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"indicator only shows up when you happen to hover over it. WTF." My wife and I had this conversation the other day. There are things in iOS you only get or see

"indicator only shows up when you happen to hover over it. WTF." My wife and I had this conversation the other day. There are things in iOS you only get or see if you long press. How the hell are you to discover these things?

codetrotter 6y ago
> How the hell are you to discover these things? Sometimes by accident, sometimes from hearing about it from others, sometimes from searching on Google for how to do something.
andai 6y ago
I keep hearing about these secret iOS features. Is there a manual or something I should have read?
- userbinator 6y ago
  But "modern" software is perfectly usable without documentation! /s I miss the days when software actually came with very detailed documentation for the user. They had their hidden features too, but at least there was documentation for them.
  - iaml 6y ago
    Both ios and android have 'tips' app that fulfills this role and are hard to miss since they spam notifications at you.
chii 6y ago
It's a subtle psychological manipulation of the mind of the users of computers - stick to the simple use case, and don't do complicated things, don't try to be an advanced user, don't think for yourself and just consume what we tell you to. I hate it.
- echelon 6y ago
  > I hate it. There's nothing you can do. Computing stopped being about expert users the minute the rest of the world got online. Now the giants control all the devices, platforms, and mindshare. They will never cater to you. Informed users aren't the ones clicking the ads or buying the things as intended. We've crossed into the gravity well of user hostility, and there's no longer any escape. I hate it too.
  - Moru 6y ago
    The annoying part is that they still need help with a lot of stuff but now all I can say is "no, I just don't know." I used to be able to figure out just about anything they wanted help with, be it how to program the video or set up windows just the way they wanted or in worst case write a program that solved whatever for them. Now I just feel stupid. What happened?
- greggman3 6y ago
  This sounds like a great inspiration for a modern parody of "They Live" (1988)
Too 6y ago
Some times not even long pressing is enough. Try to find the timestamps of your texts in Messages on iOS. I spent several minutes bashing around, double tapping, longpress, force press, went into settings to look for toggles. Had to google it eventually. Turns out you do this by swiping left. And i had actually tried to swipe sideways before, but only right. Once you know it it's actually very convenient, but discovering it is near impossible.
rebuilder 6y ago
>How the hell are you to discover these things? The same way power users discover e.g. keyboard shortcuts, I imagine.
- userbinator 6y ago
  The same way power users discover e.g. keyboard shortcuts, I imagine. At least keyboard shortcuts are visible directly in the menus, for both Windows and Mac.
iFreilicht 6y ago
Long pressing is the equivalent of a right-click or shift-click, it's a well-established pattern. MacOS tried to avoid right-clicks for the longest time, but often there's just not enough space to have every feature discoverable by visuals alone. Of course, hiding everything behind that is not good, but when I look at apps like FairMail that try to show you what you can do directly, it just gets very confusing and the space left for the actual content becomes miniscule.

codetrotter 6y ago

> How the hell are you to discover these things? Sometimes by accident, sometimes from hearing about it from others, sometimes from searching on Google for how to do something.

andai 6y ago

I keep hearing about these secret iOS features. Is there a manual or something I should have read?

userbinator 6y ago
But "modern" software is perfectly usable without documentation! /s I miss the days when software actually came with very detailed documentation for the user. They had their hidden features too, but at least there was documentation for them.
- iaml 6y ago
  Both ios and android have 'tips' app that fulfills this role and are hard to miss since they spam notifications at you.

chii 6y ago

It's a subtle psychological manipulation of the mind of the users of computers - stick to the simple use case, and don't do complicated things, don't try to be an advanced user, don't think for yourself and just consume what we tell you to. I hate it.

echelon 6y ago
> I hate it. There's nothing you can do. Computing stopped being about expert users the minute the rest of the world got online. Now the giants control all the devices, platforms, and mindshare. They will never cater to you. Informed users aren't the ones clicking the ads or buying the things as intended. We've crossed into the gravity well of user hostility, and there's no longer any escape. I hate it too.
- Moru 6y ago
  The annoying part is that they still need help with a lot of stuff but now all I can say is "no, I just don't know." I used to be able to figure out just about anything they wanted help with, be it how to program the video or set up windows just the way they wanted or in worst case write a program that solved whatever for them. Now I just feel stupid. What happened?
greggman3 6y ago
This sounds like a great inspiration for a modern parody of "They Live" (1988)

Too 6y ago

Some times not even long pressing is enough. Try to find the timestamps of your texts in Messages on iOS. I spent several minutes bashing around, double tapping, longpress, force press, went into settings to look for toggles. Had to google it eventually. Turns out you do this by swiping left. And i had actually tried to swipe sideways before, but only right. Once you know it it's actually very convenient, but discovering it is near impossible.

rebuilder 6y ago

>How the hell are you to discover these things? The same way power users discover e.g. keyboard shortcuts, I imagine.

userbinator 6y ago
The same way power users discover e.g. keyboard shortcuts, I imagine. At least keyboard shortcuts are visible directly in the menus, for both Windows and Mac.

iFreilicht 6y ago

Long pressing is the equivalent of a right-click or shift-click, it's a well-established pattern. MacOS tried to avoid right-clicks for the longest time, but often there's just not enough space to have every feature discoverable by visuals alone. Of course, hiding everything behind that is not good, but when I look at apps like FairMail that try to show you what you can do directly, it just gets very confusing and the space left for the actual content becomes miniscule.