{"id":45548,"date":"2024-10-29T13:22:29","date_gmt":"2024-10-29T17:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=45548"},"modified":"2025-01-16T09:53:58","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T14:53:58","slug":"usb-c-magic-mouse-magic-keyboard-and-magic-trackpad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/10\/29\/usb-c-magic-mouse-magic-keyboard-and-magic-trackpad\/","title":{"rendered":"USB-C Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Rossignol<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Unfortunately, unlike the first-generation Magic peripherals, these are still only able to pair with one Mac at a time<\/a>. So you cannot switch them between Macs in software.<\/p>\n\n

Jay Peters<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Apple’s new USB-C-equipped Magic Mouse<\/a> 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<\/a> updates<\/a> to the mouse and being<\/a> mocked<\/a> for the decision — the port is still there, as shown in the “view in your space” augmented reality rendering from Apple’s website.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Steve Troughton-Smith<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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I really hope nobody is surprised that the USB-C Magic Mouse charging point is in the same location.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Mike Piatek-Jimenez<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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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?!? 🤦‍♂️<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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<\/em> to use it wirelessly.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

I’ll grant that it looks better, but I thought Apple design was supposed to be about how it works<\/em><\/a>. 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<\/a>. 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?<\/p>\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n

The low-battery notifications<\/a> 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<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n\n

Another use case<\/a>: 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.<\/p>\n\n

None of this is the end of the world<\/a>, but there’s a reason it’s a meme<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n\n

Zac Alan Cichy<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n

Jesper<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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<\/em> and consider it a worthwhile trade-off.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

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.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Sebastiaan de With<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Nicholas Riley<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

The USB-C Magic Keyboard is available, but not in any colors.<\/p>\n\n

Joe Rossignol<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

The list of Apple devices and accessories that are still sold with either a Lightning port or a Lightning connector is now quite small[…]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n