Last Christmas, I got a box in my stocking containing something I half-jokingly added to my wish list: an “ergonomic” handle that could raise, widen, and hold Apple’s Magic Mouse 2 Add wireless charging function. Plugs directly into the Lightning adapter tongue on the bottom of the Magic Mouse. Best of all, it’s magnetic and perfect for use with MagSafe discs.
Will this thing completely ruin Apple’s stylish aesthetic? Absolutely! And I don’t even trust the cheap plastic it’s made of, it will last more than a few months and then stop working. Yet, somehow, that’s exactly what Magic Mouse needs.
It doesn’t matter what it’s called, because this isn’t a product made by any company you’ve heard of — instead, it appears to have appeared on Amazon around August under a few different company names. My brand is Tatofy, but you can find it under brands like Zeehoo, Bluerin or Superyofo. They all cost around $30 and are almost certainly the exact same product.
The grip of the case is not perfect. Wireless charging can sometimes be problematic, the magnet is very weak so it will slip off the MagSafe holder. Where the bottom of it meets the top, there’s a huge seam that likes to collect dirt.
But these complaints are trivial. In fact, I’ve found myself using the Magic Mouse at least as often as the Logitech MX Master 3 over the past month. When I’m done with it, tossing it onto a nearby MagSafe puck is much better than digging it out every time the Lightning cable dies. But it’s so stupid that things have come to this.
When the Magic Mouse came out, I really liked the multi-touch surface that allowed you to do all these different things with swipes and taps. There’s so much you can do with this single, curved piece of clear plastic that it feels like the future, especially next to the Magic Trackpad, which remains the best trackpad in tech.
But in practice, this is very awkward. The mouse is low and flat, and I never found a comfortable way to hold it while using it—could I put my hands on it like a big, fleshy blanket? Hold the sides of it with your fingertips? I would choose the latter, even though my hands sometimes cramp. Flipping the Magic Mouse over to charge always felt silly, even if it didn’t end up being that inconvenient. As more and more devices adopt wireless charging or USB-C, having to keep a Lightning cord nearby has become a minor annoyance. This grip solves both problems.
However, I think the silly shoe I put on the mouse may be more of a Band-Aid than a complete fix. Yes, to me it’s much more comfortable than the Magic Mouse alone, but after 15 years of using the same mouse, its existence is almost an affront to decency – by now, Apple can surely come up with more Something practical. However, here’s my magic mouse, just hanging in my shoe, somehow better and worse than before.
