Until the beginning of last year, I didn’t have USB on my Macs, and mainly for this reason it never occurred to me to buy a multi-button mouse (ADB mouse were hard to find and not cheap). Also, I one of the few who think that a one mouse button and an interface designed for it is a good thing.

I’m a pro user, and usually didn’t mind using ctrl for contextual menus, since my left hand is usually near the keyboard, and I use a lot of menu shortcuts keys. But since I have an iMac with USB, and even more since Exposé, I wanted to buy a multi-button mouse, and was shopping for one.

While trying mice, I realized that the Apple Pro mouse that came with my iMac had the ideal shape and size for me. I have small hands, but I find that most mice are too small for my tastes, and I have to close my hands much more to hold them, increasing stress on my muscles. Also, I found that scroll-wheels where not ideal to scroll, and the tilting ones are even worse IMHO. But lastly the reason I didn’t buy a third-party mouse, is that I really really like the fact that on the Apple “Pro” mouse, I could click with 3 fingers at the same time, reducing the risks of RSI by a good amount.

Now, if you didn’t figured it out already, the Mighty Mouse is just perfect for me. The shape is perfect (for me) and the trackball is awesome (I hope to find a way to play Marble Madness with it on MAME!). Having to lift my left finger to do a right click is a perfect fit to me, since I will be able to click with 3 fingers for the main click, and only have to lift my index for my occasional right clicks. Also, I don’t need or care about the lack of bluetooth, I never felt that Apple mice cables were restraining my cursor movements in any way, I wouldn’t be able to tell an Apple wired mouse from a wireless one with eyes closed. I think that like 50% of people buying wireless mice just do it because it looks cool and futuristic (fine for you, but have fun recharging these!)

So maybe I’m a special case, maybe not… Let’s see how many of these critters Apple sells. My wild guess is that it will be coined by Steve Jobs (with a little touch of RDF) as “the most successful mouse launch ever since the original Macintosh”

Oh and by the way for people that were confused by this article, the Mighty Mouse does have a real mechanical click for the main two clicks, the sensors on top are to detect if you left or right clicked, or clicked on the scroll-ball.

Only the side buttons are pressure sensitive sensors, and they need a minimum of pressure so that they don’t get activated if you lift the mouse by the side.

It’s the only weak point (for me), but I’m under the impression that after a few weeks of usage, I’ll get used to it, and will find the best way for my hand to click the side buttons, instinctively knowing what pressure to apply.