Review: Mighty Mouse

In a word: Yuck! I ran into an Apple Mighty Mouse at CompUSA on Tuesday, and I was very not impressed. The Might Mouse, for those not reading 800 blogs a day, is Apple's first two-button scroll wheel mouse. See, until now, Apple has always had a one-button mouse, in the interests of simplicity. Since so many Mac users were just going out and buying third-part mice, I guess Apple figured it might as well get a part of that action. The weird thing is, Apple refused to commit. The Mighty Mouse is designed in every way to look virtually identical to a standard one-button Apple mouse. It has no buttons, the top of the mouse can be pushed down as a button. The Apple logo has been replaced by a scroll ball. So regular Apple mouse users may get fooled at first glance. The top of the mouse can tell which side you are pressing down on, as to determine the difference between left and right clicks. In addition, pressing down on the scroll ball actually depresses the main mouse button, in such a way that the mouse knows to interpret a third button click. Finally, there are two side buttons. On the other hand, if you are used to the regular one-button Apple mouse, buy it. This is a solid replacement for that mouse, and you are probably already used to the strange operations required. My main Apple info guy tells me that it is definitely more for one-button users, who are used to wrist movements over finger movements. Not that Apple isn't marketing it for everybody. They should put a disclaimer for two-button users. I'm kind of glad Reader Comments... InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.