Why The Magic Mouse is the Most Important Apple Announcement Today

I suppose its no surprise that Apple’s latest hardware announcements have taken over the tech news waves today. After all, the announcement of sexy new 27″ iMacs, coupled with the future availability of Intel’s next generation Core i5 and i7 processors, is sort of hard to ignore. There were upgrades across the board for the Macbook, Time Capsule, and Mac Mini as well–but strangely enough, the most compelling announcement to me was that of a lowly input device: The Magic Mouse.

In general, I don’t hold too much fondness for Apple input devices, specifically their mice. Ever since the release of the “hockeypuck” Apple USB mouse with the original iMac, it seems as if Apple has aimed to purposefully torture their users. The Apple Pro mouse was an improvement (insofar as you could actually use it without wanting to harm yourself and others), but it was still stubbornly one buttoned–a trend Apple didn’t waver from until the two-buttoned Mighty Mouse in 2005. And yet, the Mighty Mouse remained far from ergonomic, and the rubber nipple scroll-ball was more a novelty than a true competitor to the scroll-wheel.

Basically, it seemed as if Apple was almost willfully ignoring the advances being made by the likes of Logitech, Microsoft, and other input device manufacturers. I’m honestly not sure why Mac users never raised a stink about it, but then I suppose it’s similar to how most people don’t realize how much the standard iPhone earbuds suck.

In contrast to their dubious history, the Magic Mouse appears to be much more ergonomic, and it eschews the rubber nipple for multi-touch capabilities. Wireless connectivity via Bluetooth is also the standard now. Just two weeks ago we saw some info trickle out about multi-touch mice being developed by Microsoft–but of course they were years from ever hitting the marketplace. As is often the case, Apple has leapfrogged the competition by releasing today what many considered years away.

The multi-touch gestures seem intuitive, and as a PC user the functionality actually makes me a bit jealous. I know that Windows 7 has multi-touch built in as well, and I’m hoping that someone eventually releases drivers to bring the Magic Mouse across the OS pond.

Check out a video demonstration of the gestures below:

The Magic Mouse will have a resounding impact on input devices moving forward–more than anything announced today. We’re going to see many different attempts at bringing multi-touch to the desktop, but once again we can thank Apple for being first and giving everyone else a swift kick in the pants to speed up their own innovation.

The Magic Mouse will be included with the newer iMacs announced today, and will be available separately for $69 at the end of October. You can hear me discuss the Magic Mouse, along with Apple’s other announcements, on episode 15 of the Symbiotek Podcast (coming soon).