Reid Beels

Okay, so I’m sitting here at Coffee Time, I’ve got my Powerbook on the table and my phone is sitting next to it on the right hand side. Since I sat down I’ve grabbed my phone and moved it around no less than three separate times, each time realizing that it wasn’t a mouse and dejectedly going back to my trackpad. My phone is not a mouse, but what if it WAS? With the size of today’s mini wireless mice, the hardware can’t actually take up all that much space and it would provide just one more little bit of hardware integration. It would be so cool. It wouldn’t even necessarily need to be built into the mouse either. Like those flashy lights that scott used to have, it could be built in to a replacement battery pack. This would work especially well on my phone as the back panel could be quickly replaced to let an optical beam shine out. There would still need to be a clicking method, of course, but that could be dealt with. If people would be satisfied with one button, it could add a bit of width to the phone and function kind of like the Apple pro (not mighty) mouse. If it were actually to be built into the phone, existing exterior buttons could be used and if the phone had built-in bluetooth, this would just add one more little way to use it. I totally want one.

Update! I’m realizing that it might not be the most reliable solution, but I think that it might just be possible to do this on a cameraphone with adequate java support! Sure, sliding your cameraphone around might not be the best idea, but it would still be cool.