31/08/05
30Mighty Mouse
As soon as the announcement was made about Apple’s new Mighty Mouse, I was placing an order within seconds. I’d been wanting, not necessarily a two button mouse, but a scrollwheel mouse, for a long time. I’d tried the various PC mice offerings (even the ‘MacMice’) but none of them had that great feel of the Apple Pro mouse. The low profile, and smooth glassy feel was what I wanted, but Mr Jobs had already said he wasn’t for making 2 buttons on his mice. The announcement was a surprise to say the least, but a welcome one.
Anyway, within 3 days, it arrived, and I’ve been using it constantly ever since. Having seen a lot of mixed reviews, I wanted to pitch in and say that I think its well worth it. I’ve not had any of the problems some seem to have experienced with the buttons. The lack of bluetoothness isn’t a concern for me (although the cable is a little short), but I have had 2 issues, which I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere:
- Setting the side squeezy buttons to Expose all windows: Windows became inactive after clicking on them. Expose > select > click on any part of the window, it becomes inactive – unclickable. Very odd. Only keyboard commands would work.
- The scroll nipple. Just lIke the balls on the bottom mice of old, I found this can become clogged easily. It doesn’t take much, and suddenly up or down scrolling is prevented. It just needs a wee rub with a tissue to get it working again though. Maybe this is just my extra sweaty finger? Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that one..
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Tom said 1192 days ago:
The grey nipple is nice, I don’t have a problem with it. The only problem that I encountered was the side buttons are a little strange. I am not sure how hard I have to click it because I can barely hear the clicking noise.Justin P said 1192 days ago:
> The scroll nipple [...] lIke the balls …Sorry, I couldn’t help it. Had to point out that little snippet.
I just bought a wireless Kensington mouse and I think it’s the tops. Then again, I’ve been using the same Kensington mouse with my PC for a few years now.
Brian Rose said 1192 days ago:
I just got my Might Mouse a few days ago and love it. I haven’t noticed the problem you’re having with the side buttons being set to Expose, but I am a bit worried about the scroll ball. We’ll see how that goes, I guess.Virginia said 1192 days ago:
I LOVE the Mighty Mouse. I’ve been using a Mac Mice mouse (!) for about a year now, which was fine, but the MiMo scroll nipple, heehee, is much less work for the finger than the somewhat clunky scroll wheel. I’d never realised how great sideways scrolling would be – all those big Photoshop and Illustrator files are effortless to get around now, and I don’t have to have text wrap on in my code files, which is really useful. There also seem to be software enhancements that mean the MiMo is useful in more situations that the MacMice mouse? For example, scrolling in drop-down menus in Safari works where previously I don’t think it did.goodwitch said 1192 days ago:
jon, are you having problems with plaque building up on your nipple again?Jason Speck said 1192 days ago:
I picked one up on Monday and love it, except for some odd Spotlight behavior that popped up after installing the Mighty Mouse driver.Brendan Donohoe said 1192 days ago:
I have the side-buttons-make-things-unclickable problem. After a while I just disabled those buttons. I think they’re too hard to press anyway (I can smell the RSI complaints already). So far no trouble with the scroll ball sticking.Adam said 1191 days ago:
Absolutely agree with the post – particularly with the length of the cord. It would be great if they gave it, say, another foot or so. It’s impossible to use it while my PowerBook is closed and off to the side of the desk when I use an external monitor.A slightly more egonomic shape would be nice as well, but I suppose this is the price to pay for drop-dead gorgeous design.
Jeff Kenny said 1191 days ago:
I don’t have the mighty mouse (yet) but I experience the same problem with window inactivity while using my MS Intellimouse with the scroll-button set to Expose all windows. I think I may have narrowed it down to ONLY happening when Firefox is the currently active app and then I invoke Expose (via the mouse button). Are you seeing this weird behavior all the time or just intermittently?Lowell Wood said 1191 days ago:
Wow! I thought it would take more than just a “wee rub” on the nipple (that got stuck because of your sweaty fingers) to get that nipple active again.Sorry, i just have to add my off-color (colour?) comment to the list.
matthew Smith said 1191 days ago:
Checked the RSS tonight, said you had 6 new articles, nope, just one. Did you republish or something? Hmm. Curious. I am amazed at your live preview as I am typing. It makes me want to keep typing and typing…, but I won’t. Nice. Yours, or a plugin?Sean Sperte said 1191 days ago:
I, too, was an immediate purchaser, and have been very happy with mine. I don’t use the side-buttons at all since they’re a bit difficult to get used to anyway (I have them set to application switcher).My newest problem is whenever I migrate back to my desktop machine (which I still use a MS mouse with), I try and horizontally scroll with the scroll-wheel. I think I’ve been spoiled (once again, thank to the two-finger scrollpad on my PowerBook) by Apple hardware and can’t go back.
I’m nipple-impaired.
Marcus Taylor said 1191 days ago:
Glad I’m not the only person with the Side Button / Exposé issue. Thought it was my aging iBook. When pressing the Side Button, sometimes, not all, it would completely disable all mouse clicks and I would have to restart using the keyboard. (FYI use tab and spacebar to navigate those pop-up dialogues, like ‘Restart’ for example.) Otherwise love the scroll wheel and right click.I’ve even tried to find a post on the Apple Discussion boards but have failed so far. Anyone else?
Rob McMichael said 1191 days ago:
I assume the cord length is down to apple having USB connectors on their keyboards, or on laptops.I still need more buttons though, come one apple inovate!
Richard Earney said 1191 days ago:
I got fed up with the limited set of options on the buttons, so dusted off USB Overdrive and now I can assign the buttons to more useful things.SteerMouse can do stuff for the Mighty Mouse too.
Tore said 1191 days ago:
I tried the Mighty Mouse but couldn’t stand the fact that my index and middle finder had to perform a Charlie Chaplin-style finger can-can to right-click.Andy Hume said 1191 days ago:
I actually thought my nipple was broken after a few weeks, and was all ready to take it back to the Apple Store.After a few days it sprang back to life though, and I realised it was just a bit bunged up. Since giving it a little polish things have been better.
Apart from that I lie the mouse a lot – but never use the side buttons really. They’re in the wring place and don’t seem that intuitive.
Robert said 1191 days ago:
I love the mighty one. But does noone else miss the possibility to click the left and right button at once? I used to trigger Exposé with combinations of command / alt or shift key with right click, which enabled me to easily drag things among windows and applications. Since the mighty one I cannot drag while pressing the right button. Sad thing.David Hughes said 1191 days ago:
I bought a Mighty Mouse as soon as they came out but have just sold it on eBay.I REALLY wanted to like it but I just find the Apple mice too small and with no proper support for your hand.
The first time I used it for a length of time I had bad RSI type pains in my forearm just below the elbow! So sadly it had to go.
I love the design and had no problems with the buttons which are deeply cool, I just couldn’t take the pain… :-/
I now have a Logitech MX 1000 and it is awesome – the best mouse I have EVER used.
Greg said 1191 days ago:
Someone at work got a Mighty Mouse straight away. He was disappointed with it, and after using it, I was too. Silly thing first… you can’t download drivers for it from Apple’s website. A weird one. I hated the fact that there’s no way to tell that the mouse picked up a left mouse click or right as it’s all one surface underneath your fingers.I really hated that scroll ball too. My hand started to hurt shortly after using it, and that’s when I knew to hand it back. I’ll keep my single button mouse I think.
Karen said 1191 days ago:
I’ve not really been tempted to try the Mighty Mouse yet – I’ll wait until I buy my Intel based Mac to see if it ships with the new mouse…I use a Logitech MX-1000 mouse and wouldn’t really fancy going back to a mouse with so few buttons (and a cable – especially a short one) – just because it has the Apple logo. The scroll ball looks like it could be promising, but the positioning of it looks strange – as if it is quite far back to use easily.
Pete said 1191 days ago:
And what exactly are you going to be doing with your keyboard hand now you no longer have to Ctl-Click?hmmm :)
(very old mac joke to pc users)
Jon Hicks said 1191 days ago:
Those experiencing pain – were you using an apple mouse before?Tim said 1191 days ago:
I bought the MM this afternoon and love it! I’m a PC user (shame on me) and never have worked with an Apple mouse, but I think the MM is very intuitive to use! Been working with it for about 4 hours straight now and I really like the “nipple”! The sidebuttons could have been placed at a more logical place, but hey, it’s got a fancy Apple logo on it ;-)Mark said 1191 days ago:
The side buttons are an bit forward for me but all in all the MM is excellent. It is smooth, precise, and the scroll nipple is awesome. My only problem with it is I seem to have to really click the right side of the mouse to get the right click working half the time. Perhaps I just need to adjust a wee bit more.Lowell Wood said 1190 days ago:
Woah. I saw that David Hughes and Karen were using the Logitech MX 1000 so i decided to check it out. Mighty nice. But i prefer my $10 Microsoft Mouse .Jason said 1190 days ago:
I love my Mighty Mouse but sometimes the trackball stops working. I don’t know why.David Hughes said 1190 days ago:
In response to Jon’s question re. pain…I was using an MS BT Explorer before the Mighty Mouse which is a nice shape but it’s Bluetoothiness sucks with the Mac. I tried a Apple wireless mouse but the lack of buttons drove me nuts before any pain became an issue.
I guess if you are used to an Apple mouse you’ll be OK but I have always used more ergonomic mice and have pretty big mitts so I struggled with all the Apple mice but found that I had to move my hand into weird angles to use the scroll ball (which is great) and the side buttons were pretty poor.
Nice Paul said 1190 days ago:
Personally, I’m most intrigued as to whether you’ve got an extra-sweaty finger, or an extra, sweaty, finger.Jens Meiert said 1187 days ago:
And still, Mac mice sound odd. At first, I imagined to buy a “Mighty Mouse” when there is a wireless version anyway, but now I am not sure about it anymore – scrolling is so damn cool I do not want to wonder why the trackball does not work anymore.