The Magic Mouse

For a while I thought I didn't need one... but finally I bought a Magic Mouse! 

When it came on the market, I went to the local Apple Store to look what exactly the mouse was all about. I had read some reviews on the Internet, and these were not all equally enthusiastic. Well... everyone is different and has different needs, right?! These critical words however resulted in the fact that I was not immediately convinced, and didn't buy one immediately.

The mouse would be an ergonomic disaster, and getting used to, would take some time. 

In the Apple Store I saw that it was better than expected. It seems logical to me that getting used to something so different will always take some time, so no worry.

I had the packaging removed, and took the mouse out of the box. First impression is that it feels quite heavy, which will not necessary mean a disadvantage, because it's causing it to be sitting somewhat firmer on the desktop. The weight is mainly because of two penlight batteries which are already installed. Nice! 

Goto [System Preferences] and [Bluetooth], and use the [configure new device] to let the Mac find the mouse and then add it. In my case it was necessary to switch the mouse off and on, because the Mac did not recognized it right away. 

Click [Show all] and go to [Mouse]. Most settings are already good, I only added the right-click function. 

Attractive element on this screen is a video presentation of the various possibilities of the mouse which plays automatically. The played video is determined by the location of the mouse pointer! Below in the window you see the battery indicator, so you know when you may need to replace them. 

First impressions: 

The mouse sits firmly on the desk and is easy to move. Unlike the Mighty Mouse, the palm is no longer resting on the mouse, but the hand rests on the thumb, little finger and ring finger. Is that annoying? Maybe we can compare this with the hands doing typing. These hands also rest only on the wrists, and the fingers constantly moving in the air above the keyboard. Seems no problem to me, and the hand moving the mouse has enough support to the left and the right. This support (thumb, little finger and ring finger) also control the mouse movement. Has a natural feel to it. 

Maybe you should get rid off the idea that you have to feel the mouse in the palm of your hand, and move the hand a bit backwards. Doing so will result in more touchable area on the mouse surface. 

Scrolling with this mouse is a pleasure! You no longer have to find the scroll ball, and the touch surface is very large (3/4 of the top layer). It might happen you become used to using your middle finger to scroll, while previously you only used the index finger. I prefer the index though. 

The swipe scrolling we know from the mobile Apple products, is a very pleasant effect. A strong swipe results in a fast number of pages scroll movement. When you touch the surface while scrolling it stops instantly. A small swipe or slowly results in a smaller range. 

The clicking (right or left) is also nice, because the position of the finger pressing determines whether its a left or right click. If you click in the middle, it's a L-click, you'll get a R-click when the finger is right of the center (of course towards the edge!). Very effective! The 'click' is similar to that of the Mighty Mouse. Meaning; the entire front top area is a clicking element. I had the idea that clicking would be a touch sensitive thing. Perhaps in the future it will, who knows. 

Sideways scrolling: although you will not use this as often, is as easy as the vertical scrolling. Also here you will see the swipe effect. Cool! The sideways scrolling is done with ONE finger, some of the instruction movies seems to indicate that its done by two fingers. 

The Mighty Mouse had two extra mouse buttons, which I used often for Exposé and Spaces, with the Magic that seems impossible. I programmed F16 and F19 to replace this functionality. Hopefully an update gives these buttons back to use. I fear that this will not be done though. 

Within Boot Camp (Windows XP), you can use the Magic also. After you install the mouse drivers, and switch the Bluetooth connection on, the mouse is ready to use. The extra features (swipe and horizontal scrolling) do not work, and the pointer occasionally hanged. In my opinion you better plug in a mouse that works well with Windows. I do anyway, for playing games I prefer a Microsoft mouse ... 

Pros: 

- No mechanical scrolling mechanism 

- Nice control 

- Easy installation, and recognition 

- Drivers are already installed in Snow Leopard, and also the instructional videos 

- Scrolling is silent 

Con's: 

- No more secondary mouse buttons (3 & 4)

- Under Windows Boot Camp; not a good choice 

Bye bye scroll ball .... heheheheehhe 

-- 

After one week: Ergonomic problems I did not notice! At some point I had to do something with the notebook PC and started laughing when I felt something round under the palm of my hand.... hehehehehe. A little later I tried to scroll through a sweeping motion on the surface of this Microsoft mouse. You get used to this new Magic mouse so quickly! When using the PC I discovered that the scroll wheel has a very small radius and slow movement! 

Zooming in Google Maps/Earth, is not as good as it needs to be with the Magic. Especially when your hands are a little sweaty, you'll always zoom in or out much too far. Very irritating! This is easily solved by adjust the scroll speed to the minimum setting! This makes the mouse react at the same speed as you were previously accustomed too. I am fond of the quick scrolling in other app's, so I set it one or two lines from the left. 

With a VMware installation of Windows XP the mouse works fine (without the special features). 

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