then!) and didn’t like the desktop metaphor in general. He was an early WYSIWYG evangelist and actually was responsible for getting the Apple heads to take it seriously. Remember that the Mac was originally cancelled by Steve Jobs for not being a “serious” computer.