I would suggest another category might be in order, splitting the “No” votes into two subcategories.
-seriously tried it and rejected it.
-Not tried or superficially tried and rejected it.
My reading around suggests a lot of the No votes will be in the second category.
I have not voted yet, because I am have not seriously tried it on my Mac, but have just started using it as a result of this thread. I absolutely love it on my 12.9 iPad with MK, and feel seriously hampered without it. I am not sure I am going to feel the same on my 13” MBA.
You make a good point, and I’m pondering. The question is if there’s some sort of a requirement that you have tried a feature seriously before it’s legitimate to say that you don’t use it. I’m not sure there is. With Launchpad, for instance, I’ve used it only a handful of times because it doesn’t solve any problems I have—there was no need to use it to know that. Same for Stage Manager, though I’ll admit I tried it for a day on my Mac before starting the poll and found that I didn’t like it. And it didn’t solve any problems for me.
So I think I’m coming down on the side of not needing any more information about why someone voted No. In some cases, they may simply not have heard of the feature, and it’s up to them to decide if they want to try it before voting. Or they can change their vote—Discourse is happy to allow that.
As you saw with the Launchpad survey, I did expand the answers beyond the binary Yes/No because in that case (and I imagine many others) it’s a matter of extent. I chose not to do that with Stage Manager because it’s such a toggle—it’s either on or off.
I’m not sure I follow, or perhaps I’m sure that I don’t follow. If I know I have a problem, I might need to use it to know whether it solves the problem. If I don’t know I have a problem, then I probably need to use it to learn that it solves the problem I didn’t know I had. Am I taking your statement too much out of context?
Thank you for posting this Shortcut.
I installed it and I find it easy to use and easy to remember .
When I used to copy text from a .pdf with cmd-c, it was often a bit garbled, words run together, etc. This Shortcut uses the Apple capability and makes it into plain text - just what I need.
I’m talking about the third option. Your two are “I know I have a problem” and “I don’t know I have a problem,” whereas my scenario is “I know I don’t have a problem.” When that’s the case, I don’t bother to examine additional solutions.
I wish there were a way to find out which features of macOS I do not use. There must be thousands. On the one hand there are features such as Stage Manager that I have tried and found no value in. On the other there are features such as Shortcuts which I haven’t tried and haven’t found a reason to try.
For example, there are 16 apps in the macOS Utilities menu. I have used 6 of them, some frequently such as Terminal, some rarely such as Keychain. So there are 10 whole apps, let alone individual features of other apps, which presumably Apple thinks are worthwhile but which I have never found a use for.
Every user has different needs so there are a couple of lessons here. First, I am grateful to Apple for supporting a multiplicity of techniques and approaches to select from. Second, it would be really useful if there were a way for us to share, as some have done in this exchange, how we use particular features to solve problems or save time.
These are lovely features to be reminded of, thanks!
They are a little conceptually different from the other things I’ve been talking about, though. With features like Stage Manager and Launchpad, Apple is making a big deal of them and pushing us to use them. The features you’ve called out are the little hidden features that Apple never mentions anywhere but which can make a huge difference in everyday productivity (I use them all too).
I’ll have to think about how to incorporate these into the survey questions—perhaps there should be a “I didn’t know about this feature but I plan to use it now that I do” answer. Or people could be encouraged to try the feature and then come back to vote later. Or both—Discourse lets you change your vote.
Fair enough….my concern is that the results will be misinterpreted. A feature that is not used by 90% users (like Stage Manager on iPad) will be interpreted by a casual reader meaning it is a useless or poorly designed feature, and not worth investigating……which is a pity. Many people resist change and will be happy to have their attitude confirmed!
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When that’s the case, I don’t bother to examine additional solutions.