Not too long ago now, Apple released a set of new Magic devices, including a new Magic Trackpad and a new Magic Mouse. Unfortunately for the latter, the charging port is causing quite a stir.
The image above, which shows the Magic Mouse 2 being connected to its Lightning cable, was taken by Anil Dash for his Medium page, Backchannel, and it does look kind of ridiculous. It seems like a silly way to charge an accessory as important as a mouse, something that, especially for Macs without a touchscreen, serves as the primary point of interaction between the user and the computer in question. And some folks will have to use that Magic Mouse 2 all day long, so the fear of needing to charge it while they still need to use it is real.
I can sympathize with that. But this is getting overblown by a large margin.
This is the first Magic Mouse to feature a built-in battery, but that’s probably not a good enough reason to cut Apple any slack on its design decision for the accessory’s charging port. I can admit that it does seem silly to have it on the bottom, simply because some people will need to use the device while it’s charging. Or at least they probably will, because Apple has made some improvements to the built-in battery in the Magic Mouse 2 to make it possible to avoid that challenge.
https://twitter.com/anildash/status/654445004983824385/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
As Rene Ritchie points out at iMore in an article entitled, “Fixing the Lightning port on the Magic Mouse 2,” he puts together what the accessory would look like with a charging port on its back-side, where many would assume the port would be located. He notes it doesn’t look all that appealing, as far as a Magic Mouse goes, and I agree wholeheartedly. Apple has always had a sharp focus on aesthetics and design, even for the sake of other things or features, and so it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that they’d opt to keep the Magic Mouse’s design and just put the charging port on the bottom of the device.
Ritchie also points out that this is a design problem for Apple, and one that they’re going to have to figure out in the future. It’s a challenge, to be sure, and I’m sure Apple’s up for it. Then again, who even knows when they’ll update the Magic Mouse again, right? The original Magic Mouse was around for quite some time, so unless Apple has some radical redesign right around the corner, I would expect the Magic Mouse 2 to stick around for awhile, too.
I don’t think that’s that big of a deal, though. Yes, the charging port has a silly location, but I honestly don’t believe it should be getting blown out of proportion like this. The built-in battery in the Magic Mouse 2 isn’t awful, it should last about a month once it’s fully charged, and it doesn’t take that long to fully charge, either. What’s more, Apple has made it possible to get about 9 hours of battery life out of the accessory with only a couple of minutes of charging. I know not everyone’s work day is 9 hours, sometimes it goes longer, but even if that is the case, two minutes of charging seems practically reasonable for that amount of battery life in return.
Charge it up to get that nine hours of battery life, and then when the work day is done, or even at some point beyond that, just plug the Magic Mouse 2 in before bed, let it charge while you do, and get back to it for another several weeks before it needs to charge again.
At the end of the day, I guess all I can say for myself is that I’m happy I prefer the Magic Trackpad 2 over the Magic Mouse 2.
How about you? Do you despise the Magic Mouse 2’s charging port location, or is it something you can work with? Did you opt for the Magic Trackpad 2 over the new Magic Mouse?
