Product Review: Apple's Magic Mouse

It's a magical tool more likely to be existing in a sci-fi story instead of reality, but it also comes with a curse or two.

It's been roughly about a half a year since I got an iMac and one of the few items that was boxed with, was the Magic Mouse. Being a PC user most of my life and having to use "normal" mouses, the Magic Mouse was rather alienating. To my surprise, I got used to it much faster than I thought. Magical.

The Magic Mouse is about 11cm long, 4.5cm wide, and has the height of 1.3cm. The arc of the mouse isn't the most comfortable, but it's comfortable enough to be used for hours if needed, without breaking the wrist. It connects to an Apple Computer via Bluetooth wavelength and It takes 2 AA batteries. It's amazing how the batteries last so long. Since that time it got out of the box half a year ago, I have changed the (rechargeable) batteries only about 4-5 times in total. And I'm pretty much on this iMac for 2-3 hours on day to day basis. Sometimes, I forget that it takes AA batteries, or even runs on batteries at all since I change them less than often. It really just seems like something from a fictional story. When it comes to futuristic tools, batteries aren't really an issue.

The material on the top half is a white plastic with a small, gray Apple logo near the back followed by a transparent layer of plastic on top, deserving some nice points for the cosmetics. The bottom half has more of an metallic exterior and a battery cover (also with an Apple logo on it), where the laser sensor and on-and-off switch is located. It looks like something CSI agents would use to... check for blood in a room or something... The point, is it looks nice and it even looks as if it can perform tricks. The line splitting left click and right click buttons are something I wasn't too used to seeing gone, however. As I would often misclick to either side and rarely still do since I'm using the two-button-click setting. This means most forms of gaming are thrown out the window to the window's side of things unless I get a replacement mouse, but the saving grace is that mac's in general aren't built for games in the first place.

It also works on just about any surface! It's somehow smart enough to recognize even something ridiculous as my own arm and I can navigate on it. Books, walls, even clothes. It also doesn't seem to struggle like most optical mouses out there where their curser gets "lost" when the mouse is being used on a colourful surface. This is most likely due to the laser tracking mechanism at the bottom of the Magic Mouse. Working on just about any surface as long as it's even enough. That's just alien-technology.

The fact that it has no buttons as mentioned earlier, means the mouse can act more like an iPod Touch or an iPhone in terms of controls. Scrolling of pages can be done with a single finger swiping in any direction, which replaces the middle zoom dial that would normally be found on an optical mouse, and then some. The buttons on the side for the very much admired "back" button that's normally on even a cheap optical mouse now a-days is also replaced by the two-finger swipe function of the Magic Mouse. Just simply swipe two fingers to the left on the Magic Mouse to go back and swipe to the right to go forward of the browser. Surprisingly, the "swipe" features work well. Well, too well. I lost count on how many times it went back a page on my browser while I was reading the contents of the page. It scrolls fast and responsibility, but sometimes, it just runs through the page and I'm left to struggle to find where I was on the page prior to the little scrolling accident having my memory and "Command + F" as my hope to get back where I was. It's not the end of the world, but it's annoying enough for me to make a note of it. If I want to peacefully stay on the page I'm on and enjoy the contents, the only solution is to simply let go of this magical device, which I often refuse to do since I'm more used to having the mouse in my right hand incase I need to do anything while I'm surfing online as opening up another tab or scroll down a little. The two-finger swipe function can be turned off, but that would mean my left hand would need to constantly rest on the "delete/back space" button of the keyboard all the time. The Magic Mouse is a tool that looks simple with complex features. Quite the opposite from an optical mouse, if you think about it.

These little troubles I have with the Magic Mouse can be overcome with time and practice. Well, a lot of time considering I've had it for half a year already. One last thing-and the thing that drives me a little past being annoyed with it's magical-ness: Google Map is impossible to use with the Magic Mouse. Any slight movement can either leave you starring the map at street view of the location where the mouse curser was, or a view of the world map. It magically becomes too sensitive and zooms in or out, very much often on the extreme. I'm forced to use my iPhone infront of the iMac to look up directions on a map.

The features and the ideas behind them regarding the Magic Mouse is great and innovative like most things Apple. Also like most things Apple, it wants the world to get used to the new way of doing things. Most of the time, it's good and it works, but in the Magic Mouse's case, the features seem a little too advanced for my static ways of using a "normal" mouse. And Google Map.

I feel as though, while a "normal" wired optical mouse wont be as beautiful, smart, or technologically advanced (by several decades) as the Magic Mouse and I wont be able to be in awe of its wonderful features every time I use them (correctly), I just might enjoy it better in a sense that it will more... trouble-less.