Hi, the name’s Nicole Lee, and I have been a secret guest writer on Gizmodo for a little while now. I’ve outed myself today to tell you of my hands-on experience with the Mighty Mouse at the Apple Store in San Francisco. Because I’m nothing if not cheap, I just tried it out without buying, thus annoying the store employees with my photo taking and computer hogging. More after the jump.
What first struck me was the pebble-like shape and smooth contours of the mouse — definite signs that this was an Apple. Like the previous incarnation, the entire mouse acts like a big button; pressing the whole upper area down is equivalent to clicking. I started moving the mouse about clicking at random things, wondering how to activate the mysterious right-clicking mechanism. I then pretended there was an imaginary right button, moved my fingers to the right, and clicked — lo and behold, a desktop menu appeared. Wow, it works! I thought (I don t think I ve ever been that excited about right-clicking before). Apparently the mouse has touch-sensors just underneath the top shell that detects where your fingers are, so just keeping your fingers to the left won t do it. I can see how this could be a problem if you re the kind of person to right-click with your pointing finger still on the left side, though I don t think it should be too hard to adjust.
Next I decided to try the little ball out (or nipple or squirrel ball or whatever you want to call it). I opened up Safari, went to some random web page, and started scrolling up and down, and left and right (I had resized the browser window so that I could scroll both ways). The scrolling felt very smooth, and I loved that I could switch directions without any hesitation. It has 360 degree movement, so it can even scroll diagonally! I then clicked the scroll ball to see what would happen, and the computer I was on had mapped it to bring up Spotlight, which I thought was pretty cool. I think the scroll ball alone is worth all the Mighty Mouse hype.
Then I squeezed the sides, and Expose activated, showing all the open windows (these buttons can also be mapped). This, I didn t like too much, simply because you have to reposition your hand in order to give the buttons a proper squeeze, which probably isn t too good for those with carpal tunnel. I don t think I see myself ever using them, except maybe if my left hand was incapacitated in some way and I couldn t reach over to press F9 or something.
Granted, I only spent maybe ten minutes with the Mighty Mouse, which probably isn t enough time for a substantial review. But I think I handled it enough to the point where I got a feel for how it worked so much so, I m going back to the store to actually buy it this time. And maybe take better pictures.
