Saturday, August 6, 2011

Apple Might Push OS X Towards Gestures, Drops Magic Mouse

Apple has many things it and its fans consider precious, but it looks like one of those items may have its days numbered if recent reports from retail sources are to be believed to any extent.

Apple runs a more or less closed ecosystem, but this also means that each small part of it carries its own measure of importance.

One invention that the company has been promoting is the Magic Mouse, a multi-touch mouse that uses a laser tracking engine and a single smooth surface that can respond to clicks, swipes and scrolls.

More or less every iMac comes with this Magic Mouse in the same bundle, but it might just be that the future will see it disappearing in favor of something else.

The folks over at Cult of Mac claim to have “gotten word from a previously reliable source” that Apple is thinking of replacing the Magic Mouse with something else.

Saying something else would be similar in spirit but distinct in shape and might just be enough to hint at a possible direction that Apple's OS X could take in the future.

More specifically, the source states the Magic Mouse might disappear to make room for the Magic Trackpad, based on the alleged fact that Apple Stores are no longer getting new Magic Mouse inventory.

The fact that Apple has been putting effort and other resources into integrating intuitive gesture recognition into the Mac OS is no real secret.

As such, even if the outfit did not make any official claims as to the fate of the already widespread peripheral, it is not hard to see why some would assume this is what it plans to do.

Then again, it is not impossible that Apple would consider selling Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad alongside each other.

Either way, it remains to be seen if the rumor proves true and, should that be the case, if the design and performance of the trackpad manage to live up to the bar set by the Mouse.