Richmond Apple Store got 8 in today and I got 2 of them earlier this afternoon ... It's actually rather slick.

So clicking feels exactly like the standard Apple one-button mouse -- the entire mouse clicks down. In fact, by default, it is one-mouse-button-mode and you'd never know the difference (ignoring the scroll ball and side squeeze for now). After installing the installer on the CD, you get a fancy new prefs pane that lets you assign the right "button" to secondary action (i.e. "right mouse button"). Now the magic kicks in It basically senses whether you put pressure on the upper left or the upper right and fires the appropriate action -- but it's still one button clicking (i.e. the entire mouse).

So the ball. In the middle top is a floating sphere that rolls 360 degrees. The action on it feels perfect for scrolling -- you almost can't tell if there's a physical rotation happening (it's very smooth). Additionally, the ball has a vertical "give" of maybe 5 mm or so that indicates it's also a button. By pressing down on the ball you can click in the usual paddle-clicking-style (but with the ball in the pressed-in position) and execute a third mouse button click. This defaults to bring up Dashboard, but can be reassigned.

Lastly is the squeeze. If you lightly squeeze the sides, you can generate an additional even -- This does not click, it's just sort of a "squeeze something that doesn't move". This defaults to performing an expose (reassignable also).

Overall it's pretty slick -- Initial impression is "cool". Time will tell if it's actually useful. Wireless would have been nice.

ms