The YouTube inventor may have figured out why the Magic Mouse is charging strangely

If there’s one strange thing about Apple’s design that we can’t get around to, it’s the Magic Mouse. The original magic mouse I used two AA batteries, then in 2015 Apple released a rechargeable battery Magic Mouse 2. Since then we’ve needed to turn it upside down to charge it, rendering it inoperable until it filled up back up.

Thanks to one intrepid YouTuber, we now know why. On the Unnecessary Inventions channel, Mate Benedetto set out to overhaul “Apple’s biggest design” by designing a way to charge and use a Magic Mouse at the same time. The result was an L-shaped Lightning cable for a slimmer profile and 3D printing of an arc incorporating a pair of metal balls and cable so that the mouse would “remain slim fit on the ground and the laser beam still working on the desktop”.

The final product isn’t pretty, but it’s functional and it shows how Apple was able to design a Magic Mouse with a charging cable that worked without having to flip the thing over on its back. But there is a big problem – when Benedetto plugged it in while using it, the mouse stopped working. Unlike the Magic Trackpad and Magic Keyboard, both of which work while charging, the Magic Mouse does not work while it is charging.

Now we know why you need to flip it: Apple never wants people to use it when they plug it in. If you can’t physically use the mouse while charging, no one will wonder why it isn’t working, thus saving you a lot of unnecessary grief. (some readers Don’t buy this theory I believe that Apple disabled functions because The charging port is on the bottom, which may very well be true.) But either way, Apple has gone to great lengths to make sure you’re not using a Magic Mouse with a wire attached to it.

Sure, Apple could come up with a way to let people use a mouse while it’s charging, but 13 years later, this ship may have set sail—apparently Apple doesn’t want us to use it while it’s plugged in. And as long as the Magic Mouse runs this way, we’re probably stuck with the dumbest charging method ever created. But at least we now have a good reason for that.

March 26 update: Reader comments have been added.