Apple Magic Mouse ditches buttons in favour of touch

The scroll wheel is dead - long live the touch pad

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20 October 2009 17:12 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Apple, as predicted, has announced a new mouse today that features the company's multi-touch technology rather than using a scroll wheel.

The new mouse, which for legal reasons has had to drop the "mighty" namesake will be called the Magic Mouse instead.

"Instead of mechanical buttons, scroll wheels or scroll balls, the entire top of the Magic Mouse is a seamless Multi-Touch surface," say Apple.

Magic Mouse comes standard with the new iMac® and will be available as a Mac accessory at just £55 (inc. VAT).

According to Apple, the Magic Mouse features a seamless touch-sensitive enclosure that allows it to be a single or multi-button mouse with advanced gesture support.

Using intuitive gestures, users can easily scroll through long documents, pan across large images or swipe to move forward or backward through a collection of web pages or photos. Magic Mouse works for left or right handed users and multi-button or gesture commands can be easily configured from within System Preferences.

It will not, it seems, be offered in a wired version, instead with the company opting for a Bluetooth connection to its laptops or desktop models.

It will be available at the end of October and require users to be running Mac OS X Leopard version 10.5.8 or later.