Thoughts on the Mighty Mouse
Well, I'm at the SoHo Apple Store, and am playing with the only machine that I can find that has the Mighty Mouse. Here are some thoughts that I haven't seen anywhere else.
First, everyone's already noted that there's one clicker for both buttons, and the mouse senses which side you're using based on touch. In addition, they say that you can click the scroll ball. What's not said is that the click of the scroll ball is the same click as the rest of the mouse. The ball depresses when you press it, and when the main click happens, the mouse sees that the ball is pressed and issues a ball-click. It doesn't have the problem of the right-click, where it's not being sensed as a right-click if you have your left finger on the mouse.
Speaking of that problem, it only really matters if you don't automatically raise your left finder when you right-click. I've been playing around, and it turns out that I'm fine. YMMV.
People complain that the side buttons have no response. True. They're a pain to use, and I'm not sure how much squeezing my hands can take. What people don't mention is the fact that the buttons are actually independent. You can, if you try, actually press only one of the two sides, and it will trigger.
The clicker is another thing bandied about. In the loud environs of the Apple Store, you can't hear it at all. But you can feel it. It feels like a quiet buzz, and is almost like tactile feedback. I like it.
Scrolling. It's harder to scroll horizontally than vertically. It seems like you have to deliberately scroll horizontally for it to realize that you mean it. Otherwise, it disregards slight horizontal deviations, which is nice.
The ball is incredibly precise. If you gently roll it, the window gently scrolls. This is much better than my old mice which were [click!] [click!] and huge jumps. However, not all apps do really smooth scrolling. Safari and the Finder do, but Camino doesn't. I'm not sure why. There was a post recently on carbon-dev about a new high-resolution scroll event--that might be it.
The verdict? I think I like it.