Apple's new Magic Mouse
(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)At first glance, Apple's new Magic Mouse might change your thoughts about love at first sight. The curvature of the soft white shell paired with the speckled silver underbelly is enough to make any Applehead salivate, but we warn prospective buyers to head out to your local Apple Store before taking the plunge, because you might be disappointed.
The first issue we raise with the Magic Mouse is its size and shape. While there's no way anyone can dispute its simple hotness, we struggled through a difficult learning curve due to its uniformly narrow profile that sits too low for comfort. It might be because we're so used to the Logitech MX 1100 cradling each of our fingers with a designated resting point, while the Apple Magic Mouse just feels like a chunk of finely carved polycarbonate.
Next, we also had a problem with the multitouch functionality. Specifically, we felt awkward and unnatural sliding our middle and index fingers across the flat surface of the shell to navigate through several Web pages. Even worse, if you don't have a uniform grip on the sides of the mouse with your thumb, ring, and pinky fingers, the shell can easily get away from your hand--this is why a touch surface with no hard buttons just doesn't make sense on a mouse. Although Apple's instructions tell you otherwise, we did find it easier to use our middle and ring finger to swipe from left to right.
Finally, the Apple mousing preferences don't allow you to reassign the action that happens when you swipe. We'd love to be able to direct the mouse to open a program or advance a track in iTunes with a simple finger gesture, but as it stands, the custom preferences for the Magic Mouse only include check boxes to turn off the secondary click, momentum scrolling, and screen zoom, as well as options to alter tracking, scrolling, and double-click speed.
Want to hear more? Check out our full review of the Apple Magic Mouse.
(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)
Along with a redesign of the iMac, MacBook, and Mac Mini, Apple today also unveiled its new Magic Mouse, a departure from the underwhelming Mighty Mouse Wireless that flew beneath the consumer radar back in 2006. The new Magic Mouse is also the next device (after the iPod, iPod touch, and MacBook Pro) in line to receive a dose of multitouch capability.
We've only had a day to play around with the multitouch features, but so far we're still on the fence about switching from our Logitech Performance Mouse MX. There's certainly no denying the aesthetic appeal: the bottom half is sleek aluminum and the top shell is made of a milky white shade of polycarbonate with a subtle gloss. The entire surface is a single button (no Mighty nipple, of course), but you can also change the settings to recognize a right-click or a lefty orientation, as well.
The multitouch user area is spread across the entire surface of the mouse, so you can swipe your finger anywhere and expect uniform results. Aside from the two main buttons, you can also scroll 360 degrees around a Web page, photo viewer, or document using a single finger, or quickly navigate forward and backward in a Web browser by simply swiping two fingers horizontally across the top of the mouse. The last feature is basic, but useful: holding down the Control key on the keyboard while scrolling up and down with a finger lets you zoom in and out of virtually anything onscreen.
Like the Mighty Mouse, the magical sibling connects to your computer through a simple Bluetooth pairing, and it works with any Mac running OS X version 10.5.8 or later, as long as it has the latest Wireless Mouse Software update 1.0. Windows users will bemoan its inability to work with non-Mac PCs.
Check out more pics after the jump and look for a full review coming soon.
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A computer peripheral maker filed suit against Apple and CBS on Tuesday, claiming the companies are infringing on its trademark for the "Mighty Mouse" device.
(Credit:
Apple)
Maryland-based Man & Machine says it was selling its chemical-resistant and waterproof mouse to hospitals a year before Apple sold its single-button mouse of the same name.
CBS owns the rights to the Mighty Mouse cartoon and licensed the use of the name to Apple. The network was named in the lawsuit because Man & Machine says it doesn't have the right to license the name. Both Man & Machine and CBS have trademark applications for the name and are currently dueling for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's approval.
Man & Machine is asking for monetary damages and for a court to issue an injunction to prevent Apple from selling any more of its Mighty Mouse devices.
Note: CBS has agreed to acquire CNET Networks, publisher of News.com. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter.
Mighty Mouse
(Credit: Apple)Before I bought my iMac, the vast majority of my work was done on a notebook, so I never was forced to use a mouse. I used to be an all-desktop guy back in the late '90s and found that most of the time, the rubber ball worked quite well. Today? No such luck.
I hate every mouse I own. I own a wired and wireless Mighty Mouse (yuck!) and a wired laser mouse from Logitech that should have been burned years ago. But it doesn't end there. When I go to a friend's house and use a mouse, the slow movement and sticky right click button should be taken out back and shot.
Is it just me or are mice just plain awful? If you ask me, mice are on the way out. Not only do they work marginally better than a trackball or other useless pointing devices, touch screens are the wave of the future. There's no doubt in my mind that within the next decade, every computer and other tech device will be running with the help of a touch screen. I can't wait.
Mice are awful, disgusting, pitiful, useless, poor excuses for useful technology. If you don't have a nice mouse pad underneath it, you better run out and find one because the mouse won't work. If the batteries die on a wireless mouse, go out and get some Duracells. And by goodness, if for some reason, the ball is stuck or the laser is covered, don't even try to navigate your way to your favorite site! Sorry, you knew a shameless plug was coming eventually, didn't you?
Mice need to see their way out and get out of this business. They were great in the '90s--it's over. Give it up.
And on that note, back to some more right clicks. Ugh.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
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