Seems like everyone wants to do multi touch mice these days. I just covered what Microsoft had been cooking in their labs last week, and now Apple has unveiled a device of their own. The so called revolutionary new “Magic Mouse” by Apple is very much similar to Microsoft’s Cap Mouse concept.

The all new Magic Mouse has a fully capacitive surface with two hardware buttons for left and right click, which aren’t actually visible. It is pretty much the first consumer multi-touch mouse, if not the first multi-touch mouse in concept. A tap of the finger registers as a left click, while sliding it up or down behaves as scrolling. Two finger left or right swaps flick throw items, like images in iPhoto for example. Sadly, there isn’t a lot of intuitive gesture recognition here. Plus the right click requires you to click on the corner of the mouse. Here is a video of the mouse below which demonstrates the functionality.

In comparison, Microsoft’s Cap Mouse prototype also had a fully capacitive surface, but with no hardware buttons. The Cap mouse one ups the Magic Mouse by having a more ergonometric design, plus tons of intuitive multi touch gestures. For example, you can flick scroll based on the momentum of your finger swipe or flip between photos or documents or tabs etc but flicking your thumb – a much better gesture than swiping two fingers. Other than that you can do all the conventional multi-touch gestures like pinch and zoom etc which Apple’s mouse lacks. Plus there are a ton more gestures to close, maximize, resize, minimize, and do a lot more stuff. The following video demonstrates all that:

Oh and I’d just like to leave an open question before closing the article. Do you like the idea of having multi-touch mice? Would you use it in productive or gaming environments? Do leave your answers in the comments below.