Apple's new Mighty Mouse saves the day

Computerworld - For the past several years, whenever I bought a desktop computer from Apple Computer Inc., whether it be a Power Mac G4, G5 or iMac, the first thing I always did was take the ubiquitous one-button mouse and toss it in a drawer. I have a veritable family of new Apple mice -- some still in the original plastic wrapping -- now living in my desk.
One-button mice are so 1992. Multibutton mice are a lot more modern and useful. That's why I've eschewed the Apple mouse for whatever third-party hardware I had on hand, be it from Logitech International SA, Kensington Technology Group or some other company.
I'm not alone. For years, Macintosh fans have practically pleaded with Apple to release a multibutton mouse. With various contextual commands and other functions available with a simple right-click in Mac OS X, the operating system cried out for more than the stylish-but-limited mouse Apple supplied.
Yesterday, Apple heard the call and unveiled its new $49 Mighty Mouse -- complete with four buttons, scroll ball and programmable functions (see Apple unveils multibutton mouse -- without the buttons). Even better, Apple made sure that one of the new mice was in my hands on the day of the announcement. That's important, because no matter how many features a mouse may offer, it's one thing to talk about what it does, or can do. It's quite another to have one in my hand to use.
Now, I admit, only Apple could make the announcement of a new mouse a big event, especially when the Mighty Mouse does what a lot of other mice have done for years. But this is Apple, after all, and the form is almost as important as function when it comes to the company's hardware.
On those two counts, form and function, Apple has a winner here. The Mighty Mouse, as Apple likes to say, just works -- at least on Apple hardware. I tried connecting it to my three-year-old Dell Inc. laptop here at work, and Windows XP didn't seem to see it, even after a reboot. (Neither did a Logitech mouse I tried.) Apple says, however, that it's supposed to work with the basic mouse drivers installed in newer version of Windows, albeit without all the functions possible in Mac OS X. I expect my problem is an anomaly.
However, on the new iBook I'll be reviewing soon, the Mighty Mouse works perfectly. The iBook already had Mac OS X 10.4.2 installed, so all I had to do was install the Mighty Mouse software, decide how I want the buttons to function and get back to work. That's the whole point of a mouse designed for ease-of-use: You don't want to be spending a lot of time thinking about your mouse. If you're doing that, you're not working. Instead, you should be able to set it up once and carry on with whatever computer tasks are at hand.
The Mighty Mouse uses what Apple officials call "capacitive sensors" under the front of the top shell to determine where your finger is and match that to whatever function you've assigned to that particular "button." To look at it, though, you'd think it was a typical one-button mouse with a small scroll ball on top. That's the form: A clean, simple design results in a mouse that can be used as a simple one-button mouse (should you choose to configure it that way) or as a mouse with four buttons. Say you're left-handed? Just reprogram the main left-click, right-click "buttons." In addition, the scroll ball can be depressed, and the two buttons on either side can be squeezed. Launch programs, bring up Apple's Application Switcher or Dashboard, or clear your crowded desktop of windows with Expose. You decide. That's the point.
Particularly handy is the scroll ball, which allows you to scroll up and down and even diagonally. Think of it as the desktop version of Apple's two-finger scrolling TrackPad, which now comes standard on its laptops. It's a simple and elegant solution that some people will find extremely useful and others may never need. (And some might even dislike it. I showed the mouse to a co-worker who liked the look but detested the scroll ball. "I hate it," she said. That's a reflection of anti-scroll-ball sentiment, not anti-Mighty Mouse feelings.)
Personally, I think the scroll ball is the best feature. I spend a lot of time scrolling around documents and Web pages. It's right where it should be for my index finger to fall on naturally, and it scrolls smoothly.
Now admittedly, I've only had the mouse for one day. Maybe I'll tire of it or find flaws down the road that don't seem obvious now. But as far as I can tell, this is the mouse for me. Will it do for mice what the iPod did for MP3 players? Doubtful. There are just too many options out there, and people can be awfully particular about their mice. Large, small, optical sensor or rollerball, wired or wireless -- options abound, and computer users get comfortable with what they've been using.
The only improvement I'd suggest? Lose the Universal Serial Bus wire.
I asked Apple officials yesterday about whether a wireless version of the Mighty Mouse might turn up down the road. They were mum, as is usually the case. I'm still hopeful. A wireless mouse is a very good thing.
I also asked whether the new mouse would be bundled with Apple's desktop machines. For now, at least, it won't. That's a bummer. This mouse should be in the hands of everyone who's using an Apple desktop computer. And it means that for the foreseeable future, if I buy any new Apple desktop computers, I'll still be tucking away the old one-button mice in the desk drawer -- right where they belong.