Looking slicker than a streamlined whale gliding through an ocean of oil is Apple’s new Mighty Mouse, freshly announced today.
Clad in a smooth, curved I,Robot kind of form factor, this certainly got some hearts a-palpitatin’ around Chez Wirefresh, with the futuristic hard acrylic finish making our trusty Logitech clickers look decidedly ancient.
Billed as ‘the world’s first Multi-Touch mouse’, the Bluetooth-powered Magic Mouse will be included with every iMac from today.
The pebble-shaped mouse sports one button and no scroll wheel, but comes with a multitouch surface letting you use gestures like like two-finger swipes (a la Mac trackpad), plus single-finger horizontal and vertical scrolling, supported by software-based inertia. There’s no pinch-zoom available though which is a bit of a swizzle.
Four months battery
The wireless widget boasts a four-month battery life, which sounds impressive at first, but when compared to many rather less glamorous-looking devices from the likes of Logitech, it’s not quite so wonderful.
The price is a bit of an ‘oof!’ too, with Apple demanding that you shell out £55 for the pleasure.
Much as we love the look of this little guy, we suspect that it may be a case of form over function, making it hard to justify forking out for one of these when a £10 optical mouse will do the job just as well.
However, if your pockets are well lined and you like your desk to have a Hal-esque air about it, it’s got to be good to go.
The mouse comes free with the new iMacs but anyway that’s one sweet looking mouse! Love the gesture use and the design. Apple really knows how to innovate.
When I bought my previous and first ever laptop, not an Apple though, I looked at the touchpad rather doubtfully. I bought a mouse to go with it, thinking of the problems of tracing images while photo editing.
On trying out the touchpad I was very impressed. Now many years later and on a different laptop I still have never ot plugged in that mouse. If you touch-type, a mouse is a distraction and slows you down. I don’t care how streamlined a mouse is I luckily have no need of such a thing.
If I had a desktop computer I would have someone build me a RAT. This is an invention of my own and goes on the floor to be operated by foot.