Tiger Update Brings New Mighty Mouse Zoom.

Just when you thought Mac OS X upgrades were becoming routine, Apple throws in something special.

Zoom, zoom, zoom. Your Mouse can zoom in on your Mac’s screen. Big zooms.

The latest version of Mac OS X Tiger features an addition to the mouse functions.

Zoom using scroll wheel. It works and is very cool.

Of course, that assumes you need to look at something really close up. I mean, really really close up.

If you’ve upgraded your Mac to OS X Tiger 10.4.8, and you have a mouse with a scroll wheel, open System Preferences.

Click on Keyboard and Mouse, then click on the Mouse tab.

There at the bottom is something new. “Zoom using scroll wheel.”

This is both new and not so new. For awhile now, Mac OS X has had the ability to zoom in on the screen. Whopper zoom in.

But the whole process is like trying to remember the keystroke combination to taking snapshots of your Mac’s screen.

I have trouble with login IDs and passwords, let alone remembering an odd keystroke combination just to let the screen zoom.

The new mouse feature eliminates the worry. Zoom? Or, magnification of the screen. Same thing.

I’m using a Mighty Mouse so the change works without a hitch. Your mileage may vary, but any mouse with a scroll wheel should work OK.

The default setting is to use the Control-key as the modifier key. That means, you hold down the Control-key while you scroll.

Voila! Eureka! Damn! That’s cool. If you’ve upgraded and you have a scroll wheel, give it a try.

When you scroll, the Mac’s screen zooms in. Not just a little, but a whole lot. Then move the mouse pointer. The screen follows the pointer.

The zoom in is substantial. On an Apple Cinema Display, the anti-aliasing works great, and removes much of the pixelization which occurs during other magnification processes.

There’s a few extra settings, too. Smoothing, change Modifier Key, and so on. Smoothing doesn’t just smooth images as the setting implies. The whole screen gets the smooooooooth effect and it’s quite good.

Will everyone have a need for zoom, zoom, zoom? Probably not. But for folks who use graphics apps on their Macs and constantly need to magnifiy an image just to check pixel placement, this is love at first sight.

MacBook and MacBook Pro kiddies fear not. Apple hath not forsaken thou. The same feature works for trackpad users who have the “Use two fingers to scroll” option turned on in System Preferences.

Is this a tool you’ll use? Or is it much ado about not much?