| > How often I do not think the frequency of needing that functionality is really relevant when you need to use it - you can either do it or you cannot. But there are users who do need to use applications that capture the screen way more often than once every two weeks. One example would be Twitch and YouTube streamers (not necessarily about games - many stream other things, like creating art, programming, composing music, etc) who do that for several hours every day. > do you think most users There is no point talking about "most users" because really anything can be attributed to what "most users" do or do not - "most users" is not something that is well defined. We can only talk about specific use cases. After all, all users (which by definition include most users) start as not being able to do anything, that doesn't mean the OS should not be able to do anything. > As an iOS developer I run Xscope to check details of designs, I don't know, maybe once every two weeks? And I guess I've probably used Acorn's color picker outside its own window during the last year, but I'm not sure about that. These are also useful examples for cases where you need screen reading, but these are really niche. The most common is probably streaming, as i mentioned above, but there are also other cases where you need frequent screen reading capabilities - for example documentation writers will often need to capture parts of the OS, either as screenshots or as short video segments (for interactive docs) to use as part of the documentation. It is also very helpful for customer support - in both sides of the equation (in a company i worked many years ago, the employee responsible for tech support had SnagIt open all the time). > I'd appreciate a warning from the operating system when an app tries to do that. I suspect that if that warning comes as part of your screenshot or video capture you wont appreciate it that much :-P |
That's why I think questions about frequency and "most users" (nebulous term, I admit) come into play: yes/no permission dialogs aren't the best and many users do just click through them without thinking, but there's a world of difference between asking several times a day and asking a couple of times a month.
If my usage is far below average, then I agree that it's probably better not try to restrict it. If, as I would guess, I use it more than most, then it feels exceptional enough that letting the user know when it's happening would be fine.
If you could give a permanent permission to a given app, I'd imagine even the daily streamers wouldn't be too badly inconvenienced.