October 20, 2009

Magic Mouse

Two weeks ago, I wrote about Microsoft's multitouch mice. Today, you can buy one – from Apple:

Apple's Multitouch Mouse

Particularly interesting: This is yet another example where an iPhone UI convention makes its way to the desktop.

And scrolling with Magic Mouse isn’t your everyday scrolling. It supports momentum scrolling (similar to iPhone and iPod touch), where the scrolling speed is dictated by how fast or slowly you perform the gesture.

Just one question: Will the page move down when you move your fingers up (as on a MacBook) or will the page move along with your fingers (as on the iPhone)?1 I'm guessing it will work the same as a MacBook, but as I have become more used to the iPhone, I have at times found myself accidentally scrolling in the wrong direction when using a MacBook.

  1. Per Apple's video, it works the way it does on MacBooks. But of course, the gestures are different, which will probably result in some confusion. A reader points out that Smart Scroll allows Mac users to reverse the X and Z axis. Jan-Christoph Borchardt notes that to zoom, you have to push the finger towards the screen, which may seem counter-intuitive to some people. ↩︎

If you require a short url to link to this article, please use http://ignco.de/209

designed for use cover

But wait, there's more!

Want to read more like this? Buy my book's second edition! Designed for Use: Create Usable Interfaces for Applications and the Web is now available DRM-free directly from The Pragmatic Programmers. Or you can get it on Amazon, where it's also available in Chinese and Japanese.