Hello, Björn, nice to hear from Contour staff.
But the problem is we have PCs ... and no Windows(tm). That's why our rant for having hardwired (unusable) functions on a device which must've simply supplied plain buttons that anybody could then customize to their own heart. Isn't the MCU in Free2 flash-based, i.e. upgradeable?
EDIT: If the Pro2/Free2 have the same guts, then Pro2's firmware on Free2 is good enough.
Hi,
I understand completely your views and they are of course relevant.
It's basically a matter of "potential market/demand", costs for enabling multiple product versions and facing the historical decisions already made.
To answer from another end, our main customers are business users on a Wintel platform (but Mac is growing) who work with computing intensive tasks, such as administration/accounting/finance/secretary/customer service etc.
Most users get a RollerMouse because they have very real problems and pains.
On average these users are not computers experts or geeks.
Many of these customer environments have policies that restrict installation of drivers.
Some users do not even know how to change the cursor speed in the normal control panel.
Traditionally, also the kind of resellers who have sold products such as RollerMouse, are not very computer savvy.
Those factors have made us inclined to prepare the product with preferred features, so it can be used "out-of-the-box".
So we provide our "double-click" button and the "Copy" and "Paste" functions without forcing the need for a driver.
Yes, the Pro2 has the fallback option, so that you can get back to standard 5-button mouse mode.
On the Free2, current edition, the "normal mode" wasn't implemented, to reduce features that some users didn't understand.
(We've had a fair share of users complaining that their double click was gone, when in fact it was just that someone had flipped the switch that makes Pro2 go to normal mode.)
So, we make choices and it's tricky to cater for all wishes.
Our aim is to expand and be able to better adress more and different specific needs and wants, by different products,
and we are grateful for all and any input that better help explain this.