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There’s a new firmware available for Apple’s Magic Mouse – but you probably won’t get it

You may already be familiar with accessories such as AirPods and AirTag getting firmware updates with improvements. However, there are other accessories such as mouse and keyboards that also get such updates. Apple has just released new firmware for its Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad accessories – however, you probably won’t get this update for your devices.

Apple has released new firmware for Magic Mouse and Trackpad

Top comment by Aaaaea

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To be totally fair, most of these updates only change the attributes associated with the Magic Accessory, such as color (so the correct video plays inside their System Preferences tab to match the color and revision of your peripheral, which they got rid of anyway and replaced with generic animations in Ventura), layout (in the case of keyboards), and hardware revision (as you know, the 2021 and later Magic Keyboards and Trackpads have more rounded corners and some function keys are different, so the OS has to recognize that, and these updates do exactly that by updating those attributes). The functionality has remained the same since launch, so have the Bluetooth components and all internals basically minus Touch ID in very select models; they are still the same version from 2015, and no updates that address battery life, stability, or accuracy have ever been made. All of these have stayed the same as far as all my tests have shown, and I have each and every single Magic Accessory generation almost, so I'd know; these are rather simple devices after all and all the new logic and changes that has been added over the years like three-finger drag on trackpads and natural scrolling have been done by updating the Mac-side of the equation and not the peripheral itself.

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As noted by X user @aaronp613, Apple released new firmware for its Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad on Monday. The new firmware is version 3.1.1. However, updating these accessories is quite difficult – not to say impossible.

Although macOS has mechanisms for updating Apple accessories, many users have noticed over the years that their devices are stuck with their original factory firmware. For example, my own Magic Mouse bought in 2020 still runs firmware 1.9.2. In other words, the new firmware is likely to be shipped with new hardware and current owners won’t get the update.

There are also no details on what’s new with today’s firmware update. Most likely it will just fix bugs and improve the reliability of the accessories.

Although you can’t easily update your Magic Mouse or Trackpad, owners of 2nd generation AirPods Pro will get a firmware update this fall with new features, including gestures to answer and decline calls. The update is part of iOS 18, which is currently available as a beta for developers.

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Avatar for Filipe Espósito Filipe Espósito

Filipe Espósito is a Brazilian tech Journalist who started covering Apple news on iHelp BR with some exclusive scoops — including the reveal of the new Apple Watch Series 5 models in titanium and ceramic. He joined 9to5Mac to share even more tech news around the world.