Customer Reviews

Apple Wired Mouse

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

The apple mouse is a very attractive mouse and works well as the spherical trackball easily allows you to scroll up, down and side-to-side very quickly. However, even though I am a big Apple fan and have several Apple computers this mouse tends to be a weak link in an otherwise user-friendly computer environment.

I believe I have just killed my third mouse. These things get gunked up easily and there is no way to take it apart to clean it. So, at the apple store they suggest blowing canned air into it to dislodge the oil and dust that has collected inside. I've tried that and within a couple days the mouse scroller is unusable--AGAIN.

To write this review I actually had to unplug my apple mouse and plug in a cheap Microsoft USB mouse because the Apple mouse was freaking out so bad causing my computer to switch between applications that I couldn't type.

I think if they allowed these to be take apart to clean it would solve the problem but in the meantime I am off to Best Buy to find a new mouse.

[...]

Sorry Apple.

Both times the Up scroll function has failed, despite regular cleaning of the scroll ball. When the mouse works, it's great. But as many will testify, it doesn't last. Am using a Logitech until I buy a new cordless "Magic Mouse" and scroll with my fingers instead of a questionably engineered rubber pea.

This mouse's "middle button" trackball is very easily gunked up and is VERY difficult to clean. The mouse does NOT open, so you have to rub the trackball with a moist rag for what seems like an eternity to clean it. Apple recommends plain water, but only alcohol or 409 can do a good job. This process is required about every week, or more often if you have kids.
Like a lot of Apple products it is pretty but lacks some of the most obvious functional requirements, like ease of cleaning.
It is an unnecessarily high-maintenance item. Other manufactures have scroll wheels that have sensors on the side of the wheel, not on the tread where all the body oils, dirt and dust accumulate. So the technology has improved considerably over the years. Why would Apple revert to such a problematic feature? If you remember mice from the 80's you can recall the bottom trackball that would fill with dirt and make the mouse act erratically. At least back then you could open the mouse, remove the ball for cleaning, and also clean the rollers inside the mouse.

If you can live without the side buttons, just get a Logitech LS1 mouse for $10. That is what I did to replace this expensive mouse.

This mouse is beautiful to look at, but completely haywire. It started making a ticking sound about 6 months after owning it. One month later, the ticking sound was accompanied by random actions such as going forward and backward in my web browser history. If you look online, you can see hundreds of people have had this problem. Why doesn't Apple own up to the problem and fix the issue--instead of continuing to allow vendors to sell them when they know there's a problem. Apple should certainly issue a recall on this defective merchandise. When you pay $50 for a mouse, you expect it to work longer than 6 months.

I'm not normally moved to write a review about something as common as a wired mouse, but this one is so well made and so easy to use I couldn't hold back:

I normally use a wireless mouse but for CAD work they can bee a little unreliable. I decided to try an old fashion wired mouse and it was an improvement in terms of no "drop-offs" like I had with the wireless. However it was the fit and function of the mouse that really won me over. The design is simple but really comfortable. The scroll ball looked small to me but it turned out to be very easy to use with little finger stress. I love that the right and left sides are touch sensitive and give me a right and left click. The side buttons were similarly easy to use and positioned perfectly.

All in all just a simple wired mouse, but a perfectly designed one. It's nice that Apple still takes the time to do the little things well.

I cannot tell you how happy I was at replacing this tank of a mouse. After giving the beast a good 6 month trial, when it came packaged with my Mac, the constant cleaning of that little track ball of a scroll wheel, and the vice grip needed to push the side buttons, and the constant miss-right clicking of items that I meant to just left click on; I am over joyed that I finally got fed up enough with purchasing canned air every week to invest half the cost of this thing in to a 12 dollar refurbished logitech lx7 wireless mouse.

I honestly didn't know how hard I was working at working on my computer. The difference is like night and day. The difference could be compared to driving your car versus pushing your car. I'm actually going to save the 14" corded oddity though, to hang as an ornament on my Christmas tree, as one of the worst designs to come out of a company that wasn't going in to bankruptcy, in a long time. I honestly think that the mice with the ball underneath are about equal in frustration generation as this model.

Apple has lots of great, superior ideas. This is not one of them. I got this mouse when I bought my IMac around 2 years ago. As mentioned ad nauseam on a million "Help Me" forums, the scroll ball gets funky and stops working about every 3 days or so, with moderate use (3 hours a day). It doesn't matter if you wash your hands before you use it, as I do. I have non-oily, non-sweaty hands, so someone with these problems will have it worse.

The tracking is terrible. The pointer has a tendency to randomly drift and jump clear across the screen, even when used with a standard mousepad and correct sensitivity settings. The side buttons, while a nice idea, get so hair trigger sensitive after the mouse is broken in that they have to be manually disabled.

Aesthetically, I cannot understand why Mac continues to produce items that are constantly being touched, like iMac keyboards and mice, in easily soiled, glossy white plastic. They require constant cleaning or will look and feel absolutely filthy. Get with it, retards. Just make high contact hardware in black, like everybody else. And while you're at it, fire whatever moron engineering group let this atrocity past beta testing into the market.

If you don't want to ever have to clean your equipment (gross!!) don't buy this mouse. If you don't want to read a manual, don't buy this mouse.

From the owners manual: Cleaning Your Mouse and Scroll Ball
Follow these guidelines to clean the outside of your mouse and the scroll ball: Use a lint-free cloth that's been lightly moistened with water to clean the mouse exterior and the scroll ball. Â Don't get moisture in any openings. Don't use aerosol sprays, solvents, or abrasives. If your mouse stops scrolling or if scrolling becomes rough, clean the mouse scroll ball. Rotate the ball while cleaning for complete coverage. If scrolling feels rough, hold the mouse upside down and roll the ball vigorously while cleaning it to help remove any particles that may have collected.

I've got 3 of these, one is 4 years old. When they stop scrolling, I clean them. Usually, however, I clean them before they get that nasty.

This would be a fantastic mouse, if not for the difficulty of cleaning the scroll ball on top. Not for use with small children and it wouldn't hurt to wash your hands before sitting down at the computer. I've had my iMac for about a year and in that time have had to use a needle to scrape out gunk from around the edge of the scrollball hole and have found rolling it upside down on a clean sheet of paper tends to keep it fairly clean, but Apple should have made it possible to remove the ball and clean around inside the recess without destroying the mouse. Apple also hasn't made this information readily available either. Finding out requires lengthy searches on their website forum, or visits to a local Apple store.

I did not purchase my mouse on Amazon, but it came with my iMac. I hate this mouse so much, I had to write a review of it on here to try and save someone from buying this awful Apple product. I absolutely love everything else I've bought from them in the past, so when this mouse crapped out just after the warranty expired it was a huge surprise. As many others have stated, the scroll ball is terrible. It's a neat concept and worked great for several months; Then, it started only allowing us to scroll up. Finally, a few months later, we lost all scrolling functionality. Also, as others have noted, this thing is nearly impossible to take apart to clean. So much so, I haven't bothered, and just stew at the computer every time I need to scroll but have to mouse over to the bar at the side/bottom of the screen and manually move it with the clicker. The mouse is a great concept, but simply does not execute for long. Save yourself from the frustration and DO NOT BUY this product. If you are buying a new Apple computer, DO NOT get this mouse with it - you will regret your choice later.