In Windows, when you have Windows Explorer open, if you tap a key, it will take you to the first file starting with that key. Tap it again, and it will iterate one down the line.

This behaviour does not exist on Macs. In fact, I was continually annoyed when I would have my application window open and wanted to get to CocoaMySQL. The first c would do what I expect, the second, to something entirely random (to me).

I was complaining about this to Enrico one late night when he pointed out that it was actually trying to match the entire string of letters I typed in a short bit of time. That is, if I type “Sh” I’d find it matching “Shoes.app” instead of matching the first thing that started with h — the default windows behaviour.

This is a much better way of doing things, but it confused me because, up until recently, I was using a different operating system.

Check your assumptions indeed.