Magic Mouse Is Here To Save The Day

I love my Apple iMac. It’s a beautiful piece of equipment that’s a pleasure to use. All except for that infernal rodent, the Mighty Mouse. Mighty? Mighty frustrating is what I say. It’s all the fault of that dirty little pea on top. You can hardly use the thing a for a few hours without it starting to feel crunchy, and refusing to scroll until you rub it back and forth on some paper or your hand. Then you’re only good for some hours until you have to do it again. Can’t even open the case up and pull out whatever crumbs or hairball this thing swallowed. You can shake it or clean it with a wet cloth as Apple recommends, but that is also a short term fix. Arrgh! Won’t somebody come to save me from this beast?

Look! There in the mail! it’s a box. It’s a box from Apple. It’s a box from Apple for me!

What was planned as a Valentine gift from my wonderful wife showed up a few days late due to "Snowmageddon". Even so, it’s a gift wrapped box from Apple. A gift wrapped box from Godiva might be just as mouth watering, but gifts with the Apple logo tend to last a lot longer.

So, what was in that intriguing package? It’s something called a Magic Mouse. It’s sleek and low and perfectly smooth on top. With a little imagination, you might mistake it for a model of the latest in stealth aircraft or alien spacecraft. The perfectly smooth shiny upper surface is where the magic takes place. You don’t see any buttons or trackballs, but they’re virtually in there. You just need to place your fingers gently on the device and gesture to make your wishes known.

For instance, if you want to click you just press down on the front left. For right click, press down on the front right. To scroll down the page, just stroke two fingers like you’d pet a real mouse. To go back a page, swipe two fingers left. Go forward by swiping two fingers to the right. Gently push the mouse in the direction you want the arrow on the screen to move and it will do just that.

Say, those sound like regular mouse features except for all that swiping. That’s exactly right. This is a wireless Bluetooth laser tracking mouse at heart. The magical addition is the touch sensitive top surface that takes the place of mechanical wheels and trackballs. There’s nothing mechanical to gum up, so there’s no need to ever shake, rub or vigorously work any parts on this mouse.

Ding-dong the wicked pea is gone! Not where the goblins go, mind you. Just back into the back it arrived in, sans batteries. I’ll consider it a backup on the off chance something goes haywire with its new higher tech replacement.

If you are on the verge of high blood pressure, foul language, or hair-pulling frustration with a mighty ornery mouse on your Mac, I can tell you that the Magic Mouse has sure made mousing a pleasure for me again. I was comfortable using it almost immediately -- it’s that intuitive. You may have to adjust some of the software settings to your liking, like the right click function and mouse speed, and there’s no double button function to bring up the dashboard the way the old Mighty Mouse did. But I can say that even after a few days use, there’s no way that any of those old mechanical rodents are getting out of their cages again.