Apple has released it's first multibutton mouse - and finally you can buy a mouse which is coloured white, with a clear overcoat of plastic, has more than one button, and an Apple logo. The Mighty Mouse (amazon link here).
Hooray. *waves a little flag*
Many reviews have been written; but the best is by far is the arstechnica review. It has nice pictures (*cough russ cough 6680 for review pictures not good cough*), and includes several illuminating observations which seem to constitute vital pre-purchase knowledge.
1. "I could not use the squeezy buttons or the scroll ball button without installing the drivers from the CD on the Mac and Apple has not released drivers for Windows at all."
2. "squeezy side buttons are positioned too high up on the mouse for me to use with ease"
3. "the top part of the shell is touch sensitive to a point... you can't be touching it "too much" on the left side before the right click gives up and you're now left clicking.
Point 1 means that this is not ideal for a windows machine, because all you get is a pretty white two button mouse. (which costs ~USD 50) Caveat - maybe it does actually work on windows without drivers, I haven't found a reviewer who uses a windows XP box; If those buttons work, it would be rather... ironic.
Point 2 means you have to try out the mouse physically before buying it, so you know if you can access the buttons.
Point 3 means you have to try out the mouse physically with a working computer before buying it; personally, I know that I definitely leave my left finger on my mouse while right clicking - but perhaps that depends upon the shape of the mouse. (I'm using an MX 1000).
