USB-C Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad
Alongside the new iMac, Apple announced updated versions of the Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad. The accessories are now equipped with USB-C charging ports, whereas the previous models used Lightning. Apple includes the Magic Mouse and Magic Keyboard in the box with the iMac, and the Magic Trackpad is an optional upgrade.
Unfortunately, unlike the first-generation Magic peripherals, these are still only able to pair with one Mac at a time. So you cannot switch them between Macs in software.
Apple’s new USB-C-equipped Magic Mouse somehow still has the charging port on the bottom. While Apple could have used the launch as an opportunity to move the charging port from the underside of the device — where the port has remained for nearly a decade, despite other updates to the mouse and being mocked for the decision — the port is still there, as shown in the “view in your space” augmented reality rendering from Apple’s website.
I really hope nobody is surprised that the USB-C Magic Mouse charging point is in the same location.
Wait, so Apple updated the port on the Magic Mouse, but didn’t fix the biggest bug related to the port of the Magic Mouse?!? 🤦♂️
Yes, with the charging port on the mouse’s belly, you cannot use it while it charges. There are obvious downsides to that. But those positing the Magic Mouse as absurd act as though Apple doesn’t know this. Of course Apple knows this. Apple obviously just sees this as a trade-off worth making. Apple wants the mouse to be visually symmetric, and they want the top surface to slope all the way down to the desk or table top it rests upon. You can’t achieve that with an exposed port.
My other hunch is that the Magic Mouse’s designers actually see the inability to use it while plugged in as a feature, not a bug. They want you to use it wirelessly, so you have to use it wirelessly.
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With this design, the mouse looks better 100 percent of the time it’s in use, and it looks a bit silly every few months when you need to charge it.
I’ll grant that it looks better, but I thought Apple design was supposed to be about how it works. I guess my question is, why are they optimizing for the minority of people who don’t know it’s wireless? In order to prevent some people from using it non-optimally, they’re consigning others to having mice that sometimes, at the worst possible time, don’t work at all. Could they not put an instruction card in the box or show a bezel notification when you plug it in to remind people that it can be used wirelessly?
Also, I’m seeing a lot of commentary about how you only have to charge it a few times a year or every few months, but I think for me it’s more like once or twice a month. I like the way the Magic Mouse works as a mouse, but it’s way more annoying than when I had a Logitech mouse that ran on a single AA battery for a whole year.
The low-battery notifications are also a problem. In my experience, they show up way too late (when the mouse is so close to dying that you have to interrupt what you’re doing) or not at all. Lately I’ve been using ToothFairy to show the current battery level in the menu bar so that I get earlier notice that the battery is getting low. One of the top feature requests I get is for it to support customizable low-battery notifications because the built-in macOS ones aren’t fit for purpose.
Another use case: I have a test Mac that I mostly access via screen sharing. It would be simpler if I could just leave the Magic Mouse plugged in so that, on the rare occasion when I do physically use that Mac, I can be sure that the battery won’t be dead. Since that’s not possible, I have to leave the mouse belly up, then unplug it for use, and I sometimes forget to plug it back in when I’m done using it.
None of this is the end of the world, but there’s a reason it’s a meme. One upon a time, all the Mac notebooks had upside down Apple logos, and I’m sure the designers had a reason for that, but eventually they had the courage to change it, to great applause.
What’s less fine than the charging port location is just the lack of fundamental iteration. We’re going on 16 years of not altering this mouse in any serious way.
I just grew up with an Apple that would KEEP PUSHING. I don’t think they found the end of the mouse with the Magic Mouse. It’s damn good, but not the end. Haptics. So much could be done.
One idea would be to support Qi charging so that you could just leave it on the pad now and then. I’m sure there’s more that could be done in other areas—I miss the side buttons that the Mighty Mouse had.
These properties of the Magic Mouse are reasonably understood within minutes, if not intellectually then at least vividly. It’s possible I’m underestimating the proportion of people whose anatomy allow them complete comfort with a Magic Mouse — that proportion, even if small, is likely at least hundreds of thousands of people at Apple’s scale — or the probably decidely bigger proportion who just don’t care and consider it a worthwhile trade-off.
It’s comfortable for me, but then I also like those small Logitech mice that you hold with your finger tips instead of putting your palm on top.
New needs friends, and progress is often downstream of a few blind alleys. But at this point I'm more than interested what a Magic Mouse 2, that tries to take the learnings of how Magic Mouse has played out in real life and how people's bodies actually work and do something different, would look like.
To just ship the same thing after nine years, with all the flaws that its trade-offs have lead to would be... well, pants-on-head stupid.
OK but the most exciting news today is that you can now get a really nice woven black USB-C cable from Apple with a Magic Keyboard, Trackpad or Keyboard.
Seems the new Magic Keyboards without keypad are only available with an iMac for now? That was the one thing I planned on buying this week, but I guess it’ll be a while…
The USB-C Magic Keyboard is available, but not in any colors.
For the time being, Apple is continuing to sell a Lightning version of the Magic Keyboard with a numeric keypad, but it lacks a Touch ID button. Apple has yet to release a USB-C version of this particular Magic Keyboard.
The list of Apple devices and accessories that are still sold with either a Lightning port or a Lightning connector is now quite small[…]
Previously:
- iMac 2024
- Devices That Are Not USB C in My Life
- The Magic Keyboard With Numeric Keypad Is Apparently Bendy
- Apple’s New Magic Keyboard, Mouse, and Trackpad
- Magic Mouse Review
Update (2024-10-30): I don’t care about Touch ID, but unfortunately the non–Touch ID Magic Keyboard still has the globe key on the right side, where it’s nearly impossible to use as a modifier for the new window management keyboard shortcuts.
Update (2024-11-01): Juli Clover:
The new USB-C accessories require macOS Sequoia 15.1 to work properly, and as noted on the MacRumors forums, earlier versions of macOS do not work. There are reports from users running macOS Sonoma and Ventura who are having issues with the new devices. With the keyboard, Touch ID and function keys don’t work, and with the Magic Mouse, the scrolling doesn’t function. In some cases, the accessories are recognized as older devices, inhibiting proper functionality.
This isn’t a problem limited to just people running older versions of macOS, because there are also reports from developers who have installed the first macOS Sequoia 15.2 beta. It appears that the macOS Sequoia 15.2 beta was released before Apple could add in support for the new Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad.
Touch ID, I guess I can understand, but why don’t the basic features work? Are they not using standard Bluetooth? Did Apple make more extensive changes beyond just the port?
See also: The Talk Show.
Update (2024-11-11): Parker Ortolani:
Interesting that they took the Apple logo off of the USB-C Magic Mouse entirely.
To be clear there’s still one on top, but the bottom one is gone.
19 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
From a linked Twitter thread:
"They don’t want people plugging it in and then forgetting that it’s a wireless mouse"
The fact that people are apparently serious when they say things like that makes me genuinely afraid for humanity's future.
The Apple logo on laptops was famously “upside down” because it was right side up for the user of the laptop prior to opening. So owner-centric. At some point they decided that how it looked from the outside was more important than how it looked from the owner’s perspective.
I personally think they made the right decision, and the switch probably happened at the same time as making the logo light up (it’d look silly upside down and glowing - conspicuously wrong)
For the Magic Mouse - I don’t use it but I have one but I’d imagine that if the wire plugged in at the distal/“top” edge, the touchpad surface at the that edge would be quite a bit smaller or there’d be a chunk missing where the wire plugs in (which would usually be empty).
A physical notch (years before the iPhone notch) or lightning hole in the mouse’s touchpad would be super annoying and you’d never forget it was there, and a smaller touchpad area would be even less ergonomic than it is now … vs power port on the bottom. (While it’s possible to put the cable on the side or proximal edge, I don’t think folks would like those options either.
So between those options, I think bottom is the best of those options. That’s the trade off of having a trackpad? (Having a cable would make pairing between multiple machines much easier, though)
Multi-device pairing seems like another blind spot of Apple encouraging employees to use work devices as personal ones (https://mjtsai.com/blog/2021/08/31/privacy-for-apple-employees/).
Ironically this means I usually leave my wireless keyboard and trackpad plugged in to easily swap them between my work and personal Macs. I’m sure Apple would rather I buy separate sets for each, but I don’t have that sort of desk space.
@Fancyham I guess that was the thinking, but I don’t think the logo looks bad the new way when the laptop is closed on a flat surface. Whereas, it looked very wrong when the laptop was open, even for the owner whenever they would walk back to their desk/table. The logo was lit up starting with the G3 PowerBooks, so it was, in fact, glowing upside down for several generations.
For the Magic Mouse, at least for me, the fingers don’t get anywhere near the bottom of the edge where the port would go. So I don’t think it would feel any smaller or less ergonomic.
> There does not appear to be any other changes to the Magic accessories beyond the switch to USB-C.
Actually, besides USB-C, there’s *one* piece of good news: the new keyboard with Touch ID + Numeric Keypad has a globe key on the bottom left. Now shortcuts are finally uniform across keyboard sizes.
I bummed, though not surprised, that the compact keyboard with touch ID still uses that inane arrow key layout instead of inverted-T arrows. It's kept me from buying what otherwise looks like a great keyboard for years.
The Magic Keyboard works great plugged in – you can even turn off Bluetooth on the Mac. So it seems unlikely Apple really doesn't want you to use the mouse plugged in. It all seems very Cookian: why spend the money redesigning and retooling?
I have to say the Magic Mouse is one of the worst pieces of computer hardware I've ever had to use. It has SHARP CORNERS. Absolutely absurd industrial design.
Won't even go into how the trackpad top on it causes random triggers of all kinds of events and yet sometimes makes it impossible to correctly click a link.
@Plume Indeed. Particularly because the keyboards and trackpad work *just fine* while connected to USB. Maybe Apple should introduce a "charge to 80%" option to the accessories too. But Apple apologists will do their thing.
As to the accessories, no surprise Apple wouldn't update the full keyboard without Touch ID, which seems to have a very limited audience for non-Mac users. Given I already have several of these keyboards, my only regret is that the new layout finally puts the FN key where it belongs. But I can probably live another day. My day-to-day keyboard is the Das wired keyboard, which is great.
Now, if Apple made a mechanical keyboard with multi-device pairing ...
I think the bottom plug is the least of the Apple Mouse problems. I much prefer physical buttons. If only Apple could have decent third party mouse support in MacOS.
I quite like their keyboards though.
Utterly audacious that Apple didn't fix the charging port on the Magic Mouse, and that shills like Gruber will actually go to bat for that decision. This ought to be a litmus test for whether or not you are fit to design things, kind of like asking a five year old child to find holes or flaws in your plan.
They could just raise the entire thing a centimeter and make it both more comfortable and have room for a charging port at the same time.
Then again, I'm a hardcore user. Several times today I click and dragged AND scrolled or zoomed at the same time using a nine buttoned mouse WITH charging port that I keep unplugged because it feels nicer, not because some intentional design flaw.
Just as with USB C on iphones no one would complain if the charging port ended up in a user friendly place.
Sometime last year I forgot I had a wireless keyboard because Apple made the mistake of placing the charging port in a way that the keyboard is still useable while plugged in.
Speaking of keyboards, why is the left and right arrow key on the Magic Keyboard still full height?
@Bri, others: I really don't understand the hate against the charging port. The mouse needs to be charged how often? And if in a pinch then after a minute of charging it'll last the rest of your session, after which it can charge again.
(tbf. I dont have a magic mouse anymore because it's utterly unusable, but that's besides the point ;) )
The only reason I would use one of Apple's keyboards on a Mac is the TouchID button, otherwise I'll stick with the MX Keys
@Cowmonkey I'm a forgetful fellow and my wireless devices frequently run out of battery because I forget to plug them in. In the cases where I can't just swap in charged batteries, which is pretty much every device these days save for my game controllers, I use them plugged in for time while they recharge. It's not as convenient as them being fully wireless, but it's a lot more convenient than not being able to use them at all.
It's like Apple doesn't expect their users to ever forget to charge their mouse. I find it hard to believe that their market research determined that having it be useless while it's charging was a positive tradeoff for making it look a little sleeker, or whatever the supposed upside is.
Granted it's true that charging the mouse for a short time will get you quite a bit more usable time with it, so at least it's not a long delay when it dies. But I still would never subject myself to that mouse for that reason alone. (The lack of buttons comes squarely in second place.)
Update: apparently none of the new usb-c accessories work with pre-Sequoia, or even with 15.2beta. What. The. Ef! This just takes the cake. Source https://www.macrumors.com/2024/10/31/apple-usb-c-accessories-macos-sequoia/
@Ed Wow! But understandable, because there's never ever been a widely adopted, general way to support for keyboards and mice on a computer.
...
Remember when the motto was "it just works"?
> Lately I’ve been using ToothFairy to show the current battery level in the menu bar so that I get earlier notice that the battery is getting low.
I use the small-size macOS Battery widget to check on the charge of my keyboard and trackpad. I find it convenient to glance at when I open the notifications pane.
