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Apple Mighty Mouse
While Apple has always been a proponent of
the single button mouse design, it has finally come around
to accepting the fact that users would eventually need more
buttons to their mice. And so, it created the Mighty Mouse.
Costing about $49, the mighty mouse is not
a wireless device; it has to be physically connected to the
Mac via a USB port. The package contains the moue and a CD
containing the software to customize the mouse’s operations.
Setting up the mouse is a matter of plug and play.
 Visually,
with there is a little ball on the top, and there are buttons
on either side. The top surface houses two touch sensitive
areas, which act like two buttons, though this is not visually
apparent as conventional mouse buttons. The way this works
is this:
The top surface can act as two buttons similar
to the two buttons of a PC mouse. The ball on the top of the
mouse acts as a trackball. However this ball does not replace
the ability of the mouse’s navigation by physical movement
of the mouse, rather, it complements it by allowing users
to achieve navigation in 360 degrees on the screen! The ball
can also be depressed activating yet another “button”.
The two buttons on either side are used as “squeeze buttons”
to be operated with the thumb, depending on whether you are
right or left handed – they perform the same function.
You would think that this mouse was specifically designed
to suit Mac OS X Tiger users, where the side buttons are pre-programmed
to activate Exposé, so you can view all your windows
with a “squeeze” of the mouse.
The mouse fits snugly into your hand, and
is light, as it does not have to carry the extra weight of
batteries that is a characteristic of wireless mice. The cable
is rather short but on the plus side, is thin enough to not
hamper the movement of the mouse.
The verdict? Well, some users have felt that
the ball is uncomfortably placed, or that the squeeze buttons
have to pressed really tightly to work, or that the touch
sensitive buttons often result in false or accidental clicks.
On the other hand, there are those who applaud Apple’s
finally answering their call for a multi button mouse. Whichever
way you look at it, this little electronic rodent does the
job – Apple style
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