A Visit to the Apple Store

I got to play with an Apple Magic Mouse on a 27-inch iMac at the Apple Store Short Pump today. The iMac was fast and gorgeous as expected, but didn’t feel like a significant departure from earlier models. My verdict on the Magic Mouse: it’s OK but I won’t be rushing to get one.

The mouse is very pretty, I’ll give it that. And, the single click, two-button click, 360-scroll, and zoom features all worked well. But, I found the two-finger swipe to work inconsistently. (Perhaps I just need practice.) I also found the mouse a bit heavy and thought the somewhat angular edges made it awkward to hold.

I’ll be interested see reviews of the new Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station. (The Apple Store Short Pump doesn’t have any yet.) Apple claims:

Improvements in antenna design give you up to 50 percent better Wi-Fi performance and up to 25 percent better range than with the previous-generation AirPort Extreme Base Station.

I’m not geeky enough to understand all the technology behind Wi-Fi. We have the dual-antenna AirPort Extreme Base Station that was the current model until this new one was announced. It’s very peppy for both LAN and and Internet stuff. I have a hard time understanding how the new device gets 50 percent better performance on the same 802.11n standard. If that’s true, wow. I know it has something to do with triple antennas (antennae?), but I still don’t really get it. Maybe my geekier friends will explain.