The Apple Magic Mouse Review: Read Your Instructions

Like any tech nerd or gadget geek I returned home form the Apple Store today eager to set up my new Apple Magic Mouse. Of course, being a man I failed to read the instructions and now I am utterly disappointed. The Apple Magic Mouse will be the next generation of pointing device. I am not sure that I am ready for such a change yet. I will admit that my failure to read the instructions or take a tutorial slowed my initial learning curve, but I am not sure anyone will be able to learn to use this thing before Christmas.

The Apple Magic Mouse is buttonless. It took me long enough to get used to my Mac's single button mouse, well technically I never did, but at least I could navigate my Mac with it. Being a buttonless mouse means the mouse is smooth to the touch. My huge fingers had a problem finding just the right area to touch to receive the gesture that I wanted to make. Here are some of the things I noticed about this new multi touch tool.

Point and Click. I began simple with just trying a basic point and click procedure. Once I finally figured out that you can treat the mouse like a touchpad on a laptop it made things a little easier. Again, I should have read the instructions. The point and click is easy to do once the mouse learns your fingers and their strength.

Scrolling. This was truly difficult for me and I really don't know why. I think my huge fingers had a lot to do with it as the mouse kept trying to move the screen up and down while scrolling making it nearly impossible to read. My wife was able to use it pretty flawlessly, but she has small fingers. While a tutorial would have helped some, not here unless it makes your fingers skinnier. I think that scrolling with the new Apple Magic Mouse will come down to learning how to place my finger on the mouse.

Waving. Now we are getting into the absolute coolest feature of this mouse. The gesture rich mouse allows you to "wave" through multiple websites with the simple swipe of your finger across the mouse. I found this to be the most useful feature of the new Apple Magic Mouse. I was easily able to move piles of web pages with just the simplest of swipes.

Other features included in the Apple Mouse that I was easily able to figure out without the instructions were Screen Zoom, and the 360 degree scroll.

Pinching. No, It does not. This was a disappointment to me. I being able to zoom in and out with my multi touch pad, and on my iphone. I really wish this would have been a feature on the Apple Magic Mouse.

The Apple Magic Mouse cost me $69 at my local Apple Store. Make no mistake about it, the new Apple Magic Mouse is a game changer. While it did take me some time to learn how to use I am very glad that I did. I expect within a day or two I will have completely forgotten how to use those old squeaky wheel thingy. Good Job Apple.