Magic mouse could start a rodent revolution
MOST OF YOU WON'T REMEMBER the days before the advent of the mouse. Your friendly pointing clicking rodent scurries about your desk unheralded and unloved, carrying out your every gestural whim, happy to be enveloped in the clammy caress of your uncaring palm.
The evolution of the mouse is simple and, to all intents and purposes, without deviation. It's true that the cable used to poke out of the other end when it first hopped onto the desktop courtesy of the boffins at Stanford University, but you would still recognise the first commercially marketed mouse for what is was if you were to come across a complete Xerox 8010 at your local car boot sale.
The mouse is the great white shark of the computing world. Not that you are likely to have your legs torn off by one while your having a nice paddle at the seaside. No... it's developmental path has, like a shark, been simple and linear because the people who originally designed it got it right in the first place. It has been quite happily doing its job for nearly 30 years, and no amount of wirelessness, flashy livery, space age laser light shows and bristling multi-button madness could detract from the fact that it had a simple job to do - pointing at stuff and moving stuff about on a screen.
It's almost ironic that Apple, the company which championed the commercial birth of the mouse in 1984, has fought a bitter battle with the rest of the world to keep the mouse true to its simplistic origins. PC users regularly bemoan the fact that Apple rodents are a little deficient in the button department. One Inq journalist who shall remain nameless (rhymes with Dick Barrel) still regularly mocks the Apple Mighty Mouse for having only one button when anyone who has ever actually used one will be aware that, in reality, it has four, plus a three dimenisional scroll wheel.
And now along comes the Magic Mouse. A shining trilobite of swooping retro curves and Apple design loveliness which the Cupertino company hopes will change the way we interface with our computer forever.
Imagine if you will a traditional wireless mouse. Then imagine the giant glass multi-touch surfaces which have become a familiar feature of recent Apple notebooks and the ubiquitous Iphone (and its incommunicative halfwit cousin the Ipod Touch). Now put the two in a cage and poke them with a sharp stick until they breed.
The resulting lovechild will hopefully be a buttonless mouse covered with a smooth touch sensitive surface... or a Magic Mouse, if you will.
It's still a mouse to all intents and purposes. It still slides about on your desktop carrying out traditional pointing and clicking duties using a laser tracking system. But it's that sensitive shell that makes all the difference. It not only knows where you fingers are on the surface, and how many fingers you are using, it also knows which direction you are swiping them in and how fast.
You can scroll 360 degrees around large documents using a single finger, or flip between pages in a document using sideways swipes. You can zoom and contract the view using key modifiers or two finger pinching, and all of this is infinitely customisable using a simple system preferences widget.
We're sure this is going to take some getting used to and it might not change the world. It certainly won't change the PC world any time soon because, until such time as Microsoft decides there's a buck to be made and steals the idea, the Mighty Mouse is Mac only (and it only works with Snow Leopard at that).
But it's an interesting idea and we're intrigued to see if the concept catches on or if, like the trackball, it is restricted to a few die-hard enthusiasts and RSI sufferers. Watch this space for a fingers-on review as soon as we can prise one from Apple's vicelike grasp. µ
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Good story but.... Other than the 17 MAC users, who cares.
Sorry, couldn't resist the joke.
Is it using battery or it a rechargable one?
Don't worry since MS can not buy out or shut down Apple they will copy this soon enough.
It's battery powered - that's why it has the scorch mark you can see on the top surface ;-)
Can it really do pinch to zoom? I can't see anything on the Apple page that claims this. It only says you can use a modifier to zoom.
Overall, this is looking like a missed opportunity. None of the functions that Apple claim for it are not already supported by most high end mice with buttons and scroll wheels.
If it had the multi-finger functions of the MacBook trackpad, then it could be useful, but it currently seems to offer no functional benefit over a normal mouse.
More crap you never new you needed at a price no one will bother with.
Speaking as a coder I can't live without my Logitech MX Revolution. The SmartShift feature on it (which Logitech have dropped from more recent mice) means it switches to free-wheel whenever I start scrolling quickly, and so it zooms through code quickly and effortlessly.
I really cannot live without that so Apple will need to find a way to implement that feature if I'm to buy one of their mice. They'll also need to write Windows and Linux drivers as I can't stand their OS. I do like the multi-touch gestures Apple have on their trackpads, it makes browsing a real joy.
If its so wonderful etc etc.
For why not his annointedness direct a version for the lumpen Windows users, all to tempt unwashed to the white side.
Then again, naaahh.
Microsoft need not copy, may already have an answer with the FTIR (Frustrated Total Internal Reflection) multi-touch mouse
http://www.gizmag.com/microsoft-multi-touch-mouse-prototypes/13081/
So all they have to do now is wait for humans to evolve (or be given them by a deity of your choice) perfectly symmetrical hands!
Is St Jobs left handed by any chance?
Am I the only one seeing potential for some serious RSI and Carpal tunnel injuries here? - I had used the Mighty Mouse .. and jeez what a piece of (pretty) junk!
As I spend all day and night with mouse in hand and after years.. Carpal has suffered badly until Razer Diamondback 3G.
But then crippled hands are a small price to pay for being smug and oh-so-trendy
must admit the first thing I did when starting to use the macs at work was to ditch the horrid mouse and it's random right mouse button usage.
or was it the second after I stuck a proper keyboard into the usb socket??
Nice idea, but I really do prefer actual buttons rather than sleek 'theres no buttons here'.
As lywyre said, MS has had this for a while in various prototypes, not released but they did patent it....thus the Magic Mouse with cashflow to MS for usage coming!
I've been waiting for such a mouse for a long time! After getting used to the multi-touch pad, using a regular mouse seemed just too clumsy for me...
Sounds difficult to use. How are you supposed to perform all these swiping motions on a small device that moves all around? If you have to support the weight of your own hand, there'll be carpel tunnel and shoulder pain everywhere.
I just HATE Apple fan boys, apple is a nice company tho.
Slating another Inq writer in order to write an Apple-biased article is shameful anywhere, but on the Inq itself? What are we now, US operated media site or perhaps the BBC?
This mouse is hardly a revolution so much as a useless step sidewards. The main problem of the mouse is ergonomics and RSI. If anything, the "handshake" mouse is more likely a successor to the sturdy, trustworthy mouse, if only it could take off. Heck, even mind control and touchscreen monitors are more likely to continue the push in the future!
Lest we forget though, Apple sells overpriced goods. Most mice are cheap. Sure, I have a nice gaming mouse, but most buyers will have one which costs less than £5 and unless Apple is willing to compete on price and licence out its ideas to the general market, this is nothing more than another piece of Apple pomp and show.
I'm sure the US media and the BBC will love it of course, as they always do.
MS or someone other than Apple would have to copy it. If Quicktime and iTunes for Windows are any indication of Apple programming talent, the drivers would suck so bad it would be a failure.
I can see the RSI lawsuits now. Saint Steve would blame users for the injury because nothing he blessed could do any wrong.
I don't like apple bussiness model, I wont pay how much it asks for its computers, but I like innovative products.
That Magic Mouse, beside the horrible name, seems like a pretty good idea...
I even was think about it... what if they "coated" that mouse with a oled screen, so it could be touch-sensitive and show some info too... like you could bring the volume control up and it show the volume level on the mouse surface screen... that would be fantastic.
Thumbs up for Apple for this mouse.
I am a PC guy, but we must admit when the 'other side' bring something to the table.
Swipes aside, it really only has 2 buttons, left and right click (or touch). I'm not sure a swipe feature will be able to replace assignable buttons beyond the L/R unless I am missing something here. Maybe if you could re-assign the swipes actions. I don't really get it. It probably has more potential in 3rd party hands.
...Logitech MX1100, THAT is a proper mouse.
As for the touch-thing mouse... yawn, been there, done that, looks excellent as a piece of expensive furniture, but other than that I'll stick to mice with more than 2 buttons.
Remember the Amiga? mac fan bois. I had a 'PC' Optical mouse for it in 1989! and it had 3 mouse buttons and was sleek in design. (funny how a lot of hardware was adapted from the PC back then)
Just like there iPhone, it isn't 'revolutionary' it is obviously in the mind of the dilusional brainwashed mac fan bois however. It has always been like that and they are just as viral today in there blabbering of rubbish about rivals. Whom they dispise for being truely more technologicaly advanced, while they where left in the dark ages.
The only 'revolutionary' thing about this is it is better than what Apple had before.
I wonder who makes this? Foxxcon?!
They make the biggest peices of garbage around. Low quality junk hardware that is cheap, unreliable, of low quality and is made in slave encampments in China.
Steady there Minotaur, you need to get back to the cave; fresh air doesn't have a good effect on you.
Your perfectly balanced and reasoned post contained quite a few factual errors which I'm sure you're kicking yourself about now.....but the one I'd take you up on is that the iPhone was not 'revolutionary'.
You're probably cleverly referring to the 1991 Amiga phone which, of course, was streets ahead of anything Apple came up with. Without mentioning it you think Apple just rehashed stuff others created back then and tried to take the credit. The only slight flaw is that all this was in your IMAGINATION!
Only a bull headed monster of a fool could argue that the iPhone was not a seismic change to what was available when it came out. Now go back to the foul air of your cave and carry on chewing your toenails.
Perhaps a better reply to Minotaur, instead of doing the full fanboy, would have been to point out that arguments made by those who don't know there from their from they're are generally not taken seriously.
I don't get how you'd hold your hand to do a pinch zoom on the back of a mouse, but I imagine it would indeed cause instant distress.
You'd be tempted to say "I'll wait for apple to release one because they will do it in a usable way", except this is apple.
Perhaps some video will explain it though, if it is explainable.
Overpriced, Yes.
Nice, yes.
Innovative, yes.
Cool, yes.
Revolutionary, we will see (But apple generally is).
Will I buy one? Probably not (But I hear it now comes standard with the Imacs.)
All I like about apple is that they keep the competition and innovation real, but have an irritating, but very successful business model (Please cater for the Poor!).
So I would have to master mouse gestures while holding the mouse!
It is just another Jobsian pretty thing. The Mactards will have orgasms over it's looks, and they will mouse slower than with a traditional mouse.
But... they will look thoughtful and stylish doing so... as if their computing requires more thought than an old school user.
teach you how to organise and analyse your data in logical, consistent and easily accessible and controllable way?
No - so its a piece of shit like almost everything else (including IT teaching) for the last twenty years or so.
'Computing made easy' - the opium of the masses!
Remember the leak about the mouse that you "touch and stroke" to control years ago? Apple was mocked mercilessly for that. And now here it is - they just put it off until everybody forgot.
I guess this is supposed to make computer sex games better or something.
So how would you use this on the move?
Ok there IS an App for using the iPhone/iPod Touch as mouse.
iPhone=300 dollars
Magic Mouse (Gotta Love the names :) ) = 60 dollars
Only mouse I need. Razer mice can have the acceleration turned up so high, you can breath and they skate across 1920x1200. This looks annoying to use.