I tried the Magic Mouse, and really wanted to like it... I just couldn't :(.
It's a great concept. I think it might even have been (or is yet to be) a game-changing concept - but it was killed by the terrible ergonomics, lack of adoption by users, and lack of software support.
Lately I've found myself doing more 3D modeling. Most of that is in Autodesk Fusion 360, but I've also been enjoying Shapr3D on my iPad Pro. Shapr3D is especially nice because it relies upon (and requires) an Apple Pencil to function, and a lot of basic modeling tasks are extremely intuitive and fast as a result. It's not what I would consider a mature product yet - at least, not for my needs, others likely find it more comprehensive - but it shows a great deal of promise. When I go back to Fusion 360 on my desktop to work on something complex, I find myself missing the flexibility of the multi-touch display for view control combined with the precision of the Apple Pencil for object placement and modification.
The Magic Mouse would have been great for this. I could easily see moving it being used to create/modify geometry, while the touch surface could be used to manipulate the viewpoint. It would be very powerful - and actually, might exist. I'll have to check that out :). At any rate, though, I've never seen the Magic Mouse advertised in this sort of context, nor have I seen rich MM support advertised by the software vendors I use.
In other words, for the MM concept to take off, I think it needs to be demand-side driven. It needs to make someone's life easier, not just be cool. That isn't going to happen unless and until there's a flexible API for developers to leverage its utility, developers use it to build some really awesome functionality that can't be replicated elsewhere, and people are made aware of that.
> In other words, for the MM concept to take off ...
The "MM concept" has already taken off: in the form of billions of smartphones.
Its gestures and scrolling behavior are most natural for someone coming in from smartphones/tablets to personal computers, and mostly identical to Apple trackpad gestures in any case.
Most software does not require any special development to handle Magic Mouse gestures; they are mapped to common events like zoom/pan by the OS API, which are shared with the MacBook trackpad and thus already supported by all well-written apps.
Developers DO need to take the MM into account to provide extra, hand-tuned support for its features. The apps you described and games are where its advantages fall apart the most noticeably. Though, you may be able to use BetterTouchTool to "hack" MM support into third-party apps.
It's a great concept. I think it might even have been (or is yet to be) a game-changing concept - but it was killed by the terrible ergonomics, lack of adoption by users, and lack of software support.
Lately I've found myself doing more 3D modeling. Most of that is in Autodesk Fusion 360, but I've also been enjoying Shapr3D on my iPad Pro. Shapr3D is especially nice because it relies upon (and requires) an Apple Pencil to function, and a lot of basic modeling tasks are extremely intuitive and fast as a result. It's not what I would consider a mature product yet - at least, not for my needs, others likely find it more comprehensive - but it shows a great deal of promise. When I go back to Fusion 360 on my desktop to work on something complex, I find myself missing the flexibility of the multi-touch display for view control combined with the precision of the Apple Pencil for object placement and modification.
The Magic Mouse would have been great for this. I could easily see moving it being used to create/modify geometry, while the touch surface could be used to manipulate the viewpoint. It would be very powerful - and actually, might exist. I'll have to check that out :). At any rate, though, I've never seen the Magic Mouse advertised in this sort of context, nor have I seen rich MM support advertised by the software vendors I use.
In other words, for the MM concept to take off, I think it needs to be demand-side driven. It needs to make someone's life easier, not just be cool. That isn't going to happen unless and until there's a flexible API for developers to leverage its utility, developers use it to build some really awesome functionality that can't be replicated elsewhere, and people are made aware of that.