You just reminded me of how stupid the plug beneath the MM was...You never needed to charge it, till you needed it and couldn't use the mouse.
Ergonimics, the polling rate, the way the glass gets greasy, the scratchy hard plastic on the bottom.
Truly, inferior to the Logitech MX Master in all ways except looks. (which is subjective).
But it takes literally a few seconds to get a days worth of charge out of the mouse, Apple clearly don't want you to leave it plugged in to use as a wired mouse: why? idk, because they hate choice, or perhaps its because they know it would overcharge the battery and bulge, or perhaps even still, people would get weird expectations about "wired being better for latency" despite the mouse not using the data connections on the wire.
We'll never know. But the charging on the bottom is such a non-issue in reality that it makes me wonder if anyone actually owned that mouse, or they just think it looks funny. Personally, I'd rather they fix the other issues with the mouse, the charging was legitimately never an issue.
I have personally been in meeting where my boss forgot to charge her magic mouse and we had to wait two minutes for her to open the stuff we needed to discuss. It happens.
But they've done incremental updates to the design since, they could have easily fixed that by now.
however i will say three years in, either a software update or hardware issue is now killing the battery and i have to charge it every week or two and that sucks
salty that i now have airpod pros, an iphone 13, and the magic keyboard and mouse all with their dumb lightning bolt or whatever it's called. going to have to rebuy all this to forever rid myself of non-usb-c cables but at least in 2024 it's finally happened as an option
Each of those times you walked away, did you ever try plugging it in, counting to ten and then continuing to use it afterwards? That's what I used to do.
I use a trackpad now though.
it annoys everyone, it's a dumb design, you get a message from your Mac telling you that the mouse has no charge and suddenly you can't work anymore for a few minutes, it's idiotic, plain and simple
You don't like the mouse, that's fine, I also don't like the mouse.
But unless you've actually used the mouse for an extended period: I don't think you understood the point that you:
A) don't need it plugged in constantly
and
B) if you charge it for a handful of seconds it lasts the rest of the day, meaning you don't actually have to stop working.
If I get the warning the mouse is getting low on charge I just plug it in, go grab a drink or use the bathroom, and by the time I get back it's good for the rest of the day.
Then all I have to do is remember to plug it in overnight and it'll be good for months. YMMV.
Plugging in for a few seconds to get a days worth of charge is a stupid thing to actually require or consider normal.
I also want to use my mouse tomorrow, and even the next day, and do so without having to plan ahead "today I will leave my mouse plugged in overnight because I can tell by clairvoyance that it is about to run out" or "I have been tracking the calender like a menstrual cycle and it's time, tonight is the night!" or "I have set up a sheduled alarm on my wonderful Apple Watch to remind me to go look at the settings somewhere to check the mouse battery level and see if it's time to charge tonight"...
And if you don't plan, then you have a few choices, charge for a minute and have to do it again without warning in 2 days, a constant stream of unplanned forced trips to the coffee maker, or just charge for 30 seconds every single day as a part of your routine, or stop and wait for a full charge on the spot for however long that is, or the worst of both worlds, get on with your day by charging for a minute now, and then don't fail to remember to plug it back in before leaving several hours of busy-ness later, which you absolutely will of course.
There is no version of any of that that is remotely convenient or sensible, and certainly not an upgrade from every other mouse in the world. There is no version of this that isn't patently ridiculous. You can work around it and tolerate it because it's not as bad as having to dig ditches for a living. If there was something about mice that the tech just didn't exist for it to work any other way, then sure it's possible to live with, because humans are adaptable. But it's not good, and it's not better than the already norm for $2 mice sice 20 years ago.
It's baffling weird to even try.
If you disable all notifications and it really runs out, waiting 10 seconds for it to charge is... fine...
I doubt you're using a wired mouse, and most wired mice are actually worse at charging than the magic mouse- the only difference is that you can use them while plugged in, so it's not as annoying that they charge so slow and use more power.
Ultimately it comes down to effective utility, people harping on about the placement of the charging cable without respect to the actual usability of the device holistically have quite literally missed the forest for the trees.
Like I said, theres plenty of reasons to dislike the mouse, but this ranks among the lowest and honestly the weird hate-boner for that decision just makes people look like they don't know what they're talking about to me.
As I said, you rarely needed to remember to charge it. Till you would in the midst of something.
Anyway, I never liked the MM so when I had my iMac I bought a magic trackpad (which you could charge while using, small bonus).
To me the plug placement was an inconvenience, regardless of how invisible it is to you.
On top of that, it never charged in few seconds after years of use, mine would take longer just to connect to the iMac again.
I was glad to buy magic trackpad I could leave connected 24/7 and never think about it (also I liked it much more than the MM in general).
People think it will be a problem, so make ignorant commentary about it being idiotic, yet in practice it's fine, and not the worst aspect of a terrible mouse.
It lasted so long, even after the warning, that I never got any urgency.
It's probably just Apple's usual arrogance. They could have easily designed the mouse so that you can keep using it while it's charging, but the designer chose otherwise. And because this is a minor enough issue, Apple doesn't have to fix it and admit that they were wrong.
That's quite contrary to my experience, granted I've only used two magic mice, one for 2 years in 2014-16, and another from 2020-2023.
It's possible that your experience is much more common though!
That thing charges annoyingly slowly and uses battery way faster than reasonable.
I have had and used both and the first version was MUCH less annoying. Swapping is an instant activity and back to business; remember to put it to charge later when you get a message is an unnecessary mental load and unrealistic expectation from the user, the technology is supposed to work for the user not the other way around. The fast-charging bullshit everyone talks about is just displacement of the problem, the next day you will get another interruption and mental load to remember to charge.
On top of that, the battery life is actually terrible, it's crazy how little useful life you get from it considering how heavy it is and how terrible the sensor is.
Personally, I really like the ability to "free scroll" in all direction on the surface and the 2-3 finger swipes but it's really not worth the hassle.
People boast about Apple trackpads being good but as far as I'm concerned, they don't have much choice considering that's the only thing they seem to be able to work out ok. Nobody on PCs wants to use trackpads, it makes no sense compared to the performance of a mouse and gestures are unreliable compared to mouse buttons/keyboard shortcuts/macro keys.