Yesterday’s Apple Event saw the company announce a bunch of stuff, including new black-hued accessories — including the Magic Mouse. Sadly, despite being six years old, the Magic Mouse still retains its biggest design flaw.
What if Apple releases a mouse today that doesn’t require me to do this? pic.twitter.com/75ICr8wevVMarch 8, 2022
Smart design is one of the things Apple loves to focus on, but there have been plenty of missteps along the way. Missteps that the company is often seemingly reluctant to admit to and correct, be it the butterfly keyboard catastrophe, the TouchBar, or the fact the Magic Mouse can’t be recharged during use.
As The Verge points out, the new black Magic Mouse is just a recoloring of the original model released back in late 2015. That means the recharge port is still on the underside, forcing you to flip it over and plug in a Lightning cable if you run out of power. Yes, there's still no USB-C either.
Obviously, this stops you from actually using the Magic Mouse until it recharges. Because it’s been flipped over like a struggling turtle, and has a massive cable sticking out.
It’s not as though Apple is the only company in the wireless mouse game. Several of the best mice have the ability to recharge during use, with a port on the very front of the mouse. In essence, you plug them in and they’re basically indistinguishable from a wired mouse.
It’s bizarre to think that Apple didn’t do something similar, or what the logic was behind adding the charging port on the underside of the mouse.
Then again, this is the company that would later add a Lightning plug, rather than a socket, onto the original Apple Pencil. That meant it needed an adapter if you wanted to plug it in with a Lightning cable.
That particular gaffe was fixed on the second-generation Pencil, but the original design is still available and in active use on cheaper iPad models.
Apple does claim the Magic Mouse battery will last for about a month, so it’s not like it needs recharging often. But there will still be times when you forgot to plug it in, and the mouse’s battery dies when you need it most.
It's about time Apple fixed this particular problem once and for all. The Magic Mouse is old enough that releasing a new model won't look unusual, and it gives Apple the opportunity to relocate the charging port in the process.
