MacMost Now 309: Magic Mouse

Take a look at the new Magic Mouse from Apple. This wireless mouse features a touch-sensitive trackpad-like surface for scrolling and gestures.
You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).
Video Transcript: Hi this is gary with MacMost Now on todays episode lets take a look at the new Magic mouse. The Magic mouse is the new wireless mouse from apple it comes with all new imacs but also you can get it individually to add it to you mini or your pro or your mac book. Now its wireless which means it uses blue tooth and it takes two double a batteries which are suppose to last 4 months you can see there is a wire coming it thats actually security wire in the apple store. they dont yet have them for sale individually so the only way for me to check one out is to sue one of the ones that they had on display. So the revolutionary thing about the Magic mouse is its entire top surface is like a trackpad it sense where your fingers are so even though its got one button it can since if you are clicking on the left or right and act as a two button mouse. Also you can scroll up or down just by moving your finger up or down on the top surface and in addition you can do other jesters the main one being a two finger swipe from the left or the right which will page through the documents say in safari going next and previous or in iphoto going next and previous photo. I was really surprised to find that the entire top is actually a button and actually depresses and makes and audible click I really thought from reading about Magic mouse that it was kind of like a sensitive surface if you just tapped it it would click but it makes more since this way as you can keep your finger rested on the surface and press down to click. I found that the gestures worked really well and were very intuitive they worked right off the bat and i was able to easily scroll up and down and through pages in safari and use the two finger gestures to backwards and forward i dont know how useful that is because it takes a minute for the page to load when your moving between pages so having a really quick gesture like that isn't really useful but i can see it being much more useful in iphoto. The control panel in interesting it features these little videos to show examples of using it there are also some controls that you can set for instance you can determine what the right button does. for instance you can basically disable it and have a one button mouse. Whats really missing though are all the extra controls that are with the mighty mouse and in addition having the extra squeeze buttons on the sides of the mighty mouse there just weren't that may options like you had to figure out what the right mouse button does here. but i imagine that they can add that in the future imagine that even with the touch sensitive surface they could add more than just the two buttons perhaps having things like having both buttons to press or you could press toward the middle, toward the back and that kind of thing. People that are use to the mighty mouse are really going to miss those the new magic mouse it just dosent have as much. A great thing about the is that it eliminates the main problem with the mighty mouse, which was that little scroll ball in the middle, it seemed like if one tiny piece of dust got in there and you couldn't scroll in one direction or the other. now with a solid surface you dont have to worry about that plus its extremely easy to clean. One thing people are going to complain about is that like the might mouse the magic mouse dosent hane a very good ergonomic design it has an even lower profile than the mighty mouse people complain that apple cares more about the style, how that mouse looks, than how it fits in your hand and that definitely seems to be true, I've never had trouble with these type of mice they seem to work just fine for me but if you really want an ergonomic mouse the magic mouse is not going to be for you. whats really exciting about the magic mouse is the fact that the entire surface is touch sensitive is that third parties or apple could write software to do all sorts of different things add additional buttons additional gestures additional ways you could use the mouse or maybe even use it as a track pad rather than actually moving the mouse around it will be interesting to see what happens with this mouse since it is the first one that really has some potential for expansion like this. Now i was warned that using the magic mouse with a mac that already exist is going to need an update when you get the magic mouse there is this magic mouse software update that isn't actually available today at apple but should be available hopefully by next week when the magic mice start shipping as individual products. I was also warned of course of some old macs may not be able to use the magic mouse I think that probably refers to old macs that dont have bluetooth capability. Now if you still want the old mighty mouse you can still get it from apple its an option when you buy your imac or any of the macs out there you can still buy it individually of course you can still buy any bluetooth capable mouse or any usb capable mouse and they'll work on your mac as well so if its not for you, you have plenty of other choices out there till nest time this is gary Rosenzweig with MacMost Now
MacMost Now 309: Magic Mouse

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