I just returned from the Apple Store, where I picked up my brand new Apple Magic Mouse. I have only messed around with the mouse for about an hour, but I’m loving it. It does take some adjusting and getting used too because so thin and has a initially weird shape, but as soon as you dive into the features of the mouse, you’ll quickly learn to get used to it. I look into a few main points here.

The Magic Mouse As A Mouse

The Magic Mouse is very cool looking and allows you to use gestures on the top of the mouse, but how does it work as a mouse? After all, that is supposed to be its main function.

I’m happy to say that it is the most responsive wireless mouse I’ve ever used, bar none. I let the computer go to sleep completely and then touched the mouse to wake it up. Not only did the computer wake up right away, the mouse was immediately responding to my movements and clicks.

The were no herky-jerky jumps of the mouse onscreen and I didn’t have to wait for a few seconds before it responded to left- or right-clicks.

The mouse feels really good in your hand too. It’s very light to move around and feels quite natural to do the everyday tasks we have come to rely on a mouse for.

Gesture Support on the Magic Mouse

Gestures became popular on Apple’s iPhone, iPod touch and MacBook Pro line of notebook computers. Gestures allow you to move your fingers to perform onscreen functions. The Magic Mouse is more limited in its gestures than any of the other products, but it does give access to all the things you would need on a mouse and more.

The entire surface of the Magic Mouse acts as a button, so for the single- or double-click that I use most often, using the mouse is a snap. You don’t have to worry about where you click, just click.

You can also enable the secondary click button in the Magic Mouse preferences. This gives you the ability to use the traditional right-click functionality many of us have come to expect from a mouse.

Another gesture that could be handy for some users is the 360-degree scroll. You can go around in a circle on the mouse to move around a photo, for example. It’s not hard to learn, but it took me a few minutes, just because it’s not something I’m used to doing with a mouse.

I really liked the two-finger swipe. I browse a lot of Web pages every day, so having the ability to swipe forward and back through pages without moving around the screen is a big bonus for me.

The screen zoom function is something I’m looking forward to trying out for some of the videos I do for the site. When making a tutorial, I often think of zooming in on a particular part of the screen — this may make that process a lot easier. To activate screen zoom, you hold the Control key and swipe up on the mouse.

The Magic Mouse preference panel includes the ability to turn on/off the secondary click, scrolling, screen zoom and using the left/right swipe to navigate. You also have the traditional tracking, scrolling and double-click speed, as well. The botton of the panel shows you the battery level.

I expect Apple will add more gesture support in the future, but the Magic Mouse does everything I need the way it is.

Scrolling on the Magic Mouse

The one thing Apple did completely right in the Magic Mouse was the touch scrolling. It’s fluid, natural and works with any amount of fingers on over 75% of the mouse surface (all the way down to the Apple logo). Flicking up and down gets you up and down web pages fast, as long as you have “momentum” turned on in the settings. Turn it off and you get fine-grained 1:1 scrolling—good if you want to slowly navigate through a PDF doc.

You can also click with one finger and scroll with another, letting you highlight blocks of text like you would on a normal scrolling mouse. On the whole, there’s no major piece of scrolling functionality (other than a middle click) that you lose transitioning from a standard scroll wheel to this touch-sensitive solution. You just get the ability to scroll in 360 degrees as a bonus.

The only flaw is that you sometimes activate the left (or right) click when you’re scrolling too emphatically. I suspect this is just something you’ll get used to over time, but it can be annoying when you’re trying to scroll and you navigate somewhere else instead.

Using two finger swiping to navigate web pages, on the other hand, is a bit more awkward. You’ll need to pinch the mouse on the sides with your thumb and fourth/pinkie finger while you’re scrolling, forcing you to make a painful eagle claw all the time.

Bottom line

There is only one conclusion you can come to when considering whether or not you should get the Magic Mouse. Buy two, because as soon as someone uses it, you’ll lose the first one.

The Magic Mouse is well designed to fit comfortably in your hand, it works well wirelessly, functions perfectly as a mouse and has gestures to boot. It is undoubtedly the best mouse Apple’s made in years. They’ve taken their knowledge in trackpad finger gestures and one-piece manufacturing and made this delicate, yet sturdy, bridge-shaped mouse. What else do you need?

Are you thinking of getting the Magic Mouse? Why or Why Not?