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Comment by notadoc | Hacker News Reader

I like that too, but how many users know about that? 0.5%? Is it obvious and intuitive?

Might not be entirely obvious and intuitive, but it's not required as well. I mean, iOS did without it for 10 years.

People complain about iOS not being for 'power users', but when they add features in like a secondary click or more fine-grained control, people complain about it not being obvious. How obvious is right clicking on a computer to bring up special features?

> How obvious is right clicking on a computer to bring up special features?

Well considering that most mice have 2 or 3 obvious physical buttons I would say the right-click on a mouse is pretty obvious. It has also be deeply ingrained in every Windows user since Windows 3.11 (maybe earlier?)

I would try spending time with an "average user". They do not use right click, nor keyboard shortcuts (which have also been around for ages). The average user is a basic user.

How many computer users can operate a command line interface? It's not obvious or intuitive but obviously very powerful.

You really think the command line is of comparable complexity to simple text selection?

No, but but these are non-discoverable features, generally only used by enthusiastic users who have a deeper knowledge of the system they are using.

I would say that wanting to select text efficiently and effectively is not limited to enthusiasts. I get what you're saying, I just don't think it applies to a lot of the enigmatic UI/UX of post-Jobs (post-Forstall?) iOS.

I don't know anyone who hasn't discovered that one

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