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Magic Mouse is crap

R

rweed

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 29, 2012
147
180
I got my new 27" iMac a while back and, this time, I opted for the wireless keyboard/mouse setup.

I strongly recommend avoiding the "Magic" Mouse. The only thing magic about it is that it detects swipes out of thin air. I can grab the mouse on the sides and it will occasionally treat that as a double-swipe to the right which changes desktops. There are times when this happens when I was not even touching the top of the mouse.

Disabling these gestures is not a complete solution as the vertical scroll gesture can't be disabled from what I can see.

Right-clicks are occasionally treated as left-clicks as well.

The wireless keyboard seems okay. The only real issue is the layout, having to hit Fn to do Delete, Home/End, and Page Up/Down. I prefer the full keyboard.

Fortunately, I can swap these with wired ones on my mini.

Anyone have issues with the mouse like this, swap it at the store, and have things improve?

Regards, Rick
 
I love my magic mouse - best mouse that I've owned. I guess YMMV, but for me its a great product :)
 
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I love mine, it took some time coming from a POS PC mouse to get used to, but now it's a whole different world. The swipes and taps are the best! I'd never go back.
 
Magic mouse works well for applications that rely heavily on side scrolling. I advise you all to check out Better touch tool, it's free and you can program specific gestures for actions on the finder and numerous other applications, I have an entire editing profile for final cut pro I don't even need to use the keyboard sometimes!
 
Somewhat ironic that for the company that made the mouse popular, all the mice that they have made in the last two years have been poor with daft names like Magic Mouse and Mighty mouse. Acceleration on them is slow, and you can't press the right and left buttons at the same time. About the only thing going for the current magic mouse is that it looks nice and has multi touch. Happily you can buy much better 3rd party alternatives. I know some people like them but not me.
 
Love the Magic Mouse because of the scrolling and swiping screens. But would it really kill Apple to offer a wireless extended keyboard. My old iMac had one with a delete key. I don't get why you can only have wired extended.
 
James Craner said:
Acceleration on them is slow, and you can't press the right and left buttons at the same time.
Click to expand...
For me, the Magic Mouses default acceleration is too slow. It was easy for me to adjust to a speed that works for me (in System Preferences), though.

OP, I haven't had any of the problems you've mentioned, and I use Magic Mice all day at work, and also at home. :confused:
 
aristobrat said:
For me, the Magic Mouses default acceleration is too slow. It was easy for me to adjust to a speed that works for me (in System Preferences), though.

OP, I haven't had any of the problems you've mentioned, and I use Magic Mice all day at work, and also at home. :confused:
Click to expand...

I am aware that you can change it in system preferences, but if you try something like a Razer mouse, with its high precision and speed, you would never go back to a Apple Mouse. I made exactly the same comment to a friend that recommended a Razer mouse, and then I tried one. Takes a while to get used to the difference, but it can increase your productivity if you can minimise how far you have to move your mouse to travel distance on the screen.
 
Have never liked Apple mice, the worst thing they make. I've got zillions of them, a museum in a draw. They are too heavy, uncomfortable. I use Logitech. But I do love the BT trackpad. Never liked trackpads until I got the Air. Like the BT trackpad even more than the Air's.
love the current Apple keyboards, use both BT and full-size one, and also Logitech solar 760 for iPads and Air.
 
I love my magic mouse, i have a Logitech G700 for gaming but i still prefer the magic mouse while in OSX. Combined with Better-touch-tool nothing beats it imo.
 
The unintended swipes from the TS are all due to 'getting used to it'. When I used the MM for the first time coming from a PC I also thought it was a worthless piece of ****. I sold it and used the MTP. Then I bought a second hand iMac (2011) and got the MM with it and thought to give it another go. Now that I'm used to it it works like... magic :D. It's precision is good enough for me and the swipes are very easy. I love it now, so it's just a question of giving it a fair chance.
I use the MM in combination with the MTP by the way, that's just :eek:.
 
Another that likes the Magic mouse, although the auto scroll can be annoying sometimes. I'll have to check out the 'better touch tool'.
 
Apple mice have always been horrible in my opinion. They just don't fit your hands unless you have tiny ones or like holding your hand in unsupported/unergonomic angles. Then again, maybe I'm a traditionalist.

----------
James Craner said:
I am aware that you can change it in system preferences, but if you try something like a Razer mouse, with its high precision and speed, you would never go back to a Apple Mouse. I made exactly the same comment to a friend that recommended a Razer mouse, and then I tried one. Takes a while to get used to the difference, but it can increase your productivity if you can minimise how far you have to move your mouse to travel distance on the screen.
Click to expand...

I completely agree. You can increase "sensitivity" in terms of tracking speed via software, but you cannot increase the precision of the hardware. It's just not the same, you won't have the speed and more importantly, accuracy, you get with a high dpi mouse.
 
I needed something portable and wireless so I got the Magic Mouse. I was going to buy a Razer orochi, but I wanted the gestures on the magic mouse. Coming from a Logitech G9/G9x, yes the tracking is horrendously slow compared to gaming mice and even cranking up the sensitivity to the highest still feels slow after a day on my gaming PC. Everyday usage nothing beats it as the gestures are very useful, any precision work I take out my spare G9.

Oh, I forgot to mention - I have medium sized hands and after an hour of using the magic mouse, it starts to hurt. Wish they'd make an ergonomic high dpi/polling bluetooth wireless mouse with gesture capabilities. That'd be the perfect mouse for my Macbook at home. :D
 
There is no 'getting used to' phantom touches/swipes and right clicks treated as left clicks.

The wireless keyboard layout is something you get used to...
 
I like the Magic Mouse for the omnidirectional scrolling. I sort of like it for the small "gesture" abilities it has, but I had to use Better Touch Tool (a must for this mouse, in my opinion) to get the ones I wanted.

I dislike that there is no way to middle-click, which is a convenient way to use tabbed Web browsers, among other things. I've resorted to adding one with Better Touch Tool, but it's total game of guessing and praying where exactly the middle click will fall (I've put small dots of glue down the middle of my mouse for a tactile reference point, but people who don't know why I did this think it looks weird, plus if you just washed your hands they have to be completely dry before you even think about touching the mouse). And you pretty much have to lift the finger you don't want to click with off the mouse, otherwise there's a good chance it will misinterpret your click. That takes some getting used to. I don't game, but I can imagine some issues there, as well.

I doubt Apple would ever do this, but something like the Magic Mouse would be better for me if it had an easy way to middle-click, and I think discrete buttons would be better, even though it ruins the simple look they're going for.

I can get almost the same with a five-button mouse or so (the buttons can be programmed instead of gestures), plus I'll never accidentally set off a gesture or click the wrong button. But I'm not sure of any reasonably priced Bluetooth ones that have horizontal scrolling. Something like the Radtech BT600 is close to what I'm looking for, but it's short on scrolling and, when I was looking at it a few years ago, had mixed reviews.
 
I don't care for the Apple Magic Mouse since it isn't like a normal mouse I use to use it but Not anymore since you can't really use it to play any games with I find it useless to have.
 
rweed said:
There is no 'getting used to' phantom touches/swipes and right clicks treated as left clicks.

The wireless keyboard layout is something you get used to...
Click to expand...

Yes there is. In the beginning, all my 'right clicks' were left clicks. Now, 98% of my right clicks are right clicks. In the beginning, my swiping was just bad, now I love it and it does perfectly what I want it to do.
In the beginning, I got sore hands (I have big hands) after an hour of usage, now, I don't get sore after hours of usage.
And that's when I use a normal PC-mouse at work everyday.
But if you use a gaming mouse at home for 4 hours and then think you can adjust to the MM in 2 hours, that's utopia.
 
Magic Trackpad >>> Magic Mouse. You'd be surprised how enjoyable the giant space on the Magic Trackpad is over your Magic Mouse or the smaller footprint of a MacBook Pro.
 
PatriotInvasion said:
Magic Trackpad >>> Magic Mouse. You'd be surprised how enjoyable the giant space on the Magic Trackpad is over your Magic Mouse or the smaller footprint of a MacBook Pro.
Click to expand...
The Track Pad is by far the best thing that ever came out.

One can sit anywhere - other than desk to fully do anything.
Couch-bed - it doesn't matter.

Moving a mouse around is old school - problematic on surfaces.

My MM has a new home in bulk drawer - Just incase someone needs one.
 
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Awhile ago I was deciding whether to get the MM or the TP. So I went to Apple Store to play with them, I found the MM doesn't fit my hands as comfortably as I like, because it is a bit too narrow for me. I decided on the TP, now I love the TP. :) Too bad I can't wipe my butt with it tho. :eek: Ouch, that will hurt!:p
 
with BetterTouchTool the MM is awesome

BetterTouchTool is an amazingly effective & efficient complement to the Magic Mouse, I am surprised Apple have not acquired this app to bundle it with the MM already.

I can use it to enhance my Photoshop, Lightroom & file management efficiency; having programmed CMD-clicks, Pg Down (as well as Up) scroll motions, Zoom in/Out, etc.

As an added bonus, browsing with the MM is a very smooth & enjoyable experience……till it went south on me after some months :(
 
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I love my Magic Mouse. At first I too would accidentally trigger the gestures/swipes unintentionally. But eventually, got used to it.

Now, I can't use anything but the MM.
 
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