Today has a bright note of happiness all of a sudden. One of my coworkers came in complaining that her Apple Wireless Mouse couldn’t scroll up any longer. We’ve for the longest time noticed a slow and subtle failure of these Apple Mice over time, suddenly they won’t scroll up any longer, no reason, just bloop, that’s it.

While I was thinking of solutions, out of the blue a fix I remembered for PITA Blackberry Curve and Pearl devices popped into my head. In those devices the pearl can become contaminated with skin oils and hair and whatnot and start camming and eventually cease working altogether. The solution for the Blackberry is to turn the Blackberry face-down, lay it gently on a fresh piece of paper and then roll the hell out of the ball against the paper. This apparently cleans the pearl ball of oil and grit and junk and the Blackberry returns to proper function.

So, would this work for these Apple Mice? The pearl in the Blackberry is nearly identical to the ball in the Apple Mice. So I grabbed one of the “Broken Apple Mice” and got some paper and made it squeak. It actually squeaks, so adorable! Then I plugged it in, and voilà, works like a charm!

So the solution to fixing a scroll ball in an Apple Mouse is to get some paper, turn the mouse upside down and roll it vigorously against the paper for a count of say 10 to 15. Works like a charm!

Enjoy!