Apple Pro Mouse/iBook Trackpad Bug

My wife’s Windows 2000 work computer refused to boot up this morning, and this was the replacement machine given to her while her IT folks had sent her newer Dell out for repair. She called me saying she was dead in the water, IT wasn’t coming anytime soon, and asked me to help hook her iBook to her network. She had asked me if that was feasible a few days before, and I had walked her through how to note the Windows 2000 network settings. The network appeared to be using DHCP, so hooking up her iBook appeared to be a cinch. It was. I took her into System Preferences/Network, had her reconfigure her Ethernet settings to DHCP, and we were there. She used her iBook for the rest of the day and could do everything but print. That was because the Deskjet 842C in her office was using a parallel printer port and though it has a USB port the iBook could use, we didn’t have a cable. (I have one here at the house she’s taking with her tomorrow.)

This evening she complained of a rather strange problem. She told me when she was typing in Word, words would get magically selected and the mouse cursor would jump all over. Obviously, I figured she was hitting the iBook’s trackpad while typing. I also was pretty sure, though, that we had configured her iBook a few days before to ignore the trackpad when a mouse was connected. I hooked up her mouse—an Apple Pro mouse--, cranked up her iBook, typed using Word, and made sure I brushed up against the trackpad while typing. Sure enough, I got the symptoms she had been describing. I checked System Preferences/Mouse and Keyboard/Trackpad and confirmed that “ignore the trackpad when using the keyboard” was selected. While I suspected the hardware, I also knew that the iBook was running the first release of 10.2.8, the one that had enough bugs in it that Apple had withdrawn it within a day or so of releasing it. So, I updated the machine using the repaired 10.2.8 Combo Updater and checked it out again. The problem was still there. Could it have something to do with the mouse she was using? To check that out, I borrowed a Microsoft Intellimouse Optical from my XP machine, plugged it into her iBook, and the problem disappeared! Of all things, when the Apple Pro mouse is loaded on the iBook, the “ignore trackpad” settings are ignored! (NOTE: It turns out Apple knows about this problem. There is a Knowledge Base article on this.) She got to keep the Microsoft mouse, of course. I’ll put the Apple Pro mouse in storage and use it on a desktop…if it’s ever needed, which right now it’s not.

I haven’t tried using the Apple Pro mouse with my iBook or tried using a different Apple Pro mouse with either one of ours, so I am curious if anyone else has had that problem. When I get some time, I’ll peruse the Apple forums and Google newsgroup archives to look for it. Until then, may the Force be with you; and be sure not to use an Apple Pro mouse on an iBook to seek it.