Specifically their “Innovative Scroll Ball.”
From the Apple site:
Innovative Scroll Ball and button
Perfectly positioned to roll smoothly under just one finger, Mighty Mouse’s Scroll Ball offers full 360-degree scrolling capability — up/down, left/right and diagonally. You can scroll long web pages, pan full-size images, maneuver around large spreadsheets, control a video timeline and more. And you can even click the Scroll Ball to access your favorite Tiger features such as Dashboard, Spotlight or Exposé.
Yes, the scroll ball does roll smoothly under just one finger but once it gets dirty, getting it to work properly again takes serious effort and I just don’t have the time to break out the rubbing alcohol and a Q-Tip® once a week. Of course when that doesn’t work, there’s the tips from the Apple forums to get the badly-designed scroll ball to work again which requires pressing down really hard on the scroll ball and moving it around in hopes that it will do what it’s intended to do—scroll down a page.
I’m off to shop for a new mouse!
My name’s Jen; I’m a cynical, sarcastic, ex-drummer who is fond of dark humor. I've held way too many factory & retail jobs but finally found my calling one Christmas holiday in a dark, musty basement. I am now a CSS & XHTML web standards looney and can be found daily—when I’m not at my Mac—at the local fair-trade coffee shop buying an iced-soy mocha no matter the temperature.
I am also the owner of Pop Stalin Design specializing in CSS & XHTML web design as well as custom WordPress themes.
So far the mouse scrolls more smoothly, but I just substituted an old Kensington wheel mouse because the Mighty Mouse’s tiny scroll ball irritates my index finger far more than the rubber-padded wheel. Not as smooth a scroll, but that irritation is distracting when you are scrolling many lengthy documents while researching.
I hate hate hate my Mighty Mouse. It is sooooooooo slow, I have the worst carpet tunnel just from using it a year now and the entire right side of my body hurts due to the constant crawling, it is like shifting a piece of lead over the table and onto the screen. Oh my, the mighty mouse is just the slowest piece of equipment I have ever owned. Curse the MM, curse it! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…they should have called it mighty snail. Do not buy this product. I had to vent, sorry…I love my MAC otherwise. I do.
@Bill-
Sorry your first Mac experience hasn’t been a pleasant one but I can honestly say since I made the switch almost 10 years ago, I’d never go back. I’m guessing you’re having some rare issues.
@Richard-
Couldn’t agree more. I had to go to the Genius bar the other day and I watched this woman bring in her Mighty Mouse and the guy told her they sell a “special cloth” to help clean it. I thought to myself, why not create a better mouse? Oh well!
I love my Mac but i hate the mouse! I think i’ve cursed it about a million times and bought me a nice Logitech wich clicks where i want it to, doesn’t hurt my hand and has a wheel that doesn’t jam all the time! Mightymouse sucks big time!
Just got off the phone w/mac tech guy who says he’s not aware of any problems. Asked him about sending the computer back (my first mac). After he talked to his svisor he told me wthn 14 days. Been almost a month. Screwed. Unlike most, my biggest complaint is the two-speed feature wherein the thing slows down to a crawl when you get half inch from the icon you want to click. I would NOT recommend anyone switch to mac. Just deal with Vista on a PC, the devil you know.