After much trial and tribulation, I finally obtained Apple’s new Magic Mouse last week. Following its release, the $70 device was so popular that practically every store in the Bay Area was sold out of them for much of last week even though most were getting new shipments every morning. Supplies remain tight online where Apple is showing a 5 to 7 day waiting period and Amazon is showing a 2 to 5 week one. So is it worth it?
The short answer is yes. This is hands-down the best mouse Apple has ever made. It’s not even close. That said, it could be even better, and hopefully down the road, with a software update, it will be.
Despite more or less starting the mouse trend, the past decade has seen some truly awful mice from Apple. Fans of the original iMac will remember the hockey-puck variety which was great if you had hooves for hands. Even worse that was for whatever reason Apple refused to add a second button to its mice, even though every other manufacturer was and most of those were clearly better products (this also makes Apple’s recent decision to add more buttons to its new remote a bit odd).
Apple finally relented, sort of, with its Mighty Mouse. Though it technically didn’t have two buttons, it did allow users to click on the right (or left) side of the mouse to simulate a second button. Too bad that mouse was one of the worst ever made. The scroll wheel on the thing was basically useless after a few months (and in some cases weeks) of use. It would attract so much grime that it had to be cleaned almost on a daily basis. The device also had side buttons that were so hard to click that they were basically pointless, and the Bluetooth version offered more ways to fail as it offered bad performance.
With the new Magic Mouse, Apple finally has taken a step in the right direction. The company has managed to make an elegant looking mouse (the entire top is just one smooth surface) that is also functional. Like the Mighty Mouse, despite having just one main clickable surface, you can still both right and left click, and it works well. Likewise, unlike the Bluetooth version of the Mighty Mouse, the Magic Mouse (which only comes in Bluetooth) seems very stable and responsive (though there are varying reports on this for certain types of machines).
Depending on your hand size, some people may not like the height of the Magic Mouse (it’s very low to the surface), but I find it to be quite nice, and better overall than the feel of the Mighty Mouse.
But the big selling point is its touch surface.
This is such a wonderful feature that you have to imagine it will soon find its way into most mice from various companies (Microsoft is already working on a bunch). With it, you no longer have to worry about mucking up a scroll ball, because the entire surface of the mouse is a scroll wheel of sorts if you simply move a finger up or down. It’s rather amazing how well the accelerated scrolling works. It’s better than most track balls.
The surface is also multi-touch. This means that if you swipe left or right with two fingers, you can go forwards or backwards on web pages you’re looking at. I’m finding that despite what Forbes said about it a couple weeks ago, it’s a great feature.
But.
As great as the Magic Mouse is, it has one absolutely perplexing problem: Why on Earth are they limiting the multi-touch functionality? First of all, there is absolutely one thing Mighty Mouse users will miss with the Magic Mouse: When you clicked on the scroll ball, it would allow you to do an action like Expose. With Magic Mouse, you can’t do that.
Obviously, there is no ball to click on now, but I cannot figure out why Apple wouldn’t utilize something like a two-finger click (possible with multi-touch) to do this. And why not have functionality for a three finger click too? And why not a three finger swipe? It’d be hard to fit perhaps, but why not four-finger too?
The possibilities are endless for what this mouse could do thanks to multi-touch, yet Apple is doing basically nothing with it. How about pinch-to-zoom? Nope.
I suspect we may see Apple remedy this will a software update eventually. After all, it has a history of doing that. The multi-touch trackpads on Apple’s MacBooks started out similarly crippled and have since added functionality. If you’re using a MacBook, the trackpad remains a much better input method than the Magic Mouse, simply because of the different multi-touch gestures.
There are a lot of other good mice out there (Logitech and Microsoft both seem to make good ones), and with the Magic Mouse, Apple has finally melded its desire for style with a mouse that offers a nice user experience. But it could be much better, and soon I hope it will be. Apple needs to keep its touch agenda moving forward.
But everyone hates it! The demo units in BestBuy are all secured in a way that will make sure that no one will buy one.
well that’s hardly the device’s fault.
I agree. It’s just a shame they can’t find another way to make sure that people don’t walk off with them without making the demo useless.
I was at a Best Buy a few weeks ago and tried a Magic Mouse on a 27-inch iMac. It was not sealed down to the table at all; I could have easily taken it out of the store. I wasn’t very impressed with it compared to my MX Revolution; sure, it’s touch, but I found it hard to hold. Maybe I’d get used to it if I bought it, I don’t know, but I didn’t see a reason to buy it.
a mouse for the 2% marketshare of computer users. sweet.
It’s beyond 2%. BTW I saw you get your ass kicked on the “Bored to Death” finale.
OK, it’s 4%. That makes all the difference…
Actually it’s 10 percent, not that anyone’s counting apparently…
Nope, it’s a shade over 4% according to IDC and Gartner.
10%? Are you retarded?
The market shares of Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, Audi, VW, Porsche, Jaguar, is less than 5% for each of those companies, yet no one ever reads or hears about their small market share, or that they can’t compete, the facts is that just that they make the best autos available. Just as Apple makes the best computing devices WTF cares about market share, only the companies who get paid to take polls.
“The market shares of Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, Audi, VW, Porsche, Jaguar, is less than 5% for each of those companies”
Are you shitting me? Apparently you missed today’s news about VW being the ‘largest’ car manufacturer in the world today (passing Toyo)
According to Wiki, Volkswagon manufatured 6.5mil cars in 2008, out of a total world production of about 69mil giving them about a 9.5% market share.
Wonder how many of those 69 million are still sitting in warehouses …
Way to troll, dude. And anyway, who gives a crap about market share? If you like it, use it!
and 66% of the computers over $1000
Odd. The Apple store near where I work (Raleigh, NC) has had them in each time I’ve gone into the store.
Maybe the hicks in NC expect it to actually do magic or something?
store seem to here now too – but the online backup is huge. especially at amazon.
You say the online backup is huge, i found quite the opposite.
When i ordered last Tuesday from Apple’s website, they said upto 10 working days until i received my mouse.
It turned up TWO days later on the Thursday. I was very impressed with them, loved the mouse, and can highly recommend the companies online order service.
Exceeded my expectations.
well that’s good, just going by what they say.
I find that Macs work best with pro trackball devices. Never could get with the mice that come with my Macs.
My fav for my Macs: http://us.kensi.../html/2200.html
I wish Apple offer such a device.
i find that macs work best in a garbage can.
because that makes sense
ha.
Hmm, don’t really see how that would be very practical.
Really, how old is this sort of shit in comments?
So that it could be white and twice the price?
I’d like to see Apple make a magic mouse with the whole brushed aluminum & black glossy theme. Not too crazy about the white.
Twice the price? Well, yeah, but come on, they look so nice! Nowadays Apple can’t seem to make anything look bad. A few years ago they could for sure
Pretty good review. I too echo alot of the sentiments here, as a newly anointed magic mouse user.
Would love to see pinch/squeeze also become a standard mouse gesture that could translate to a zoom in/out feature for iphoto/photoshop/various image manip. progs…I don’t mind alt + slide finger up to make it work now, but would definitely like to see more intuitive gestures beyond multi-fingered swipes…
Honestly, I feel like swipe gestures need to remain limited – the size of the device is minimal, and as thus, getting swipes to register correctly (with my relatively large hands) has been difficult to deal with…I feel like adding 3/4 finger swipes is, well—retarded. There is just not enough space on there to do such a maneuver.
Loving the low profile and I’m curious to know if the battery claims will live up to their potential (or even 70% of their promised life)…
And yes, beyond fanboyisms – I do agree, this is a great mix of good design, solid response and usability, and w/ a software update – it will be Apple’s greatest mouse to date. So much better than the Mighty Mouse and the prior generations, for sure.
agree with four finger swipe, that would be hard to fit in, but three seems to work fine.
“Middle Click”, although designed to enable a three finger tap-to-middle-click on the multitouch trackpads apparently works a treat on the Magic Mouse too. Indeed, it has made my purchase of the Magic Mouse almost a certainty now.
http://clement....ts/middleclick/
nice. i’ll have to check that out.
Definitely I would like to see these features in more mouses and more fingers would be cool.
This mouse fits my hand perfectly but it makes me wonder what people with large hands feel like. I saw some guy trying the mouse beside me and it was basically under his palm, didn’t look like it would be very comfortable for him.
Whatever the case, the magic mouse is definitely a huge step up from the mighty mouse.
I didn’t really find it all that “good” of a review, sorry MG. It was more of an “it’s awesome” love affair report, which is fine, but not really an objective review. A review with only positive isn’t really much of a review – ignore the negatives about a Pinto and it’s an awesome car. . .
I find the thing cramps my fingers and have already dumped it – it’s now making the rounds of the office as one after another gets tired of it and it moves to the next cubicle. . . does that make it a harlot? LOL
Since you have to hold the thing while you swipe it, those with big hands may (do) find it cramping. The “lift your left finger while you click with your right finger” thing STILL is irritating. You have to be sure to hold your finger still when clicking (which I don’t seem to do) or you may swipe instead of clicking (or rather, START swiping so that is what the mouse reads until you click).
There are so many issues with this mouse that . . . well, I still wonder why Apple doesn’t talk with one of the two companies that makes extremely successful and great mice. I know they won’t talk with Microsoft, but they could always talk with Logitech. . .
um, did you miss the whole but…. part?
mouse for 2% marketshare. stop deleting my comment.
also check this mac vs pc comparison:
http://i.imageh...0990/pc_mac.png
For your next comparison why don’t you compare a Pinto with a Lexus. I’ll wait.
done http://www.tech...mouse-ever-but/
FYI: my comment was directed to grgr for his mac vs. pc comparison…
Erm, your first post is still there, despite being about as useful as a sack of potatoes with bluetooth. And your comment reminds me of something John Dvorak said when Apple added a mouse to the Macintosh in 1984, “There is no evidence that people want to use these things.”
I’m really hoping Apple or someone else releases drivers/whatever for Windows 7 (or windows in general). I’m been thinking about picking up a wacom touch tablet due to really liking hand gestures. Or hopefully Microsoft will make one for $40 in a few months, there was already a demo of this concept on the Microsoft Research page. But I doubt I’ll buy one for my macbook, I just can’t see the point.
I just looked at your “comparison” too, try Apples with Apples (teehee). The Mac Pro uses x5500 Xeon’s for the 2.66ghz processors and they cost $1100 a pop on newegg (more elsewhere). There’s no way you could build the entire system for $1400 with nehalem based xeons
look, no matter how you slice and dice it, theres still a $5500 disparity between the two systems.
TechCrunch needs a “troll” button.
agree.
Yup.
Yes…PLEASE!
@grgr – You are an idiot.
“Apple now claims 9.4% of the U.S. computer market in the US, and NPD reports that Mac revenue market share of the premium price segment over $1000 is at an astonishing 91%.”
http://seekinga...k-to-500-part-1
10/23/09
Troll
It’s 4% worlwide marketshare
5% european market
9% US market
NOT 2%
I’ve got the Targus bluetooth laser mouse and I really like it. I won’t buy a new mouse until this breaks since I often use my wacom tablet when I’m in FCP, or photoshop…I’d only upgrade to another mouse if it is something perfect…
Not having Expose’ is a major pisser.. http://theapple...he-magic-mouse/ this is apparently an app., that will give some gesture support to solve it, I haven’t tried it yet so proceed at your own discretion.
you can use the active corners… I can’t live without them
Heh, I really don’t like this mouse either. I agree that it’s a lot nicer than the Might Mouse, but I think it is seriously lacking when compared to the latest MBP trackpads. It’s soo easy to gesture on the trackpad and everything feels so natural. With the Magic Mouse, every time I try to gesture the mouse is sliding out of the way and takes some serious skill to hold the mouse steady while gesturing side to side. It’s just awkward. And, that’s in addition to the lack of multi-touch features that the trackpads have.
I was not impressived.
i really think it will gain the gesture support though over time. no idea why apple is holding back.
They’re waiting for the right opportunity to create another news vacuum.
I haven’t gotten a Magic Mouse yet and probably won’t since I’m perfectly happy with my MX Revolution.
Question: I’m imagining the swipe actually being a bit hard to do. I “simulated” it with another mouse and somehow holding on to a mouse and swiping two fingers seems very unnatural. When using a trackpad or on the iPhone you can swipe your whole wrist along with the fingers, but with the mouse this seems like it might cause serious RSI.
nope really not that hard. do it several times every few minutes while browsing
I feel like the lack of more complex multitouch components is a technical limitation that they’re probably working on. A normal person using a mouse always has his palm and fingers resting on the surface which means the software would have to keep track of multiple points of contact and and reliably sense different gestures.
With a normal touchscreen device, it’s relatively simpler since there’s no point of contact with the hand at the resting state. With something like a mouse, however, the resting state of hand on mouse probably introduces a lot of technical issues dealing with noise, which is probably why simple gestures like clicking and vertical swiping is enabled but more complicated gestures are not supported.
In the example of the two finger click, I find that I leave both fingers on the mouse when I left or right singleclick, so if the mouse sensed a doubleclick when both fingers where on the surface, then that would force me to raise one of my fingers whenever I wanted to single click.
definitely some good points, but it would still be great to have that option. doesn’t seem like it would be hard to learn to raise one finger while clicking, for example.
My wife is on a trip to London and I have asked her to get me a magic mouse. All of the reports I have seen praise the Magic mouse and I can hardly wait to dive in there and use the mouse.
I will give a report myself on Mac 20 Questions Podcast when I have spent a bit of time with it.
http://mac20q.com
Got one with my new Imac.
Gave it away 2 days later.
and who was the lucky recipient?
college kid who can’t afford buying his own mice
Another major problem with this mouse is that it does not work on any OS running in a bootcamp partition. I would have imagined that they would make the drivers available, but there are non-existent. I like the mouse when I use OS/X but find myself having to switch to another mouse when using bootcamp.
true. that sucks. hopefully a bootcamp update for win 7 will fix.
Yes this mouse rocks, but can it game?
I would imagine so.
I am surprised that no one mentioned anything about the tracking ability because from what I’ve heard through couple sources, the mouse is very slow and tracking even set at the highest. So doing any design work in Photoshop/Illustrator is a complete pain.
Can anyone attest to this? I am debating if I should get this mouse.
It doesn’t matter if it works well as a mouse, as long as it looks good sucking.
tracking is slower than other mice i’ve had, but it’s not outrageous or anything.
There’s an app for that (middle click): http://clement....ts/middleclick/
After reading this, I am now tilting on the side of getting one. I just have to come to terms with the $70 price tag. I wish apple would let us test it for a week or so…… wishful thinking….
Seriously? The Microsoft Mouse line is very, very good, even for Macs. I don’t see this as being that special.
SChen, good commentary! I think you’ve spotted the key issue.
Heh, “hands down the best mouse Apple ever made” is like saying “hands down the best hovercraft Ford ever made.”
Win.
that’s true. thought about that. then remembered my fondness for apple mice back when i was in grade school. since that hockey puck they have blown though.
Let’s be honest, the hockey puck was a piece of garbage too. I love a lot of Apple products, but they’ve never made a single decent mouse other than the one that came with my IIci.
Excellent fanboy satire MG Siegler, love your continuous work on it here at Techcrunch.
Will you shut up and be non-existent…like the CrunchPad? lol
Hmm, an anonymous idiot? How original.
Its kinda hard to do the PINCH and ZOOM on the mouse and have it (the mouse) stay in one place. Apple made the right choice.
disagree, it would be easy to use your index and middle finger to do it if you were really worried about the mouse moving. but the thing is pretty stable and the surface slick that gestures are easy.
It might Be technically impossible to add more gestures to the mighty mouse – it might be not as “savy” as the touchpads – I am not sure, but I think that it technically is more like those capacitive sensors in a iPod clickwheel than a multitouch trackpad. So maybe Apple already hacked everything into the current drivers that is technically possible with the Magic Mouse hardware.
b.t.w. why the hell is there no rechargeable battery builtin? they could simply include one of these iPhone cells and a nice chargedock for 70 bucks – or at least a mini USB cable (or even a dock connector) to load the damn rat…
but wait – if they included it now, we wouldn’t buy the magic mouse 2010 – the best magic mouse we have ever built. now with builtin rechargeable battery like in our MacBooks. just 99 dollars and it is capable of expose.
where is my creditcard?
apples selling point is offering products that have minor downsides – and every product iteration is aplauded because it fixes these downsides.
press and users think “wow apple listened to our feedback”, but in fact they knew that the next product itaration would fix the respective “issue” before we had the chance to complain.
they are just emptying our pockets with “intentionally half assed products”.
(like the iPhone – maybe the next rev will be “powerfully enough” to run background apps and have a metal case again)
unfortunately apple still has the best half assed prodcuts out there…
just my 2 cent
no technical holdup as far as i can see, i’ll post something on that in a few.
They’re limiting it because Apple *always* stagger the learning curve of new devices to not overwhelm the majority of end users. I agree that I would like to have seen more options, even if disabled by default, but I’m sure it will evolve in exciting ways.
Why on earth did they make it feel like crap sliding across anything but class or waxed wood? Put it on any normal mousepad or standard desk and it GRINDS rather than glides.
I was quite disappointed with the magic mouse in the beginning. No scrolling etc on my new mac mini with Snow Leopard.
Then yesterday I did a Snow Leopard Update and the options for the mouse changed.
It works great and also has a zoom feature if you hold command and scroll where a scroll weel is supposed to be.
yeah without that little update it does suck!
Key phrase: “apples best mouse ever”
While this is an accurate statement this mouse does NOT stand up to more comfortable mice that fit the hand in an ergonomic way. The mouse that comes with most Dell systems beats this thing in long term use.
As a laptop mouse: sweet
As a day to day mouse: my wrists start hurting just looking at that thing
Wow, Siegler liked an Apple product. The end of the World must truly be near.
in other world-ending news, our commenters continue to show they have 1 day attention spans. where was your comment when i bashed the apple remote a whopping 5 days ago? http://www.tech...side-an-enigma/
Wow, you dared to bash the most insignificant, least advertised, Apple product, and even then by calling it ‘odd’, not downright useless or lousy.
lmao anonymous has a point
Who cares, why is this news? Apple is still trying to come out with a good mouse, that is sad on its own, but writing a story about it to fuel the blind love for apples is more sad. How about a story that says, wow after a decade Apple comes out with a mouse that still puts form before function.
Surprised that no one is saying anything about the extremely sharp edges of the magic mouse. Wonder why they decided to make them like that? I’d rather have a nice rounded edge.
Got mine over a week ago. Sits a little low – but love it. “Momentum scrolling” works great – very handy.
Gave it a try. Will buy one when the Pref settings provide customization equal to MSFT Intellimouse or Logitech. Example: right click in Safari = Command-Click. Need to be able to customize by program. So for me, totally a software issue. Apple seems not too interested in providing options though, so maybe never. Maybe a USB Driver will be written though.
i just love apple…
I just got one, but I cannot use it. Unfortunately Apple has not shipped Vista x64 drivers for the mighty mouse yet.
why is this in techcrunch? should this be in gadget crunch?
Excited about the mouse. It is unique, stylish and… on what the heck NOW i want one. I think it will take some time for the heat to settle before the ‘rest of us’ will have a chance to get one.
I’ve seen others comment on tracking ‘issues’, missing preferences, “middle click”, etc. The hardware is there so software patches can be easily applied. Apple will think of something…
I might just be nitpicking, but as a commenter that’s my job!
Anyway, I like a mouse with fast tracking, and I picked up the Magic Mouse a couple days ago. So far, I’ve enjoyed the experience of using it. I still have the tracking maxed out, but it’s worlds better than the tracking on the Mighty Mouse.
However, if I try to use the Magic Mouse after just booting up OSX, the tracking is slow. If I reset the mouse and pair it again, the problem is fixed.
Anyone else experience this?
It’s pretty cool. I really like the look of Magic Mouse by Apple. It looks like back side of Iphone.
i’m going to comment despite this never getting read by anyone.
Apple continues to make the worst mice. The “slide” feature doesn’t help the device itself isn’t stablized on a non-moving surface. you have to lock it down by crippling your hand around its thin surface.
Really, Apple should give up on the mouse, and just let Logitech make it for them.
I read it.
I read it too. Though I think YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG
I still like my mighty mouse. Use it every day, doesn’t seem to be the worst mouse in the world and much better than the Microsoft and Logitech mice I have tried before it.
I tried the magic mouse at the apple store, seemed pretty intuitive…
Anyone feel the two finger swipe motion is a sure way to faster carpal tunnel?
I’ve read quite a few comments from friends who’ve had issues with the packaging. One managed to break the mouse on opening and another managed to get some sort of tape all over it and spent the next 10 minutes trying to get it off and clean it up. Anything like that on your end or can you imagine it happening to others?
Typical Apple release a mouse and you write a number of articles and a hundred (so far) comment, it’s only a mouse, not a technological revolution can we not just move on and forget it?
(P.S. I see the irony of me reading and commenting but hey I never said I was consistent)
It’s not just a mouse. It’s the first multitouch mouse that you can buy. It’s the kickstart to change the paradigm.
Next thing you know, we all have one of those nice 10gui keyboards
Far from a ‘review’!
This is why i normally read giz not this jiz!
Am I the only one who loves their mighty mouse? I use mine with Windows.
You are not alone…I like it too =)
You are not alone as well…..top mouse.
Excellent mouse, performance is great, low profile makes it very ergonomic (highly versatile for hand and finger positions), touch surface is great, well constructed.
This mouse is the preferred input device at the Four Finger Club.
“This is hands-down the best mouse Apple has ever made.”
Talk about damning with faint praise. A brick with a piece of string tied to it where the cable normally goes could walk away with *that* award.
Hey guys
I actually bought this mouse today, but haven’t opened the box yet as I am considering returning it.
I tried it a little in the shop and it felt really really unconfortable. From an ergonomic point of view the design seems absolutely terrible since your palm is hanging in the air in stead of resting on the mouse.
Can someone please report about the ergonomic expirience with this mouse.
Also, I am a bit worried that the multitouch surface could be prone to accidental gestures.