The Mighty Mouse. The mere mention of the "pointing-device-who-shall-not-be-named" evokes deep regret and even rage in the fan-iest of Apple's devoted fanboi crowd. The loathing for this overpriced hunk of plastic pervades the Internet, and I echo that hatred. I liked it at first, but eventually the little scrolly ball failed, prompting me to attempt surgery and repair it. I, of course, failed miserably and it ended up a cracked hunk of junk in the circular file. So much for that.
I had been using a cheap, crappy $6 dollar mouse for the longest time, and I finally cracked and bought the Magic Mouse. Yeah, there are tons of other options, but I have always liked Apple's peripherals. Was it a good buy?
First Impressions
The Magic Mouse is packaged in typical Apple style, in a tiny secure plastic clamshell. Very little is wasted here, which is a good thing - although they're a bit hard to find in the store when they're buried in a shelf.
The mouse itself is surprisingly sleek and simple and has a nice weight to it, signifying that it's of higher quality than its hollow plastic predecessor. Batteries are included, a nice touch. The top of the mouse has no buttons, similar to the Mighty Mouse, but it has no buttons on the side. There are left and right buttons, however. No wires, since this baby is Bluetooth.
Setting Up the Magic Mouse
Setup? What setup? There really isn't any setup. Enable Bluetooth, turn on the mouse, it gets discovered, you accept, and you're done.
There is a screen in System Preferences that allows you to designate what the primary and secondary buttons do, as well as how the scrolling works.
Using the Magic Mouse
Well, it works like a mouse, and quite well, I might add. Pointing is accurate and smooth, although I had to turn the pointer sensitivity *all the way up* for it to move as quickly as I like. You might be wondering where the scroll ball/wheel/thingy is. There isn't one. The whole top of the thing is a touchpad, which is awesome. You can scroll horizontally and vertically, and can enable "momentum" scrolling a la iPhone... which feels very natural to me (no surprise there.) One can also use two finger swipe gestures in certain apps, such as in browsers to move forward or back a page.
Conclusions
Is this mouse a winner? Yes, in my book. She feels solid and smooth, and I absolutely love the touchpad. There are a few caveats, though.
- You can't touch to click.
- You can't pinch to zoom.
- No "center click" button or side buttons.
- It has a very slim profile, which some users might not like.
- It's pricey at $69.99. If you rate mouse quality in terms of number of buttons, this is a bad deal.
Regardless, though, there's nothing holding Apple back from extending the multi-touch functionality of the Magic Mouse with firmware or software updates, no? Three finger gestures? There are lots of possibilities.
All in all, if you're a Mac person, I'm sure you'll be very pleased with this new member of the family.
