Apple's Magic Mouse Cuts Largest Slice of Mouse Marketshare To Date
Amidst all the talk of speculation regarding iSlates tablets, new iPhones, and the success of the iPod Touch, Apple has another headliner as 2009 comes to a close: according to AppleInsider, for the first time, Apple's mouse sales have captured over 10 percent of the mouse market share. All thanks to the Magic Mouse.
BoingBoing's Rob Beschizza put it best, encapsulating just what is right and wrong with the Magic Mouse:
After the first minute I hated it. After a day I loved it. After a week, I'm on ibuprofen. I like the Magic Mouse, especially the touch-sensitive surface and flick scrolling, but am just not sure how long my metacarpals can take it.
The future of mice, it seems, takes quite a bit of getting used to, even for the most avid gadget reviewers. Like the Mighty Mouse before it, and the classic stylings of the original Apple USB Mouse (or, as it's lovingly called, the "hockey puck"), the Magic Mouse doesn't look like any other mouse out there, which is a hallmark of Apple design. Most consumers are so accustomed to using a two or three-button mouse that any derivation is difficult to get used to. Having used many of the Apple predecessors to the Magic Mouse, and ultimately using a Logitech run-of-the-mill in the end when the Mighty Mouse wheel started acting up, I'm approaching it all with skepticism.
Much of my reservation has to do with the swirling speculation regarding the purported Apple Tablet and not necessarily the functionality of the new Magic Mouse. With applications already available to turn iPods and iPhones into functioning computer touch mice, how viable is the mouse market going to be heading into the next decade? And while the Magic Mouse is certainly heads and shoulders above other mice on the market as far as capability, design, and functionality, it's no guarantee that the mouse will have staying power at all.
As AppleInsider points out:
Whether or not Apple can sustain its increased sales volume of mice sales over time remains to be seen. New Apple products are usually accompanied by publicity and buzz that pushes their sales through the roof in the early going, but often those sales die down over time.
If the tablet supports a mouse, as the iPhone blog cautiously rumors, then it's spectacular timing (assuming that the iSlate, or whatever it will be called, will be out in January); however, if the iSlate doesn't have any peripheral mouse capabilities, it's a bit of a head-scratcher. If consumers are ready for it, the iSlate could render the Magic Mouse, and all other mice, obsolete.
--Natania Barron
r4i on December 29, 2009 at 11:22 PM
Nice size. Comfortable. Felt solid. Liked scrolling up-down and side-side by dragging on surface. Better than scroll wheel or Apple's tiny trackball in old version.
r4 dsi on December 29, 2009 at 11:59 PM
Well that sounds interesting and i would love i think all the talk of speculation regarding iSlates tablets, new iPhones, and the success of the iPod Touch, Apple has another headliner as 2009.Still would like to more about it.
Dandapani on December 30, 2009 at 12:52 PM
Does the iMouse (sic) work with other computers? What is it, Bluetooth?
r5 on December 30, 2009 at 01:22 PM
My business idea in this space is to invent the "mouse" mouse. It will include an actual dead mouse, with innards removed, and appropriate electronics inserted, including battery and blue tooth.
The nice furry feel will be appreciated, and more than anything, users will be using the word "mouse" will full accuracy when describing how they interface with a PC.
Cookie the Dog's Owner on December 30, 2009 at 01:45 PM
Somewhere in Reston, Washington, someone has already been assigned to head up the project team developing Microsoft Cat....
Bill on December 30, 2009 at 01:46 PM
"The nice furry feel will be appreciated, and more than anything, users will be using the word "mouse" will full accuracy when describing how they interface with a PC"
But will it do a "middle click?" The new mouse can't.
For me the new mouse, while spiffy, is a step backward since I need to give a number of my apps "The Bird." To be true, the mightymouse's middle click was a disappointment. If they choose not to do it well, then they should go ahead and ditch that feature, I suppose.
Sigivald on December 30, 2009 at 02:34 PM
Danda: Yes, and yes.
There are even real gesture drivers for Windows, if you don't mind downloading them from random internet sources who extracted them from Apple's BootCamp drivers.
I've used mine with Windows 7 on my Windows PC, to test it, and it worked fine. (Without the drivers it works as a normal mouse without gesture support.)
Natania: I don't see any way that an iPod Touch or iPhone is a "real touch mouse" - it's a touchpad. A mouse, you move to move the cursor, and that's what the Magic Mouse is.
The touch surface on the mouse is bonus free ice-cream (that doesn't get jammed with dirt...).
Hucbald on December 30, 2009 at 02:38 PM
I spend my heavy-duty computer time entering and editing music notation and symbols into my Macs. A mouse, no matter how cool, is a disaster for the tasks involved in that, so I've used trackballs for over ten years now. I will say that a track pad on a laptop is better than a mouse for what I do too. Seriously, I don't know why anybody uses a mouse and a pad anymore. The modern light-tracking balls are inexpensive and reliable. I use a Kensington, and I just replaced one that was five years old with a new one. The replacement was about thirty bucks. The old one's clicking became spotty, but it always tracked like magic.
I'd have to see one of these in action, but if lifting it is AT ALL involved, it's a non-starter for me.
lewy14 on December 30, 2009 at 08:12 PM
Mighty Mouse tip: clean the little track ball with a bit of paper towel wet with rubbing alcohol. Restored to like - new smoothness in < 1 min.
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