New Gadget: Mighty Mouse

Apple finally released a respectable mouse (with a cute name: Mighty Mouse), today, and I was able to pick one up at a local Apple Store. It's been a long time coming, but in common Apple fashion, it isn't just an ordinary two-button mouse with a scroll wheel. Instead, Apple was able to retain the simplicity and clean design of their one-button mouse while adding multi-button support and a two-dimensional scroll ball.

While I wasn't sure if I was going to like this new mouse, I've been getting used to it for only a couple hours today, and it's already becoming comfortable. I'm not sure whether I'll ultimately replace all four of my Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorers (or is that IntelliMice Explorer?) with Mighty Mice just yet (and even if I wanted to, it seems that the local Apple Stores sold out of the new mice within a few hours of them having been announced), but it is a possibility.

One of the things that I particularly like about the new mouse is that clicking with your full hand on the mouse causes it to act like a one-button mouse. If you try that with a standard two-button unit, you end up clicking both buttons at the same time. Even still, it's easy to perform a right-click (or left-click if you're a lefty -- another nice aspect of this mouse is that it is shaped and can be configured for right- or left-handed use).

I'm not sure if the "grip" button will get much use from me, but then I also don't tend to use the side buttons on other mice, either (even though I have them hooked up to Exposé). I heard an interesting idea about programming the grip action to allow moving a window by gripping the mouse anywhere within the window. Apple's software doesn't allow this, but it would be a great hack for someone else to write.

Clicking the scroll ball works great, but it will take some time to get used to the entire mouse performing a click operation (it feels like you mistakenly clicked the primary button, but you didn't -- that's just how clicking the ball works: the mouse "knows" what part you were clicking). Again, I don't tend to make use of the ability to click to perform an action on other scroll wheels, either, but tying this click to the application picker is an interesting option Apple provides.

So anyway, in summary: new mouse = good. Now if Apple could just get started making something like the Optimus keyboard, they'd really have a first-class set of input devices.