The idea was to prevent non-techy users from using it plugged-in all the time, which would look stupid. They wanted to accentuate the wireless nature and easy connectivity of the mouse. Essentially a marketing decision.
I disagree with this take but it's worth remembering that it's marketing that turned computing from a niche activity to what it is now (which, by the way, is what makes it a viable career to the people here)
If your starting premise is "the user wants to use the mouse and have a good experience", you can see how a designer can get from there to a feature that causes/encourages an unplug. Even if you disagree, they're not going backwards.
If Apple let the mouse be used when plugged in, everyone would do it immediately and never try using it unplugged cause of their battery anxiety from every other device. Then you try it unplugged and you realized you have to plug it in for like an hour every couple months and it's way better than tethering yourself with a cable.
I've used a Magic Mouse daily for work for years and it's literally never been an issue once.
So what? Why should that bother Apple so much? They sold the mouse. Who cares how the user uses it? A user who chooses to use their mouse while plugged in does not in any way affect the mouse's manufacturer. My Apple keyboard lets me use it while it's plugged in, and the world hasn't ended. Why didn't they put the charger on the bottom of the keyboard too? Why don't they make their phones so you can't use them while charging?
If the user has a worse experience, that's a lose/lose situation. Of course they should care about things that affect the experience.
> My Apple keyboard lets me use it while it's plugged in, and the world hasn't ended. Why didn't they put the charger on the bottom of the keyboard too?
A cable doesn't impact a keyboard because it's not moving.
> Why don't they make their phones so you can't use them while charging?
The chance of a phone being left plugged in forever is minimal to begin with, and the hassle of not being able to use it while it charges would be much larger.
If you make a wireless peripheral and everyone keeps using it while plugged in, the solution is not to force them to use it wirelessly. The solution is to make the wireless experience actually better so the user voluntarily chooses to use it.
A user has to be thinking about something to make a choice. Depending on the user to think about all these little aspects degrades the experience all by itself.
I've never been bothered by a cable sticking out of my mouse.
The reliability would not be affected since it moves data wirelessly. The data will never go over the charging cable so your reasons for keeping it plugged in don't make sense.
First, I definitely know what I want from my computer.
Second, flipping my mouse over and being forced to stop using it is an objectively worse experience than plugging it in for charging while using.
I have an MX Master 3 which is also wireless and charges with a cord. While it's charging, I definitely have a degraded experience relative to the wireless one, so I unplug as soon as I can (I sometimes don't even wait for the full charge!) to go back to the better experience. Never once have I considered keeping it connected indefinitely.
I'm not; I'm crediting the activity of marketing.
It's an engineering blind spot to think utility = adoption. Emacs is more powerful than MS Word; which one has more users? Which one has an organization dedicated to going around and pointing out how and where it is useful?
It's when you have utility + marketing that you get something like the computer revolution.