Note: I don’t own the mouse. Anymore. You can see where this is going.

A couple of quick thoughts on the Apple Magic Mouse.

For a pro-trackball user like myself (both meanings of the prefix “pro” ), I’m still waiting on Apple to create a multitouch trackpad as a separate USB or Bluetooth device. And no, we’re not going to talk about some rumored device servicing this need. We’ll get to that when it happens. Or not.

Looks? Looks great, and matches the aluminum/glass aesthetic that Apple has applied across multiple product lines. But are you seriously going to be looking at your mouse while using it? Maybe. Okay, I’ll give you that. Moving on.

Left and primary click. Feels satisfying, crisp. Nothing really new here.

Right click? Also seems to work as it should. From what I remember, the older Mighty Mouse required the left finger to be down for a right click to register. Thank goodness that got fixed.

<EDIT>

I remembered completely the opposite. From Wikipedia:

Although the Mighty Mouse can sense both right and left clicks it is not possible to press both sensors simultaneously. The user must learn to lift the left finger off the sensor surface before attempting a right-mouse click.[9]

From Marco.org:

It still has the inconvenient behavior of Apple’s recent mice that requires you to lift your left finger off of the mouse in order to right-click. This hasn’t been a huge problem for me, although I have accidentally sent a left-click event when I intended a right-click a few times.

I didn’t have this problem and it might be because I didn’t really play with the right click all that much. And off of this thought, one could write about having physical buttons to push being a good thing, but that’s another post.

Scrolling is smooth, and behaves much like the iPhone. Scrolling down with momentum feels amazing. Scrolling up is not as enjoyable. I always feel like I’m moving my finger in an unnatural way.

I feel the same way with the two-finger horizontal swipe and the horizontal scrolling. These motions would feel natural if I let go of the mouse, and use the vertically positioned mouse as I would use a trackpad. But the mouse tends to slide around a bit too much. I had to peg the mouse down with my thumb and ring/pinky fingers, but where do I grip the thing? The slim profile and the large click surface leaves only a small area to hold the mouse.

</EDIT>

One very specific annoyance I had was with dragging and dropping across large distances. Click, hold, then adjust by lifting the mouse. First time I had to do this, I had to contort my hand to stay clicking, all the while cup the mouse into the air.

Sidenote: Trackball users don’t have to deal with this. Huzzah.

Maybe it’s just not having enough time with it… Maybe it’s because I haven’t used a mouse as my main pointing device in a long while… But I didn’t feel like I clicked with this Apple product.

Rating: 2/4. I’ll use it if I have to. And maybe this will turn into a 3/4. Oh, and if someone can hack this mouse to work horizontally and respond to multiple clicks and make me doughnuts in the morning? Totally a 4/4.

Bonus: Apple Trackpad Vs Apple Magic Mouse

I’m not sure what to think about this, but there are some differences between the trackpads of the MacBook Pros and the Apple Magic Mouse. Some actions are just completely not replicated on the Magic Mouse, and some actions are requiring less fingers. I’ll let you chew on that, as will I.

Postscript

I really need to stop writing puns without actually writing them. I must have some evil process running in the background inserting them willy-nilly. Seriously, I completely overlooked that “clicked” business until my final read-through. Yeah, I even italicized it and didn’t even know what I had done.