Short review of the new Apple’s mouse, alongside with its good and bad sides.
Name: Magic Mouse
On 20 October 2009 Apple unveiled the first Mutlti-Touch mouse, a mouse without buttons.
Photo Credit: qiaomeng

The Good

• Multi-Touch, no buttons
• Wireless
• Innovative and good looking design

The Bad

• Only the basic mouse functions are covered by the Multi Touch gestures, no functional “gestures” with the default drivers, there are 3rd party software to fix this problem, but their are in beta for now
• Its smaller that the other mice and this can be problem for other people
• Its difficult to operate with it in the beginning
• Not very ergonomic

Pictures

Description of the model

When talking about Apple and mouses, one must say that they are always different from the rest of the computer mouses available. Beginning with a mouse with only one button, then going through the Mighty Mouse, which was the first buttonless mouse (Touch-sensitive top shell was being used), and finally the Multi-Touch Magic mouse, which uses the multi-touch technologies from iPhone and trackpad. Of course some of the models are not very successful, but they always stand out.

Technical Specifications

The mouse uses a laser for the movement detection.
For Wireless connectivity the Magic Mouse uses Bluetooth technology, so you can use it on every Mac in the past few years.
It uses two AA batteries and their life depends mainly of the hours you use the Magic Mouse. If you use it for 2-3 hours a day, then its possible the batteries to last up to 3 months, but if the hours are around 7-10 per day, then expect no more than 1 month.
The mouse uses laser to track movements and its precision is 1300 DPI, which is average, but its more than enough for every kind of use (except power gaming).
If you want to look what the inner of the mouse looks like, you may see the iFixit teardown

Known Bugs

These are not bugs, but rather flaws
- While good for common use, the mouse doesn’t hold very well when used for serious work – editing, drawing(CAD programs) and other heavy duty programs, because its very sensitive to touching, every kind touch of its upper side triggers something, and often this is not the action that the users wishes to perform and this can be vary frustrating
- It is small and not very ergonomic, these days the mouse making companies are trying to make their new products more and more ergonomics, the users are spending more and more time in front of the computer and this is something to expect, but the Magic Mouse is lacking it. There are people which are complaining that after some hours of work its getting uncomfortable to use the mouse.
- Only the basic actions are supported – with its default drivers the mouse can recognize only the standard mouse actions i.e. left right click, double click, scrolling and some gestures like two or three finger swipe but doesn’t have middle button functionality and it cant be programmed for different types of gestures like showing expose, spaces, dashboard or anything else. This can be very frustrating for the power users but this flaw can be fixed. There are two applications which adds additional functions to the Magic Mouse, when installed the mouse can recognize gestures like middle click, holding down both mouse buttons, 2+ finger clicks, dragging, pinches and everything can be programmed to your liking, the bad thing is that these applications are on early stage on their development and there can be some problems with them, but this can occur in special and very limited cases. The programs are:
BetterTouch
MagicPrefs

Conclusion

No flaws?: While very cool, this mouse have its flaws, and will need some improvements until becoming the perfect mouse.
Professional?: If you plan to use this mouse for specific work don’t buy it, stick with some plain old mouse with physical buttons, the Magic Mouse its too sensitive and you will need time to get used to the new way of using the mouse.
Casual use?: If you are using you computer to browse the internet, chat and socialize, watching movies i.e. for entertainment this maybe the perfect mouse for you.