This Christmas, I found a box in my stocking containing things I half-jokingly added to my wish list. It’s an “ergonomic” grip that raises and widens Apple’s Magic Mouse 2 and adds wireless charging. This is like a small boot. Lightning adapter tongue that plugs directly into the bottom of the Magic Mouse. Best of all, it’s magnetic, making it perfect for use with MagSafe packs.
Will this completely ruin Apple’s sleek aesthetic? Absolutely! And I’m not at all sure it will last more than a few months before it stops working because of its cheap plastic. But somehow, that’s exactly what Magic Mouse needs.
The name doesn’t really matter because this isn’t a product made by a company you’ve heard of. Instead, it appeared on Amazon under several different company names, probably around August.mine is brand Tatofibut can be found under brand names such as: Jifu, blue linor Super Yofo. They all cost around $30 and are almost certainly all the exact same product.
The housing grip is not perfect. Wireless charging is sometimes spotty and the magnets are so weak that they easily slide off the MagSafe stand. And where the bottom meets the top, there is a huge seam that loves to collect debris.
But those complaints are very minor. In fact, I’ve found myself using the Magic Mouse at least as often as the Logitech MX Master 3 over the last month. And popping it into a nearby MagSafe pack when you’re done with it is a much better experience than digging out your Lightning cable every time it runs out. But is it foolish for something like this to happen?
When the Magic Mouse came out, I was absolutely fascinated by its multi-touch surface, which lets you swipe and tap to do things. This one curved sheet of clear plastic that can do so many things felt like the future, especially next to the Magic Trackpad, the best trackpad in the tech world.
But in reality, it’s very annoying. The mouse is low and flat, so I’ve never found a comfortable way to hold it while using it. Do you place your hand over the mouse like a big, thick blanket? Do you hold the sides with your fingertips? As a result, my hands may get cramps, but I choose the latter. And flipping the Magic Mouse over to charge it always felt silly, even if it wasn’t all that inconvenient in the end. With more and more devices adopting wireless charging and USB-C, having to keep a Lightning cable nearby can be a bit of a hassle. This grip solves both of those problems.
Still, I think this silly shoe I put on my mouse might be more of a Band-Aid than a complete fix. Granted, it’s much more comfortable for me than using the Magic Mouse alone, but after 15 years of virtually the same mouse he’s used, its very existence is almost an insult to decency. Surely Apple could have come up with something more by now. Practical. And yet, here’s my girlfriend, Magic Mouse, hanging out with her shoes on, somehow both better and worse than ever.