During the month of November, Apple doubled its mice sales, achieving 10 percent market share. This milestone—which brings them closer to computer-mouse market leaders Logitech and Microsoft—is a first for Apple, and was likely because of the Magic Mouse.
The Magic Mouse is a bluetooth mouse with new support for multitouch gestures such as swipe for scrolling and pinch for zoom. The mouse doesn’t have any real buttons, and is one surface using touch sensors. It retails for $69 US.
The hype and intial relase of the Magic Mouse could have been what gave Apple this increased market share. In this case, it may go down in the coming months, as with other Apple products such as Time Machine.
“The Time Machine did great the first 8 to 10 weeks too, but then it kind of settled down,” NPD analyst Stephen Baker.
The Magic Mouse is only supported on the Mac, currently no official drivers exist for Windows (although unofficial drivers are available). Why Apple is not supporting PC users isn’t completely clear, but it could be to make the Magic Mouse a benefit to Mac users.
Via [Electronista]
I wonder whether their mice sales have increased because people are purchasing the Apple Mouse to *replace* their Magic Mice. I have to say that the Magic Mouse is one of my least favourites of all time, not because it has no side-buttons or middle-click, but because it's incredibly uncomfortable. Also, the multitouch gestures it *does* have (why no pinch-zoom again?) seem more like gimmicks. Do people really get so fed up with pressing the backspace key in a webpage or clicking the back arrow that they feel the need to injure their wrists doing a gesture on an itty-bitty pad? Apple can do better, and don't even get me started on the newest iPod Shuffle. They're focusing more on aesthetics than on usability and it kind of hurts.
@Andrew.
Actually, the hockey puck mouse is the worst mouse ever. Like nothing can beat that.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Apple_iMac_USB_mouse.jpg
The concept looks like it would be good for kids, but it wasn't, and it only had one button anyway.
I'm not a fan of the new iPod Shuffle either, but the Magic Mouse is pretty good. There are many programs that let you create your own gestures, and I'm sure pinch-zoom is one of them. The design is beautiful, and after a little bit of time to adjust it you'll get used to it.
No, people aren't tired of click the backspace to go to the previous page… Why did they make the dock on Mac OS X? Were people tired of going to their applications folder and clicking on an app? No, but it turns out to be a very useful feature.
The Magic Mouse isn't for everyone, but it is for me