Apple Magic Mouse now for Windows
Apple’s innovative new Magic Mouse, complete with multi-touch and gesture technology, is now available for the Windows operating system, both officially and unofficially.
The new mouse from Apple, dubbed the Magic Mouse, is a very nifty piece of hardware. Apple’s newest is a multi-touch mouse, announced on Oct. 20. The Apple Magic Mouse is the first consumer mouse to have multi-touch capabilities. Taking after the iPhone, iPod Touch, and multi-touch trackpads, the Magic Mouse allows the use of gestures such as swiping and scrolling to interact with desktop computers. It may be that Windows users were beginning to feel a bit of mouse envy because of it, but they can now rest easier.
The new mouse, of course, had to be made to work with Windows running on a Mac in Boot Camp, since it would likely be the only mouse on a Mac system. Therefore, Apple had to write a Windows driver for the Magic Mouse so that the device would continue working when the user booted the Mac in Windows mode. According to an ElectricPig story, the folks at Uneasy Silence noticed that fact, and performed the technical wizardry necessary to extract that driver from Boot Camp and make it available for use on standalone Windows machines.
That hack, of course, will not be supported by Apple, nor will it be guaranteed to work in the future. By the same token, it should be assumed that Apple will notice the interest by Windows users and may try to win over a few by making available an official Magic Mouse driver for Windows. It would give Windows users a chance to see how they like Apple technology, and would (of course) give Apple yet another source of revenue. That all may take a while, of course, so if you would like to make your Magic Mouse work on your Windows computer, you can get your very own copy of the driver from the Uneasy Silence site.
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