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Filed under: Editing •Hardware •Post Production •

Review: Apple Magic Mouse and Final Cut Studio

I’m on a constant search for the ultimate input device for editing. Look at my editing desk on any given day and there may be some mad combination of an Apple Mighty Mouse, a Kensington Expert Mouse (which is just a trackball), a Contour Shuttle Pro, a Wacom graphics tablet, a Poker Mouse and of course the keyboard. While the absolute best input device for editing is a keyboard it’s inevitable that you will have to reach for a mouse at some point during the edit day. Enter the new Apple Magic Mouse and its touch sensitive surface. But how is it for editing?

My first thought when I saw the new Apple Magic Mouse was “where’s the middle button?” Apple’s color grading application Color asks for the middle mouse button to be mapped to button 3 for click and drag scrolling of the Color timeline. Without this button then that action won’t work. But Apple didn’t make the new mouse for Color now did they? So my second thought was “I wonder how it will work while editing in Final Cut Pro?” The short answer is it’s very similar in functionality to the Mighty Mouse but maybe not as useful. At least in FCP that is.

The Mighty Mouse and the new Magic Mouse side by side

If you were to close your eyes and touch both the Magic and Mighty Mouse for the first time you’d probably choose the Mighty as it’s a bit more comfortable in hand, noticeably heavier and doesn’t have the sharp edges of the Magic one. Upon an open-eyed inspection though the Mighty feels more like a cheaper hunk o’ plastic and that’s because it is. The Magic is heavier and includes metal in its components so it feels better constructed. The new mouse is also a wireless mouse only. It takes two AA batteries which are included. There’s a battery fuel gauge in the preferences as well. You have to install a Wireless Mouse Software update as well depending on your OS version. When you look at the two mice side by side you then notice what is missing from the Magic, besides the middle mouse button. Gone, of course, it the little mechanical trackball. That’s the whole reason for the new mouse’s being Magic as it’s a multi-tough device with a touch sensitive surface. The touch is quite responsive in most applications and the “touch-sensitiveness” runs almost the entire surface of the mouse, ending right about the Apple logo:

The active touch area of the Magic Mouse is outlined in red

Also gone are the side buttons from the Mighty which were activated with a squeeze.

Using the Magic Mouse with Final Cut Pro

So my first question was: How would the Magic Mouse operate while editing in Final Cut Pro? The touch operation behaves very similar to the Mighty Mouse. A single-finger left to right swipe will scroll the timeline when hovering over or clicked into the Timeline window. A single up and down swipe in the timeline will scrub the playhead. If you are in the Viewer or Canvas then a single finger swipe in both directions will scrub. FCP also supports “momentum” if you have that option turned on in the preferences:

The Magic Mouse preference pane demonstrating “momentum”

Momentum is similar to what happens on an iPhone when you swipe with a throw across the surface. The movement (in this case scrubbing of the playhead) begins fast and then slows down as it loses momentum. The harder and faster you swipe the more momentum that you have. Plus it behaves like the iPhone in that once you swipe with momentum and have something moving you can then drop your finger back onto the mouse’s surface to stop the movement. It’s actually quite a nice way to scrub footage. A two finger swipe (again, if you have this option turned on in the preferences) behaves like the UP and DOWN (or Go to Next Edit, Go to Previous Edit) arrow keys. If you have an edit selected in the timeline then it will ignore edits on other tracks and jump to the next or previous edit in that single video layer. If you have a single clip loaded in the Viewer a two-finger swipe will jump to the head or the tail of the clip. The whole two-finger swipe on a mouse doesn’t feel very natural. It’s not hard to do it’s just a bit awkward so practice might make it more comfortable but since you’ve got the UP and DOWN arrows on the keyboard there’s nothing really more comfortable than that.

The touch surface on the Magic Mouse works in most places in FCP where you would expect it to, like the faders of the Audio Mixer and sliders in the Motion tab or on applied filters. Again, it does pretty much what the little trackball of the Mighty Mouse does. That’s in FCP ... in Color it’s a bit of a different story.

Next up: The Magic Mouse works surprisingly well in Color

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The benefit to me of using the mighty mouse is that you can middle-click drag on a parameter to make gross changes and you can hover over a parameter and scroll to make finer adjustments.  When I looked at the magic mouse, the big drawback was that there seems to be no way to do or emulate the middle-click drag action on the magic mouse.  I was surprised that the review does not mention this at all, as my usual method for adjusting parameters in Color is first to middle-click drag to make the initial adjustment and then to use the scroll ball to fine tune the change.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  11/06  at  03:39 PM

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Great point twizz ... that’s a great example of different users working in different ways. I seem to usually always use the scroll ball on the Mighty Mouse or the trackball. While I did mention the lack of the middle mouse button on the Magic Mouse I didn’t mention that particular use of it so thanks for the comment as some Color users may work the same as you.

Posted by Scott Simmons  on  11/06  at  03:41 PM

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Nice thorough review, thanks!

Posted by Mark Spencer  on  11/07  at  01:00 AM

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There is a way to emulate the MiddleClick:
http://www.pqrs.org/tekezo/macosx/keyremap4macbook/list.html

Check my post from 2009/11/08 13:59 JST

The developer is pretty fast, so I hope he’ll fix it soon. I’d be more than happy with FN (or alt)+LeftClick to MiddleClick since I always have my left hand on the keyboard.

As mentioned in the review, it’s possible to work in Color without MiddleClick, but it’s essential in apps like Shake and Nuke.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  11/07  at  11:22 PM

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I think I’ll be changing to a Magic Mouse regardless. The lack of easy cleaning and the speed at which the Mighty Mouse clogs up means that the Magic should be worth its weight in gold.

Posted by Simon Wyndham  on  11/08  at  03:31 PM

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I definitely can recommend the MagicMouse, it’s a brilliant piece of industrial design! I don’t say this out of fanboyism, it is more than just another mouse. It really is a new way of operating which I personally prefer. But what I probably like the most is it being so flat.

Nevertheless, I’d also say check it out in a store if it suits you, instead of just ordering one.

By the way, the developer is not pretty fast, he has already done it. We now have a magical MiddleClick

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  11/08  at  08:50 PM

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