Hey, Mark, you use a Mac. Oh, hi, yes, I do.
What do you think of the Magic Mouse? Do you use a Magic Mouse?
Do you use the Magic Mouse? Do you use the Magic Mouse? Do you use a Magic Mouse?
Oh, the Magic Mouse? No, I hate it. No, absolutely not.
What kind of question is that? I don't mind it.
I don't mind it. I really like it. It's nice and small, which is comfortable for my hand.
And then I just like the touch options at the top.
I'm used to it because I've been using it for so long. I don't like it, but I don't hate it.
That's the thing. Why don't you use it? Ah, there's no tactility to it.
There's buttons. There just doesn't work for me. Oh, so it appears that despite Apple being the company
that brought the mouse to the mainstream, many Mac users don't use their Magic Mouse.
Where have we been having a mouse problem? I'm trying to catch them.
I mean, I'm not surprised. Just look at how you have to charge the thing.
And it's really too bad because it is a technically advanced mouse.
When it was released in 2009, it brought all the great multi-touch scrolling
and gestures from the iPhone and MacBook to the desktop.
There were a lot of mice when I sat here. Clearly though, that's not enough.
It's true. The only Macs that come with it now are the Aged and Expensive Mac Pro and M1 iMac.
And so it's easy these days for a Mac user to avoid ever having to use one.
But if you do that, are you missing out on any Apple-only Magic?
Or does this thing just suck?
To find out, I gave it to Antoine LaForge. He's the guy who's currently developing
the mouse tests for LMG Labs. And he has some thoughts.
So Antoine, what do you think of the Magic Mouse?
It's bad. Really? What's so bad about it?
Have you used it? I've used it for a long time,
but I guess I haven't used anything else. Yeah, that might be it.
Well, anyways, why is it bad? Mainly the shape. That's my main gripe with it.
The shape. It's very uncomfortable and ergonomic.
How do you measure ergonomics? You get way too cramped and the hard edges.
Why would you have sharp edges on the mouse that you have to hold all day?
It doesn't make sense to me. Yeah, I mean, I guess the sharp edges are a little hard to live with.
It's not just the shape. Oh. It's the fit as well.
They just don't glide. Oh, yeah, okay.
The hot plastic, everybody else uses Teflon or glass
even nowadays, especially if you use a mouse pad,
it's even more noticeable to me. It is worse on a mouse pad.
The ergonomics are bad, the feet are bad. That's it, right? Yeah, the sensor is not great either.
The sensor? You might notice that the sensor is not accurate
and you're not able to click exactly where you want it to click.
It's not precise at all. Okay, so how bad is the accuracy?
So if you look at the screen, on the left you have the MX Master from Logitech
and the Magic Mouse on the right. While they are both supposed to be 1600 DPI,
the Magic Mouse is really not doing 1600 every time.
Meaning that if you do twice, the exact same move,
the cursor might not end up in the same place every time.
That could mean that when I feel like I'm clumsy on the computer, it might not be me.
It could be the mouse. But that's 26 is a higher number.
Yeah, and that's what makes it bad. It has a bad shape, it has a bad feet,
it has bad sensors. Is anything good about the Magic Mouse?
The Magic Mouse. It's the only mouse that do that, almost.
So what could they do to make it better? Move away from design for the sake of design.
While I'm not 100% against having a narrow mouse,
but if you're using eight hours a day, you'll get cramped.
So make it a little bit larger, a little bit taller, a little bit rounder.
Kind of. They don't look dissimilar, but this feels so much better.
That's the old one. Yeah, it doesn't look as slick, but it feels much better.
So would you use a Magic Mouse? On PC, never.
This isn't the first time Apple has shipped a compromised mouse.
Famously, the Hockey Puck Mouse that came with the original iMac
was derided for being too small and hard to hold. And some people don't like it.
The Pro Mouse that replaced it was a huge improvement.
Yeah. But it still took Apple 21 years
before they added extras like scrolling and right-click to the Mighty Mouse.
I think scrolling is the best part of the Magic Mouse. It really does channel the experience
found on iOS touchscreens, in that magical way that Apple integrates hardware and software together.
Though I always turn off natural scrolling because I find it to be very unnatural.
They're on different planes. Okay, look.
Vertical horizontal. What did you do?
You've ruined the trackpad. What do you think?
It's a, it's a whiteboard. That's a magic.
No, I can't believe you've ruined it.
Listen, it wasn't a great trackpad to begin with.
It's this beautifully etched glass. They spent years just dialing the perfect surface
for your finger. It's also the perfect surface for permanent dry erase.
Jake thought this was a dry erase, a little dry erase board on his desk.
I was using screen cleaning solution. Why?
Oh yeah, hey. Yeah, it comes right up. A miracle.
Wow. Like the day we bought it.
Contrary to what Belle thinks, this is not a small whiteboard.
It's Apple's less compromised Magic Trackpad. What do you think about a trackpad versus a Magic Mouse?
I would go trackpad. It offers more gestures and can be used while charging.
There are people who swear by the Magic Trackpad. If you're someone who prefers a trackpad over a mouse,
then you probably already have one of these. It does cost $130,
making it a $50 upgrade from the Magic Mouse. But it is an upgrade.
I'm not surprised, considering that Apple has largely focused its Mac efforts towards the laptop
for the past 20 years. And that's what most people buy.
Even today, there's still a class above in that space.
So when Apple added Force Touch to the MacBook in 2015,
this trackpad got it too, while the mouse was left to languish.
Even still, I'm not a trackpad convert. I find the claw shape my hand has to contort to
to use it a little too uncomfortable after a while.
With the trackpad, you have to go in a claw shape too to use it, is what I feel.
No. Like it's like, I'm like this all the, you know, I'm doing that.
You can do it relaxed. Yeah, especially with Mac,
that they have really good trackpad. I'm holding it wrong.
I will say this, the one place where the Magic Mouse really works
is NVIDIA editing. The ability to scrub through video clips
by swiping across the multi-touch surface is really convenient.
I used it a lot in a past life and going to a regular mouse always felt like a step down.
For everyone else though, there are a lot of great mouse options if the Magic isn't worth the sacrifice.
What should people look for when they're buying a mouse for themselves?
First of all, shape. So I would advise to try it.
Don't worry too much about the sensor. If you do stuff more intensive,
like Photoshop and stuff like that, just go online and ask around.
If you are looking for a wireless mouse, and I think you should, make sure it has Bluetooth.
Because if it doesn't, you'll need to deal with a wireless mouse dongle.
And most dongles still stubbornly use the old USB-A plug,
which your iMac doesn't have.
Oh, what is this?
I got a, is this like a jackpot? Sitting at the top of the heap
is the legendary MX Master 3S. It's an incredibly full-featured,
highly regarded ergonomic mouse by Logitech. It does cost $20 more than the Magic Mouse,
but it's far more accurate. And while it doesn't have the multi-touch gestures
like the Magic Mouse, there are enough shortcut buttons to make up for it.
It even has a smooth scroll wheel like, wait, what?
This isn't scrolling like I was expecting it to.
I thought the smooth scroll wheel would scroll like the Magic Mouse does.
But despite Logitech's best efforts, it appears that the inertial real scrolling
isn't available to third-party mouse. They have to use the old scrolling mechanic.
See how it doesn't do that elastic bounce at the end of a list? It means that it can't scroll up to refresh
on the Twitter app like it can with the Magic Mouse,
though maybe I should just get rid of Twitter. It's a real shame that third-party mice
can't take advantage of Apple's decade-old scrolling
innovations. Logitech is trying something really interesting here
with their smooth scroll wheel. And I feel like they're getting really, really close
to being perfect if Apple let them. If you are looking at the MX Master,
you might notice that there's a version for Mac. You don't need to buy that.
What makes this for Mac is that it has a space gray color option,
and it doesn't come with the Logi Bolt-encrypted
wireless dongle. It is the same price, though.
If you do get one of these or any other Logitech mouse, I'll give you a quick tip.
When adjusting your mouse cursor tracking speed, leave macOS at the default 50% level
and use the Logitech Options Plus app to dial in the mouse.
Logitech tells me this is because macOS tracking applies a multiplier, whereas Logitech is changing
the DPI reported to the system. This will help your mouse be more accurate
with faster tracking. The closest analog to the Magic Mouse
would be the Microsoft Surface mobile mouse. It's just as thin and portable,
but lacking any extra functionality. It is, however, much cheaper, costing only $40,
30 if it's on sale. Yeah, Antoine recommended this,
but I don't know about it. I think it feels worse than the Magic Mouse.
For a portable MacBook mouse on the go, I actually like the simple Microsoft Bluetooth mouse.
This one is $20 and is made up of a modicum of ocean plastic.
But if you don't care about that, you can get one that's not yet ocean plastic for as little as $10.
If ergonomics are important to you, you could get a vertical mouse like this Logitech Lyft.
There is an argument to be made about how much more natural holding your wrist like this is.
However, when I tried it for a bit a while back, I found that it was a bit too far angled.
Remember trackball mice in the 90s? Well, they never left.
Oh, whoa, this is weird. I don't have to move it.
Is this what people liked back in the 90s? How do I, oh my gosh.
But they might make a difference. When Nicole injured her wrist a while back,
she switched to using one of these to aid in her recovery and says it helped a bit.
So is there an all-arounder that does it all at a price point far less than the Magic Mouse?
Yes, the Logitech M720 Triathlon.
It only costs $50. And for half of the price of the MX Master,
you only lose the second scroll wheel. It's really inexpensive.
It works well. It glides. It's a great middle of the road.
Yeah, it still has an ergonomic shape, but it's small enough to take anywhere with you.
It'll last two years on its AA battery and can easily switch between three different devices.
No, it's not as beautiful as any Apple mouse. This charcoal color kind of reminds me of a Dell from 2003.
But it is better than a Magic Mouse. It's really too bad that this is the case.
I feel like Apple's become so distracted by the home pod and TV shows that the input device
that is core to the computers has become subpar.
True, technology has evolved so much since this came out. People are using iPads.
They're phones even for general computing. But I don't think Apple should abandon the mouse.
We're absolutely due for a new interpretation of the mouse for the Mac.
I mean, look how much money they put into a great stylus.
Thanks for catching this Mac Address. If you love the Magic Mouse, give this video a like.
And if you don't, well, you might as well subscribe. I'm curious in the comments what mouse you use for the Mac
that we haven't listed. Let me know.