Mickey Isn’t the Only Magical Mouse
Remember a movie from Walt Disney Pictures called Fantasia? Fantasia was an animated movie created in the 1940’s in which had no spoken dialog. In fact, the whole movie was set to the soundtrack of classical instrumental  music. There was one part of this movie that led Mickey Mouse to become an iconic legend even to this day: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice scene. During this scene, we see Mickey take the sorcerer’s magical hat and red robe as he attempts to use magic on a broomstick in order to get out of doing his chores. It is then that the broomstick comes alive and with a wave of Mickey’s magical hand, his broomstick is now off completing his chores. Mickey Mouse became infamous for that unforgettable role, and took his place as the one and only magical mouse. He may have to share that title however, as Apple released a replacement to their wireless mouse on October 20, 2009 with the inception of their Magic Mouse.
If you have been following this blog and have read my previous blog entry, Coffee, Doughnuts and…Apples?, you will remember that Apple also released their new line of Apple iMac hardware on the same day. You may recall that the new Apple iMac computer systems all come with the ability to be setup with just the need for one cable: the power cord. Where there are certainly exceptions to that rule, such as consumers who have to plug in to their Internet connection, most will not have to. The mouse that Manny Cabo (Apple Creative from the Apple Store in the Menlo Park mall in Edison, NJ) introduced at the Apple Business Networking meeting in the previous entry, is in fact the new Apple Magic Mouse.
According to my sources, the Apple Magic Mouse is in fact the first consumer mouse to have multi-touch capabilities. The mouse takes after many Apple hardware products such as the Apple iPhone, and Apple iPod Touch devices that all respond to gestures, scrolling and swiping. On these new devices, you can swipe left or right to scroll left or right, respectfully. You can right-click and left-click by simply just tapping the surface of the Magic Mouse. The Magic Mouse states that it only works with computer systems running Apple OS X 10.5.8 “Leopard” or higher and requires bluetooth technology turned on in order to function as a mouse on the Apple computer system. I have been seeing a lot of questions however pour in from across the Internet asking whether or not the Apple Magic Mouse will work with Microsoft Windows. I saw such mixed reviews online of whether or not it would work, that I decided to give it a try myself in order to truly see whether it would or would not work with Microsoft Windows.
In an effort to finally silence the issue, I purchased an Apple Magic Mouse from an Apple Store and tested it for myself. The verdict: the Apple Magic Mouse will function as a basic mouse without gesture support with my installation of Microsoft Windows 7 Professional, and therefore it can run under Microsoft Windows, just not completely functional as it will running under Apple OS X 10.5.8 “Leopard” or higher. One of the only real drawbacks that I had encountered in using this mouse with my Windows 7 notebook computer, was the fact that the mouse lacks the ability to scroll up and down a page as it is considered a gesture with this new Apple hardware. I have posted screenshots bellow that you can use if you wish to connect the Apple Magic Mouse to your computer running Microsoft Windows.
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I have to admit that the Apple Magic Mouse could have been built with a better form factor in mind, as it hurts your hand after extended usage as I have been using it with myNV (my HP ENVY) for almost a week. I can also honestly admit that I can’t wait for Apple to release drivers for us who are using Microsoft Windows to take advange of the magic of this stylish Apple mouse. So as you can see, Mickey isn’t the only mouse whose magical anymore. Try it out for yourself at your nearest Apple Store!
James Zepp
November 8, 2009
Tags: Apple, bluetooth, compatibility, connect, connection, how-to, info, information, infosource, James Zepp, Magic Mouse, Microsoft, mouse, PC, review, screenshots, step-by-step, Windows, work Posted in: Apple, Apple, Apple, Business, Consumer, Microsoft, Microsoft, News
Name: James Zepp
Occupation: CTO
Company: Acxsis
Age: 26
2 Responses
Hello, I don’t usually post, but as a gamer, and game site operator, I wanted to say thanks for the great post! – Charly
No problem, I am always looking for things to post about and I knew that getting the Apple Magic Mouse to work with a PC was a big issue I kept hearing about so I decided to post this entry
Either tonight or tomorrow I will be posting another post that actually gets the multi-touch features to work, if your interested. I appreciate your kind words Charly, thanks again! If you ever run into computer troubles drop me a line, Id be glad to help however I can 
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