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Apple's Mighty Mouse: The Move to Multi-Button

 by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 4, 2005 8:10 PM EST
  • Posted in
  • Mac
45 Comments | Add A Comment
45 Comments

Aesthetics and Ergonomics

Ergonomically, the Mighty Mouse (and the rest of Apple's mice for that matter) is really a hit or miss depending on the size of your hands.  Personally, I've never been too happy with the size of the Logitech MX1000, so moving to a smaller mouse is nice, but at the same time, I don't feel that the design of the Mighty Mouse is particularly ergonomic for resting your hand on it for long periods of time.  Then again, quite possibly the most ergonomically sound decision that you can make is to not rest your hand on your mouse for long periods of time. 


Logitech MX1000, Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 4.0 and the Mighty Mouse

The mouse, like all of Apple's products, is very simple and stylish in its appearance, but this is one area where form does not follow function.  The glossy plastic that you grab onto when using the Mighty Mouse is very easily dirtied, and more specifically, it is highly susceptible to the oils from your hand, making the surface a lot slicker and slimier than the less shiny Microsoft or Logitech mice.  It looks nice, but can feel a little on the icky side if your hands are particularly oily, so prepare to give the Mighty Mouse a good buffing on a regular basis. 


IntelliMouse Explorer 4.0 vs. Mighty Mouse Height Comparison

The mouse is, of course, USB only and features a fairly short cable designed to be plugged into your Apple keyboard.  I prefer the length of the cable because I can plug it into my keyboard without having a lot of slack in the cable, but if you aren't going to be able to plug it in anywhere close by, its length could be a bit of a problem. 

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  • Hacp - Thursday, August 4, 2005 - link

    I don't think I will have any problem with this. I usually lift my index finger and put it on the scroll wheel when I rightclick anyways. It is very easy to adapt to a mouse. Once, my right click button wasn't working, and my leftclick button always doubleclicked, so I set my scroll wheel as the left click and hte left click as the right click. Took me 3 days, but I conquered it like a pro. After a bit of practice, it can feel very natural....

    After saying all of that, I'm not buying that mouse. I'd rather plunge on a mx with that pricetag....

  • Hacp - Thursday, August 4, 2005 - link

    Also another thing to point out, this article was alot more interesting than the 7800GTX series. I was dissapointed when I saw that the article for today was the VGA card, but the mighty mouse article caught me totally by surprise!

  • PrinceGaz - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link

    There's even less chance of me buying one of those mice, than there is of me buying a Mac (which is roughly zero); but I must agree it was more interesting than reading another 7800GTX review.

    Lots of individual reviews of $500 cards only a tiny fraction of your visitors will be buying in the next few months is crazy, just do a roundup in a month or two where you can highlight the differences between all the samples you received. It reminds me of the ultra-high end memory reviews that were posted every week or two. For what it's worth I ended up buying high-performance memory but not any of the sticks you reviewed because you only looked at 512MB modules, and a pair of 1GB sticks is a far better investment these days.

  • MIDIman - Thursday, August 4, 2005 - link

    Why innovate something that IMHO is already efficient enough?

    I'm all about new ideas - the back and forward buttons on new mice (read: Logitech) have truly changed my effectiveness in an OS. Many will say the same about trackballs.

    But really - if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

  • kmmatney - Thursday, August 4, 2005 - link

    Sounds like you use your middle finger for right clicking, which is weird to me. I use index for the left button, middle finger for scrolling, and my ring finger for right clicking, while my thumb and pinky glide the mouse around with delicate precision.

  • Griswold - Friday, August 5, 2005 - link

    Left handed people might use the middle finger on the left button and index on the right..

  • Furen - Thursday, August 4, 2005 - link

    I use my middle finger to right click as well... Must be because I used a two-button mouse (back before the times of the wheel ^^) for the longest time, and having the middle finger on the right button made sense.

  • ProviaFan - Thursday, August 4, 2005 - link

    Everyone does it differently... I use my thumb for the back and forward buttons, index for left button, middle for scroll wheel/middle button, and fourth for right button. On occasion, though, my middle finger can work its way over to the right button, but that doesn't usually last long. :)

  • jm20 - Thursday, August 4, 2005 - link

    Great review, I enjoy your impartialness to manufacturers Anand. I'll stick to my Intellimouse 1.1

  • gamara - Thursday, August 4, 2005 - link

    I don't care what Apple can do with a mouse. As long as they make it look cute, its going to be horrible to use. Anyone remember the wonderful mouse that came with the original i-macs? It was shapped like a hockey puck and about the same size. I wound up grabbing it sideways most often(since it felt the same in your hand). The 'no button' mice are almost as bad as I drag through most windows with those. Personnaly, they would need to add back/forward buttons too, since I have gotten used to those almost as much as my scroll wheel.
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