Magic Mouse

Two-finger scrolling changed my life.

When Apple added multi-touch features to the (PowerBook and) MacBook trackpads several years ago it was a significant and intuitive breakthrough in human-computer interaction.  The iPhone followed shortly after, improving multi-touch and introducing gestures.  These improvements are now standard technology on all Apple laptops, but those of us still rocking early models are missing out on all the features.  Unless you get a Magic Mouse.

Elph was kind enough to pick up a Magic Mouse for me a couple weeks back.  It’s the sexiest peripheral I’ve ever owned. It’s ergonomic: if you lay your open palm on a desk, the Magic Mouse nestles in the space between your hand and the surface of the desk.  It’s has an optical sensor like a traditional mouse, so you move it around in the same fashion, but your fingers are given much more control.

Swipe a finger up/down to scroll – or two fingers, if you can’t break the trackpad habit like me.  When browsing in Firefox or Safari, swipe fingers right/left to go forward/back in your browsing history.  To call up the secondary menu you can touch two fingers and click, or designate a hot corner on the mouse.  Improved hot corners let you call on some of OS X’s features by just tapping a single finger on a corner (Dashboard, Expose, show desktop, secondary click).  You can even use the pinch & expand gestures to zoom in & out.  All of this control comes in a sleek and smart design; a giant button with a big multi-touch surface.

The Magic Mouse is Bluetooth and I’ve had no problems pairing with my laptop.  I haven’t owned the Mouse long enough to judge the battery life.  It comes in the clever, minimal packaging of most Apple gadgets, so is scarce on documentation.  After you pair your Magic Mouse with your computer be sure to run Software Update to get the driver & preference pane for setting gestures and behavior.

After I adapted to the two-finger scrolling of my MacBook I had a hard time using other laptops: sliding two fingers down the trackpad with no result, frustrated when I had to cursor to a scroll bar and click.  I worry I’ll soon find myself feeling the same when I interact with mice not my own, longing for the elegant innovation of my Magic Mouse.