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

Final Words

Apple created a truly interesting product with the Mighty Mouse; essentially, they've created a one button mouse that is a bit more flexible than their prior one-button offerings, but definitely not a mouse that is catered to the needs of those who depend on multi-button mice.

The scroll ball is nice, although I'd like to see some control over the number of lines per scroll click. The side buttons are horrible and it would be nice to make them a little easier/more convenient to use, but then again, that may conflict with Apple's desire to make the Mighty Mouse still look and work like a single-button mouse.

Gamers need not apply for this mouse, as the Mighty Mouse's touch sensors end up being more of a liability than a convenience in games. You're probably better off control-clicking with a one-button mouse than using the Mighty Mouse for gaming on the Mac. Some desktop users may feel the same way about simply using the mouse for regular applications, although personally getting used to doing the left/right finger dance wasn't as big of a deal for me in normal application usage. The drawbacks of the single button/multiple sensor construction of the Mighty Mouse are unfortunate, as I do believe that Apple could put together a very well designed mouse for the multi-button user.

For the single button mouse user, the Mighty Mouse brings scrolling functionality to Apple's mice, which is much needed.  And for all intents and purposes, the default configuration of the Mighty Mouse acts and behaves just like a single button mouse with a scroll wheel.  In the sense of Apple's ability to bring scrolling functionality to their single-button mouse users, the Mighty Mouse works.  But if you are a user who needs to have and frequently uses that second mouse button, the Mighty Mouse isn't exactly perfect. 

It's an interesting approach by Apple, but personally, it caters to a user who is very different than myself, and potentially, many of you. What I would like to see is what the designers at Apple could pull off if they were tasked to come up with a true competitor to the best of the best from Logitech and Microsoft.  It'd be for a different type of user than the Mighty Mouse, but I think that it'd be the only time during which I'd really prefer using an Apple mouse.