You've probably heard by now that Apple sales of the Magic Mouse have skyrocked placing Apple in the unusual position of having 10% market share in the mouse market - that's just for the mouse and doesn't include sales of Magic Mouse peripherals when bundled with the iMac.Great sales are probably the only indicator of success in a market. Stuff that sells well is successful; stuff that doesn't is not. What I don't understand is why the Magic Mouse is such a great seller. My only conclusion is that people are buying the thing without ever having used it.
Why do I say that? Because I did try it out. I spent about 20 minutes at the Apple store a few weeks ago trying to use the Magic Mouse and found the experience to be horrible. My attempts at swiping and tapping were full of unintended consequences as my fingers, accustomed a traditional mouse, tried to hold the Magic Mouse still while my other fingers did there multi-touch dance. In short, it just didn't work for me and its hard for me to imagine that it works all that well for anyone else.
I find the form factor to be less than comfortable and the touch surface practically unusable. Am I alone? Perhaps not. I've kept mum on the subject because I wasn't sure if my experience was universal - I'm still not sure - but I was delighted when theAppleBlog published an article in which Liam Cassidy also criticizes the Magic Mouse. Are we alone. Does everyone else love this thing?
Now here's a video of a Magic Mouse that really works! Notice the complexity of its design and the simplicity of its execution.
5 comments:
My husband LOVES Apple's new mouse. He is on the computer all day for his job as a recruiter. I'll ask him why he likes it so much and let you know.
-Lynn, from a cruise ship that has a not-so-hot interactive display for choosing shore excursions. It is located in a place where no one can notice it. The interactive TV system, powered by the remote control, is even worse. The ship is less than three years old!
Who in the heck told you that you had to hold the mouse when you are using gestures? That would be awkward. I just let mine sit still on the mousepad, and track over the top of it when I want to use gestures. It doesn't go anywhere. I love this mouse.
A mouse you don't hold in your hand? Interesting. Why not simply use a trackpad?
I escaped the Borg-like PC world in November 2009 with the purchase of a 24" iMac, complete with the wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse. It has taken me a while to adapt from my old PC habits but there is nothing I miss at all.
The Magic Mouse has been quite a nice device. I find if far more comfortable and friendly than a standard mouse (I have probably tried at least 20 different types).
While the Magic Mouse stands out as my favourite pointy-clicky so far, it is not perfect.
Slow tracking is an issue. With 24 inches of screen to traverse I find the mouse has to move quite a distance across the desk surface, even with the tracking speed set to maximum. If I plug in a regular mouse with tracking to the max I can barely manouvre the cursor to the system preferences icon in my dock without a very delicate touch.
The multi-touch features a re pretty cool now that I'm used to them and I find I use them all the time. Scrolling is awesome as well.
The big problem I have just started to experience after only four months of use is that the magic mouse keeps losing it's connection to the iMac. New batteries, removing-replacing them, resetting the on/off switch, nothing seems to help. Rebooting the machine, powering off and removing the power cord (sometimes power management issues require this step) also do not help. The mouse has come back a few times after a rest but as much as I hate to do it, I'm going to have to call Apple suppoprt to sort this out. Just when I was falling in love with it too.
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