I am new to the Apple universe but I’m starting to see what all the fuss is about. Speaking strictly of design Apple has no rivals. My new MacBook Pro is a work of art. The OS X that I’ve started to play with a bit more lately is equally as beautiful. But OS X does have a blemish even if not visible from the surface. It’s MAC is horrible.

What is a MAC?

MAC is the Mouse Acceleration Curve used to map the movement of the physical mouse to the cursor on screen. A MAC is needed because a mapping of 1:1 would not be ideal especially if you had a 30” display. Ever seen a 30” mousepad? It’s a total waste of space. To solve this engineers introduced the MAC. It modified the speed/distance of the cursor in relation to the speed/distance of the physical mouse. Once again math was the answer.

So What’s the Problem?

I have no desire to research what the technical problem is with the MAC. If you’re interested in that sort of thing you can check out Parrish S. Knight’s Mac OS X’s Mouse Acceleration Problem which was published way back in 2007. What I’m interested in is why this is still a problem and why are more people not complaining about it? These questions led me to an interesting thought; perhaps it isn’t a “real” problem.

So There’s No Problem?

Let’s take into account the fact that for almost as long as I’ve been using the mouse I’ve been using it with Windows. That’s nearly 18 years worth of muscle memory on how a mouse should behave. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that when I move the mouse and it behaves differently that I immediately assume something is wrong. I’m going to try to give Apple the benefit of the doubt and play along.

So Why Post This?

Good point. Except the point of this post isn’t so much about my disapproval for the mouse acceleration curve used in OS X or my approval for the one used by Windows. Instead the point of this post is that I’m not going to continue down my usual path of crying that everything I’m not used to sucks or is inferior. Instead, I’m going to attempt to use OS X as-is and give myself a chance to get used to it before I judge it as a problem. This sounds like common sense but it really is a huge step on my part. Honest.

What If You Never Like It?

I’m not there yet. I plan to give it at least a couple months which is only fair considering how much time I’ve given to their competitor. For those that have tried to adopt the OS X mouse handling but cannot adjust there are few hack solutions out there. I did try these but only briefly so I could post quality links. I’m currently running with no extra software and I’m hoping to adopt the built-in curve but just in case you can’t:

• Mouse Curves for OS X - $FREE
• SteerMouse - $20.00
• USB Overdrive - $20.00
• MouseFix - $FREE - Didn’t work for me