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Steve Jobs was heavily against hidden functionality (sorry there is a word for it I can't remember off the top of my head). It's why Macs had one-button mice fo

Steve Jobs was heavily against hidden functionality (sorry there is a word for it I can't remember off the top of my head). It's why Macs had one-button mice for so long. It wasn't until the third major revision of the OS that iPhones got copy+paste!

reitanqild 8y ago
> Steve Jobs was heavily against hidden functionality (sorry there is a word for it I can't remember off the top of my head). It's why Macs had one-button mice for so long. That doesn't make sense at all to me: The right click button on a mouse is visible. The Mac way of hiding it behind the ctrl key was non-discoverable and non-obvious to me.
- bb88 8y ago
  Or under pull down menus... or context menus... or... Force touch just seems like a different form of right mouse clicking.
  - submeta 8y ago
    I know a few people who - even after trying - can't make "force touch" work properly. I love it and try to show them. But they can't seem to make the effort to learn it.
    - Piskvorrr 8y ago
      Are you saying they are...holding it wrong?
    - dublin 8y ago
      I know at quite a few people that have not upgraded their iPhone 6-vintage phones simply because they found 3D/force Touch to be a really significantly negative feature, and just flat don't want it.
- eridius 8y ago
  Every single action that was available in the contextual menu (hidden "behind the ctrl key") was supposed to be available elsewhere as well, typically as an actual app menu item.
- coldtea 8y ago
  The idea wasn't to hide or show the context menu -- but to have those actions NOT need the context menu. E.g. to delete you didn't need to "right click, send to trash". You dragged the item to the trashcan.
- danellis 8y ago
  > sorry there is a word for it You're probably thinking of either discoverability or affordance.
TimTheTinker 8y ago
I think the word you're looking for is discoverability (or perhaps visibility). The problem with Solaris, Windows, and other desktop workstations at the time was that the second (and even third) mouse buttons were required for many workflows, especially in applications---i.e. a lot of functionality was only available from the right-click menu or via the middle mouse button. This introduced a lot of unnecessary complexity to computer use, especially for new users, because of low visibility and discoverability. Even today, Mac hardware never has a visible 2nd mouse/trackpad button. Sure, you can click a trackpad with 2 fingers or tap on the right side of a mouse to get a context menu, but keeping the buttons invisible forced these shortcuts to remain just that, and not an essential requirement to get the job done. Windows apps today follow this rule as well -- never make right-clicking the only way to execute a particular function.
- simonh 8y ago
  There were no other desktop workstations at the time, Solaris and Windows didn’t exist for years.
  - TimTheTinker 8y ago
    I’m talking about the early 1990’s.
- b1daly 8y ago
  Discoverability is a very hard problem on the small screen. I’m amazed at how often I actually know a function exists, and I try every conceivable type of interaction I can think of to no success. Then I google it. Damn the little tip about tapping the clock to jump is so handy, I have actually searched for how to do this and never came across a description of this feature.
- stereo 8y ago
  This, unfortunately, is slowly going away. The Home app in the new macOS, which has been ported over from iOS, is unusable if you don’t know how to two-finger-tap.
submeta 8y ago
> hidden functionality Easter eggs?
dublin 8y ago
Apple hides tons of stuff - often so well that they go missing for years. I hate to admit this (I'm an 8-time tech CTO), but I thought that Apple had made the bonehead decision to completely remove the iOS search feature after swiping to the left from the home screen stopped working (iOS 6?). It was literally years (at least iOS 10!) before I accidentally invoked the absolutely opaque "swipe down from the middle of a home screen" gesture to discover search was still possible. Actually, I wish any modern smartphone OS had half the thought put into it that Palm had 20 years ago. After all this time, nothing even comes close for contact and calendar management, as well as actual phone use!
- parasubvert 8y ago
  I had a Palm Pilot, Palm III and Treo, followed by BlackBerry. It wasn’t THAT great, poor graphics, slowness and weird quirks (also graffiti) but I agree it was visionary compared to everything else in the 90s. the blackberry was pretty amazing in 2000 and as a phone was a step up circa 2005. Though the Palm Pre had some great ideas we Are seeing now in iOS and Android. iOS became really good at calendar and contacts by around 2010 if I recall but I lived with it from 2007 onwards. Whenever a key feature in iOS seems missing I just google for where it went. iOS search is so essential that I couldn’t see it ever removed...

reitanqild 8y ago

> Steve Jobs was heavily against hidden functionality (sorry there is a word for it I can't remember off the top of my head). It's why Macs had one-button mice for so long. That doesn't make sense at all to me: The right click button on a mouse is visible. The Mac way of hiding it behind the ctrl key was non-discoverable and non-obvious to me.

bb88 8y ago
Or under pull down menus... or context menus... or... Force touch just seems like a different form of right mouse clicking.
- submeta 8y ago
  I know a few people who - even after trying - can't make "force touch" work properly. I love it and try to show them. But they can't seem to make the effort to learn it.
  - Piskvorrr 8y ago
    Are you saying they are...holding it wrong?
  - dublin 8y ago
    I know at quite a few people that have not upgraded their iPhone 6-vintage phones simply because they found 3D/force Touch to be a really significantly negative feature, and just flat don't want it.
eridius 8y ago
Every single action that was available in the contextual menu (hidden "behind the ctrl key") was supposed to be available elsewhere as well, typically as an actual app menu item.
coldtea 8y ago
The idea wasn't to hide or show the context menu -- but to have those actions NOT need the context menu. E.g. to delete you didn't need to "right click, send to trash". You dragged the item to the trashcan.
danellis 8y ago
> sorry there is a word for it You're probably thinking of either discoverability or affordance.

TimTheTinker 8y ago

I think the word you're looking for is discoverability (or perhaps visibility). The problem with Solaris, Windows, and other desktop workstations at the time was that the second (and even third) mouse buttons were required for many workflows, especially in applications---i.e. a lot of functionality was only available from the right-click menu or via the middle mouse button. This introduced a lot of unnecessary complexity to computer use, especially for new users, because of low visibility and discoverability. Even today, Mac hardware never has a visible 2nd mouse/trackpad button. Sure, you can click a trackpad with 2 fingers or tap on the right side of a mouse to get a context menu, but keeping the buttons invisible forced these shortcuts to remain just that, and not an essential requirement to get the job done. Windows apps today follow this rule as well -- never make right-clicking the only way to execute a particular function.

simonh 8y ago
There were no other desktop workstations at the time, Solaris and Windows didn’t exist for years.
- TimTheTinker 8y ago
  I’m talking about the early 1990’s.
b1daly 8y ago
Discoverability is a very hard problem on the small screen. I’m amazed at how often I actually know a function exists, and I try every conceivable type of interaction I can think of to no success. Then I google it. Damn the little tip about tapping the clock to jump is so handy, I have actually searched for how to do this and never came across a description of this feature.
stereo 8y ago
This, unfortunately, is slowly going away. The Home app in the new macOS, which has been ported over from iOS, is unusable if you don’t know how to two-finger-tap.

submeta 8y ago

> hidden functionality Easter eggs?

dublin 8y ago

Apple hides tons of stuff - often so well that they go missing for years. I hate to admit this (I'm an 8-time tech CTO), but I thought that Apple had made the bonehead decision to completely remove the iOS search feature after swiping to the left from the home screen stopped working (iOS 6?). It was literally years (at least iOS 10!) before I accidentally invoked the absolutely opaque "swipe down from the middle of a home screen" gesture to discover search was still possible. Actually, I wish any modern smartphone OS had half the thought put into it that Palm had 20 years ago. After all this time, nothing even comes close for contact and calendar management, as well as actual phone use!

parasubvert 8y ago
I had a Palm Pilot, Palm III and Treo, followed by BlackBerry. It wasn’t THAT great, poor graphics, slowness and weird quirks (also graffiti) but I agree it was visionary compared to everything else in the 90s. the blackberry was pretty amazing in 2000 and as a phone was a step up circa 2005. Though the Palm Pre had some great ideas we Are seeing now in iOS and Android. iOS became really good at calendar and contacts by around 2010 if I recall but I lived with it from 2007 onwards. Whenever a key feature in iOS seems missing I just google for where it went. iOS search is so essential that I couldn’t see it ever removed...