When I first heard about the Magic Mouse, I thought it was a joke.
I didn’t think the name could be real, especially coming from a company that already offers a product that many sarcastically refer to as “The Jesus Phone.”
But the Magic Mouse is real—and I have one—and after a weekend of use, I’m ready to decide if other people should take the plunge. I won’t go over the specs/basics of the Magic Mouse. We all know—it’s touch capacitive. Read Gizmodo or Apple to get the finer details. What I can share is the experiences of an everyday user.
Also, I was going to overload this post with pictures, but uploading them is a pain in the ass, so I finally started a Flickr stream. Be sure to check out:
The Magic Mouse: Unboxed and In Its Element
and also check out:
Apple Store, Upper West Side Opening
for some pictures of the, well, yeah, you guessed it.
Anyway, let the reviewing commence:
-The design of the MM makes sense. It’s both longer and wider than I expected it to be, yet it’s quite small in your hand. Almost too small, actually, but it truly feels like it couldn’t be any other size, which I like.
-“Yeah, it’s pretty fantastic looking.” Those were Danielle’s first words when I showed it to her on Friday, and I can’t think of a better way to sum up the MM, visually. It looks like something you’d be using in 2029, forget about 2009. Aesthetically, it matches the white/aluminum iMac and keyboard perfectly.
-The click action is responsive. Solid. I enjoyed it more as the weekend went on. The Mighty Mouse felt like you were pressing down the casing, which I hated. The Magic Mouse feels like you’re pressing down a button, which you are, except you--aren’t. It makes using it with the right-click turned on feel more organic, a big bonus for me.
-This may just be my desk, but when moving it, it still has some noise to it, hence the mouse pad you see in the pictures, which I really don’t mind. If that’s going to be a deal breaker for you, you probably didn’t want it anyway.
-For iPhone users—prepare to fall in love with, and then hate, the Magic Mouse. Think about it—your scrolling action is always swipe/flick based! It’s amazing! The MM totally simulates the feel of the iPhone, which I loved at first. Until I picked up my iPhone, and it felt like it weighed ten pounds in my hand. It was downright—chunky. I kept looking at the bottom of the MM and wondering what it would look like with my home screen on it. In the future? Maybe? Please?
-“Scrolling is money.” Those are from my notes that I took down on Friday when I wanted to capture my initial impression. And my affection only grew as the weekend went on. Scrolling with one finger is perfectly executed. You can adjust how responsive the surface is, although I have it turned up to full responsiveness, and I never overshot anything. I love it. I don’t want any trackballs, or nipples, or rubber wheels ever again. This is the future.
-Ah—the two-fingered swipe. I didn’t really understand from the videos and reviews what the two-fingered swipe would be used for. So far, all I’ve found is: a) to scroll through photos in iPhoto, b)to scroll through cover flow in iTunes (or at least try to), and c) to page back and forward in an Internet browser. To be honest, this is one of the two areas where the MM gets failing marks from me. First of all, the physics behind the two-fingered swipe are boinked from the start, and I’ll explain why in the next bullet. Second, it doesn’t always work. You can’t swipe too slow, but you can’t swipe too fast. You can’t start too far to the side of the mouse, but you can’t start too close to the middle either. You’ve got to nail it just right, and the payoff isn’t really all that big, because there are simpler ways to achieve the three things I listed, and frankly, I’ve done those three things the same way for so long that I don’t see myself investing the time to re-learn how to do them the MM’s way. I wouldn't be surprised to see this feature dropped in the future, unless by some miracle it can be refined a great deal.
-The MM is not ergonomic, although part of me wants to follow that with "whatever the hell that means." It’s height off the table is really low, and what happens, because of the touch-based gestures, is you wind up holding around the mouse, rather than holding the mouse itself. This will be the greatest challenge for people, especially those moving from some clunky Logitech number. And as I mentioned before, holding the sides of the mouse, rather than resting your palm on its butt, is exactly why two-fingered swipe doesn’t work—you don’t have the fingers readily available.
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While I ended on two negative notes, I’m giving the Magic Mouse an enthusiastic endorsement. The touch-based scrolling is reason enough--a huge reason, actually--to buy this mouse, and then take into account the design, the look, the feel, and for Mac users, the grace with which it completes a recent Mac setup, and it all adds up to a mouse that may not be magic, but is certainly worth your money.
More soon.
JS
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