Mighty Mouse Is Good? Great? Bad? Who To Believe?

I’m not a great fan of the New York Times. Maybe because fiction isn’t as interesting as it used to be. Then again, I’m not into fiscal analysis, either. I let others do that for me. Wall Street Journal? Not enough pictures.

So, when none of those folks can agree on Mighty Mouse, it’s time to ‘think different.’

Apple, after a couple of decades of championing the one-button mouse, finally released a multi-button mouse this week. It’s called Mighty Mouse.

Mighty Mouse has some mighty discussions going on among Apple watchers, media pundits, and Mac users. Even Windows users are saying, “I told you so.”

So, what’s the agreement? There isn’t much agreement anywhere.

David Pogue, writing in the New York Times, says Mighty Mouse is great. The highly respected Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal nixes Mighty Mouse as much ado over not much.

That leaves the Motley Fool’s Nathan Alderman. What’s he think? Not what David or Walt think, that’s for sure.

Among Mac users, and probably former jail bird Martha Stewart, the general consensus is that the new multi-button Mac mouse is a good thing. And over due. And unique. But hardly revolutionary.

Or, is it? Does Mighty Mouse have a hidden secret?

Not according to Walt Mossberg of the Journal.

“But in a stubborn homage to the old dogma, Apple designed the Mighty Mouse so it looks like, and can work like, a one-button mouse. Those clashing design goals make the Mighty Mouse harder to use than competing mice.”

Wait. Walt has more.

“Macintosh fan sites on the Web are already hailing this as another of Apple’s brilliant design coups. It’s not. In my tests, I found that the design makes right-clicking slower and clumsier than on a typical Microsoft or Logitech mouse with real buttons.”

OK, other end of the scale. Mac writer David Pogue has an opinion, too.

“The clever part of this $50 replacement mouse, called the Mighty Mouse, is that , you can configure it to be EITHER a one-button mouse OR a two-button mouse, using a preferences panel…”

Time to change terminology. I think the trackball is a nipple. Maybe not.

“The trackpea is awesome. It smoothly scrolls through lists, menus, documents and Web pages—but because it’s a ball, you can also scroll a window horizontally, diagonally, or even in an L shape… When you’re turning the trackpea, it feels and sounds like the scroll dial on an iPod. You hear that little ‘t-t-t-t-t’ rapid-clicking sound like the spinner in the game of Life… “

Alright already. It’s a trackpea. It looks like a nipple, though.

So, we’re dead even. One pundit disses the Mighty Mouse, another loves it. Who’s got the deciding vote? The Motley Fool’s Nathan Alderson.

“Mighty Mouse can detect whether users are clicking on the right or left half of the mouse—or squeezing its sides—and respond accordingly. Cleverly, because Mighty Mouse is programmable, it can still serve as a good ol’ one-button device for the very young, the very old, or those especially frightened of change.”

That sounds positive. More?

“In my opinion, the most intriguing aspect of Mighty Mouse lies almost hidden in the fine print on Apple’s website: The device isn’t limited to Macs alone. It’s been built to work seamlessly with Microsoft’s Windows as well.”

I detect a trend… it’s building…

“Mighty Mouse may be the next step in Apple’s quiet crusade to lure Windows users into the grasp of CEO Steve Jobs’ famous Reality Distortion Field, one stylish little component at a time. Microsoft is often dubbed ‘The Borg,’ a technological monolith that co-opts everything it touches—but this time, it seems, Apple’s the one doing the assimilating.”

That’s it. I’m sold. Media pundits love Apple’s Mighty Mouse by 2 to 1.

Click Here for The Motley Fool. Click Here for Walt Mossberg. And, finally, Click Here for the latest NY Times fiction (registration required).