The Apple USB Mouse, commonly called "Hockey puck" (so called because of its unusual round shape), is a mouse

Mouse (computing)

In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons...

 released by Apple Inc. with the iMac G3

IMac G3

The iMac G3 was the first model of the iMac line of personal computers made by Apple Inc. , and the originator of the Legacy-free PC market category. Like the first Macs, the iMac G3 is an all-in-one personal computer, encompassing both the monitor and the system unit in a single enclosure...

 in 1998 and included with all successive desktop Macs for the next 2 years. It was the first commercially released Apple mouse to use the USB connection format and not the Apple Desktop Bus

Apple Desktop Bus

Apple Desktop Bus is an obsolete bit-serial computer bus connecting low-speed devices to computers. Used primarily on the Macintosh platform, ADB equipment is still available but not supported by most Apple hardware manufactured since 1999....

(ADB). It is widely considered one of Apple's worst mistakes.

Design

Unlike the Mouse II that preceded it, the "hockey puck" mouse used a round shape; it has a single mouse button located at the top.

Criticism

The mouse's round shape is widely considered clumsy, due to its small size and tendency to rotate in use. This was a major cause for the success of the Griffin

Griffin Technology

Griffin Technology is a privately held U.S. company founded in Nashville, Tennessee in 1992 by Paul Griffin. The company designs and manufactures computer peripherals, consumer electronics, and accessories, the first products being primarily video adapters, in particular those to enable the...

 iMate ADB to USB adapters, as they allowed for the use of the older, more comfortable ADB Mouse II to be used with those iMacs. Later revisions included a shallow indentation on the front of the button, but this was not enough to prevent a flood of third-party products like the iCatch, a shell that attached to the USB mouse to give it the ADB mouse's elliptical shape.

Another flaw introduced in the Apple USB Mouse, shared across all of Apple's USB offerings, is the atypically short cord. Though intended for use through the integrated hub

USB hub

A USB hub is a device that expands a single USB port into several so that there are more ports available to connect devices to a host system.USB hubs are often built into equipment such as computers, keyboards, monitors, or printers...

 in Apple's keyboards, Apple's transition to USB coincided with the relocation of ports on their notebooks from the center to the left edge.

Available colors

Color	Released with
Bondi Blue	iMac G3
Blueberry	iMac G3 and Power Mac G3 Blue and White Power Macintosh G3 (Blue & White) The Power Macintosh G3 series was a series of personal computers designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer Inc. as part of their Power Macintosh line...
Strawberry	iMac G3
Grape	iMac G3
Lime	iMac G3
Tangerine	iMac G3
Graphite	iMac G3 Special Edition and Power Mac G4 Power Mac G4 The Power Mac G4 was a series of personal computers that was designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple between 1999 and 2004. They used the PowerPC G4 series of microprocessors. They were heralded by Apple to be the first personal supercomputers, reaching speeds of 4 to 20 Gigaflops...