A graphical user interface , or GUI ( / ˈ ɡ uː i / GOO -ee ), is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and visual indicators such as secondary notation . In many applications, GUIs are used instead of text-based UIs , which are based on typed command labels or text navigation. GUIs were introduced in reaction to the perceived steep learning curve of command-line interfaces (CLIs), which require commands to be typed on a computer keyboard .
106-399: The Dock is a prominent feature of the graphical user interface of macOS . It is used to launch applications and to switch between running applications. The Dock is also a prominent feature of macOS's predecessor NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP operating systems. The earliest known implementations of a dock are found in operating systems such as RISC OS and NeXTSTEP. iOS has its own version of
212-405: A digital zoom shortcut ( iPhone 7 Plus , iOS 10 ). Some camera settings such as video resolution and frame rate are not adjustable through the camera interface itself, but are outsourced to the system settings. A new feature in iOS 13 called "context menus" shows related actions when you touch and hold an item. When the context menu is displayed, the background is blurred. To choose from
318-400: A modal window and could not be viewed after being dismissed. In iOS 5, Apple introduced Notification Center , which allows users to view a history of notifications. The user can tap a notification to open its corresponding app, or clear it. Notifications are now delivered in banners that appear briefly at the top of the screen. If a user taps a received notification, the application that sent
424-470: A GUI and some level of a CLI, although the GUIs usually receive more attention. GUI wrappers find a way around the command-line interface versions (CLI) of (typically) Linux and Unix-like software applications and their text-based UIs or typed command labels. While command-line or text-based applications allow users to run a program non-interactively, GUI wrappers atop them avoid the steep learning curve of
530-525: A GUI are usually performed through direct manipulation of the graphical elements. Beyond computers, GUIs are used in many handheld mobile devices such as MP3 players, portable media players, gaming devices, smartphones and smaller household, office and industrial controls . The term GUI tends not to be applied to other lower- display resolution types of interfaces , such as video games (where head-up displays ( HUDs ) are preferred), or not including flat screens like volumetric displays because
636-454: A basic human right. Building into the core of our products supports a vision of an inclusive world where opportunity and access to information are barrier-free, empowering individuals with disabilities to achieve their goals". Criticism has been aimed at iOS depending on both internet connection (either WiFi or through iTunes) and a working SIM card upon first activation. This restriction has been loosened in iOS 12, which no longer requires
742-410: A combination of technologies and devices to provide a platform that users can interact with, for the tasks of gathering and producing information. A series of elements conforming a visual language have evolved to represent information stored in computers. This makes it easier for people with few computer skills to work with and use computer software. The most common combination of such elements in GUIs
848-403: A dock at the bottom where users can pin their most frequently used apps. iOS home screens are typically made up of app icons and widgets ; app icons launch the associated app, whereas widgets display live, auto-updating content, such as a weather forecast , the user's email inbox, or a news ticker directly on the home screen. The home screen appears whenever the user unlocks the device, presses
954-600: A feature called the Icon bar , which is remarkably similar to the macOS Dock. The Icon Bar was first implemented in 1987 for the first version of RISC OS, named Arthur . Microsoft implemented a simplified dock feature in the Windows Desktop Update that shipped with Internet Explorer 4 . This Quick Launch toolbar feature remained until Windows 7 , where it was replaced by the Superbar , which implements functionality similar to
1060-462: A few months after the release of iPhone OS 3.2, which brought the feature to all iPhone and iPod Touch models that could run the operating system, with the exception of the iPhone 3G and the iPod touch (2nd generation) due to performance issues with icon animations. iOS 7 introduced a parallax effect on the Home Screen, which shifts the device's wallpaper and icons in response to the movement of
1166-505: A few options, a selection control is used. Selectors can appear anchored at the bottom or in line with the content (called date selectors). Date selectors take on the appearance of any other selection control, but with a column for day, month, and optionally year. Alerts appear in the center of the screen, but there are also alerts that scroll up from the bottom of the screen (called "action panels"). Destructive actions (such as eliminating any element) are colored red. The official font of iOS
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#17330845135671272-505: A grid of items with rows of text extending sideways from the icon. Multi-row and multi-column layouts commonly found on the web are "shelf" and "waterfall". The former is found on image search engines , where images appear with a fixed height but variable length, and is typically implemented with the CSS property and parameter display: inline-block; . A waterfall layout found on Imgur and TweetDeck with fixed width but variable height per item
1378-476: A iOS 7 blur effect. In iPhone OS 1 to 3, the dock used a metal look which looks similar to the front of the Power Mac G5 (2003-2005) and Mac Pro (2006-2012 or 2019-). iPhone OS 3.2 for iPad and iOS 4 to 6 adopted the dock design from Mac OS X 10.5 to 10.7 which was used until iOS 7, which uses a similar dock from Mac OS X Tiger but with iOS 7 styled blur effects. In iOS 11 , the dock for the iPad and iPhone X
1484-407: A program is not running by showing an ellipsis below its icon. If the program is running, there isn't an ellipsis on the icon. In macOS, running applications have been variously identified by a small black triangle (Mac OS X 10.0-10.4) a blue-tinted luminous dot (Mac OS X 10.5-10.7), a horizontal light bar (OS X 10.8 and 10.9), and a simple black or white dot (OS X 10.10-present). In macOS, however,
1590-506: A program was busy. Additionally, it was the first GUI to introduce something resembling Virtual Desktops . Windows 95 , accompanied by an extensive marketing campaign, was a major success in the marketplace at launch and shortly became the most popular desktop operating system. In 2007, with the iPhone and later in 2010 with the introduction of the iPad , Apple popularized the post-WIMP style of interaction for multi-touch screens, and those devices were considered to be milestones in
1696-474: A retail store, airline self-ticket and check-in, information kiosks in a public space, like a train station or a museum, and monitors or control screens in an embedded industrial application which employ a real-time operating system (RTOS). Cell phones and handheld game systems also employ application specific touchscreen GUIs. Newer automobiles use GUIs in their navigation systems and multimedia centers, or navigation multimedia center combinations. A GUI uses
1802-463: A review of Mac OS X v10.0 the following year, he also noted that the Dock does far too many tasks than it should for optimum ease-of-use, including launching apps, switching apps, opening files, and holding minimized windows. Siracusa further criticized the Dock after the release of Mac OS X v10.5 , noting that it was made less usable for the sake of eye-candy. Siracusa criticized the 3D look and reflections,
1908-414: A short sequence of words and symbols. Custom functions may be used to facilitate access to frequent actions. Command-line interfaces are more lightweight , as they only recall information necessary for a task; for example, no preview thumbnails or graphical rendering of web pages. This allows greater efficiency and productivity once many commands are learned. But reaching this level takes some time because
2014-472: A single app that looks the same on any iOS device. In addition to defining the iOS interface, UIKit defines the functionality of the application. At first, Apple did not intend to release an SDK to developers, because they did not want third-party apps to be developed for iOS, building web apps instead. However, this technology never entered into common use, this led Apple to change its opinion, so in October 2007
2120-428: A system or moved about to different places during redesigns. Also, icons and dialog boxes are usually harder for users to script. WIMPs extensively use modes , as the meaning of all keys and clicks on specific positions on the screen are redefined all the time. Command-line interfaces use modes only in limited forms, such as for current directory and environment variables . Most modern operating systems provide both
2226-514: A usability consultant who worked for Apple in the 1980s and 1990s before Mac OS X was developed, wrote an article in 2001 listing ten problems he saw with the Dock. This article was updated in 2004, removing two of the original criticisms and adding a new one. One of his concerns was that the Dock uses too much screen space. Another was that icons only show their labels when the pointer hovers over them, so similar-looking folders, files, and windows are difficult to distinguish. Tognazzini also criticized
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#17330845135672332-406: A user is directed to the home screen, which is the primary navigation and information "hub" on iOS devices, analogous to the desktop found on personal computers. iOS home screens are typically made up of app icons and widgets ; app icons launch the associated app, whereas widgets display live, auto-updating content, such as a weather forecast , the user's email inbox, or a news ticker directly on
2438-434: A user's ears. Additional customization available for Made for iPhone products include battery tracking and adjustable sound settings for different environments. Apple made further efforts for accessibility for the release of iOS 10 in 2016, adding a new pronunciation editor to VoiceOver, adding a Magnifier setting to enlarge objects through the device's camera, software TTY support for deaf people to make phone calls from
2544-464: A way for a user to control certain playback options. Other Applications include changing the status of an online alias (MSN, AIM/iChat etc.) or automatically saving the changes that have been made in a document (There is no current application with this feature made available for macOS). Docklings (in Mac OS X 10.4 or earlier) can also be opened by using the right-mouse button, if the mouse has one, but most of
2650-420: Is San Francisco . It is designed for small text readability, and is used throughout the operating system, including third-party apps. The icons are 180x180px in size for iPhones with a larger screen, usually models over 6 inches, including iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 8 Plus , while they are 120x120px on iPhones with smaller displays. The home screen, rendered by SpringBoard , displays application icons and
2756-664: Is a related technology that promises to deliver the representation benefits of 3D environments without their usability drawbacks of orientation problems and hidden objects. In 2006, Hillcrest Labs introduced the first ZUI for television. Other innovations include the menus on the PlayStation 2 , the menus on the Xbox , Sun's Project Looking Glass , Metisse , which was similar to Project Looking Glass, BumpTop , where users can manipulate documents and windows with realistic movement and physics as if they were physical documents, Croquet OS , which
2862-446: Is built for collaboration, and compositing window managers such as Enlightenment and Compiz . Augmented reality and virtual reality also make use of 3D GUI elements. 3D GUIs have appeared in science fiction literature and films , even before certain technologies were feasible or in common use. IOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS ) is a mobile operating system developed by Apple exclusively for its devices . It
2968-463: Is completely free, aimed at acquiring specific technical skills on the creation and management of applications for the Apple ecosystem platforms. At the academy there are also issues of business administration (business planning and business management with a focus on digital opportunities) and there is a path dedicated to the design of graphical interfaces . Students have the opportunity to participate in
3074-417: Is especially common with applications designed for Unix-like operating systems. The latter used to be implemented first because it allowed the developers to focus exclusively on their product's functionality without bothering about interface details such as designing icons and placing buttons. Designing programs this way also allows users to run the program in a shell script . Many environments and games use
3180-433: Is identical. Mac OS X 10.5 to 10.7 presents the applications on a three-dimensional glassy surface from a perspective instead of the traditional flat one, resembling Sun Microsystems ' Project Looking Glass application dock. OS X 10.8 to 10.9 changes the look to resemble frosted glass with rounded corners. OS X 10.10 and later revert to a two-dimensional appearance, similar to Mac OS X 10.4, although more translucent and with
3286-421: Is possible to interact directly, for example by replying to a message directly from it. Notifications are sent in two modes, critical alerts that are displayed on the lock screen and signaled by a distinctive sound and vibration (e.g. emergency alerts or severe weather alerts), accompanied by a warning banner and the app badge icon, and standard alerts which use a default sound and vibration. Both can be found in
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3392-445: Is redesigned to more resemble the macOS dock. The classic Mac OS does have a dock-like application called Launcher, which was first introduced with Macintosh Performa models in 1993 and later included as part of System 7.5.1 . It performs the same basic function. Also, add-ons such as DragThing added a dock for users of earlier versions. MacOS was not the first operating system to implement dock-like features. RISC OS contains
3498-655: Is represented by rotating a cube with faces representing each user's workspace, and window management is represented via a Rolodex -style flipping mechanism in Windows Vista (see Windows Flip 3D ). In both cases, the operating system transforms windows on-the-fly while continuing to update the content of those windows. The GUI is usually WIMP-based, although occasionally other metaphors surface, such as those used in Microsoft Bob , 3dwm, File System Navigator, File System Visualizer , 3D Mailbox, and GopherVR . Zooming (ZUI)
3604-440: Is the windows, icons, text fields, canvases, menus, pointer ( WIMP ) paradigm, especially in personal computers . The WIMP style of interaction uses a virtual input device to represent the position of a pointing device's interface , most often a mouse , and presents information organized in windows and represented with icons . Available commands are compiled together in menus, and actions are performed making gestures with
3710-551: Is usually implemented by specifying column-width: . Smaller app mobile devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and smartphones typically use the WIMP elements with different unifying metaphors, due to constraints in space and available input devices. Applications for which WIMP is not well suited may use newer interaction techniques , collectively termed post-WIMP UIs. As of 2011, some touchscreen-based operating systems such as Apple's iOS ( iPhone ) and Android use
3816-669: The Apple Public Source License and other licenses, iOS is proprietary software . In 2005, when Steve Jobs began planning the iPhone , he had a choice to either "shrink the Mac, which would be an epic feat of engineering, or enlarge the iPod". Jobs favored the former approach but pitted the Macintosh and iPod teams, led by Scott Forstall and Tony Fadell , respectively, against each other in an internal competition, with Forstall winning by creating iPhone OS. The decision enabled
3922-676: The Worldwide Developer Conference , the annual Apple Developer Conference held annually in California in early June. On June 3, 2019, iPadOS , the branded version of iOS for iPad, was announced at the 2019 WWDC; it was launched on September 25, 2019. The iOS user interface is based upon direct manipulation , using multi-touch gestures such as swipe , tap , pinch , and reverse pinch . Interface control elements include sliders, switches, and buttons. Internal accelerometers are used by some applications to respond to shaking
4028-681: The Xerox Star . These early systems spurred many other GUI efforts, including Lisp machines by Symbolics and other manufacturers, the Apple Lisa (which presented the concept of menu bar and window controls ) in 1983, the Apple Macintosh 128K in 1984, and the Atari ST with Digital Research 's GEM , and Commodore Amiga in 1985. Visi On was released in 1983 for the IBM PC compatible computers, but
4134-498: The cursor (or rather pointer ) control: mouse , pointing stick , touchpad , trackball , joystick , virtual keyboards , and head-up displays (translucent information devices at the eye level). There are also actions performed by programs that affect the GUI. For example, there are components like inotify or D-Bus to facilitate communication between computer programs. Ivan Sutherland developed Sketchpad in 1963, widely held as
4240-452: The iPad tablet computer. These apps have collectively been downloaded more than 130 billion times. App intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimated that the App Store would reach 5 million apps by 2020. In September 2007, Apple announced the iPod Touch , a redesigned iPod based on the iPhone form factor. On January 27, 2010, Apple introduced their much-anticipated media tablet ,
4346-415: The iPhone 4 and its Retina Display , and retained Helvetica as the system font for older iPhone devices on iOS 4. With iOS 7, Apple announced that they would change the system font to Helvetica Neue Light, a decision that sparked criticism for inappropriate usage of a light, thin typeface for low-resolution mobile screens. Apple eventually chose Helvetica Neue instead. The release of iOS 7 also introduced
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4452-489: The "Enterprise Track", an in-depth training experience on the entire life cycle of an app, from design to implementation, to security, troubleshooting , data storage and cloud usage. As of 2020, the academy graduated almost a thousand students from all over the world, who have worked on 400 app ideas and have already published about 50 apps on the iOS App Store . In the 2018–2019 academic year, students from more than 30 countries arrived. 35 of these have been selected to attend
4558-623: The "IOS" trademark from Cisco. The Apple Watch smartwatch was announced by Tim Cook on September 9, 2014, being introduced as a product with health and fitness-tracking. It was released on April 24, 2015. It uses watchOS as its operating system; watchOS is based on iOS, with new features created specially for the Apple Watch such as an activity tracking app. In October 2016, Apple opened its first iOS Developer Academy in Naples inside University of Naples Federico II 's new campus. The course
4664-616: The 1970s, Engelbart's ideas were further refined and extended to graphics by researchers at Xerox PARC and specifically Alan Kay , who went beyond text-based hyperlinks and used a GUI as the main interface for the Smalltalk programming language , which ran on the Xerox Alto computer , released in 1973. Most modern general-purpose GUIs are derived from this system. The Xerox PARC GUI consisted of graphical elements such as windows , menus , radio buttons , and check boxes . The concept of icons
4770-472: The App Store, iTunes Library, iBookstore , Contacts, and Notes. Content is downloadable via Wi-Fi and optional 3G service or synced through the user's computer. AT&T was initially the sole U.S. provider of 3G wireless access for the iPad. In June 2010, Apple rebranded iPhone OS as "iOS". The trademark "IOS" had been used by Cisco for over a decade for its operating system, IOS , used on its routers. To avoid any potential lawsuit, Apple licensed
4876-674: The Apple Developer Program. Over the years, the Apple Store apps surpassed multiple major milestones, including 50,000, 100,000, 250,000, 500,000, 1 million, and 2 million apps. The billionth application was installed on April 24, 2009. App Library automatically categorizes apps into folders based on their function or type and incluses an alphabetical list of all installed apps. For example, it might group all social media apps into one folder and productivity apps into another. Users can quickly find and access apps by using
4982-422: The Dock for the iPhone and iPod Touch , as does iPadOS for the iPad . Apple applied for a US patent for the design of the Dock in 1999 and was granted the patent in October 2008, nearly a decade later. Any application can be dragged and dropped onto the Dock to add it to the dock, and any application can be dragged from the dock to remove it, except for Finder and Trash , which are permanent fixtures as
5088-405: The Dock is used as a repository for any program or file in the operating system. It can hold any number of items and resizes them dynamically to fit while using magnification to better view smaller items. By default, it appears on the bottom edge of the screen, but it can also instead be placed on the left or right edges of the screen if the user wishes. Applications that do not normally keep icons in
5194-522: The Dock will still appear there when running and remain until they are quit. These features are unlike those of the dock in the NeXT operating systems where the capacity of the Dock is dependent on display resolution . This may be an attempt to recover some Shelf functionality since macOS inherits no other such technology from NeXTSTEP. (Minimal Shelf functionality has been implemented in the Finder .) The changes to
5300-563: The Document Picker and Document Provider extensions as part of the document interaction controller. This allows apps to open, save, and interact with documents stored in a central location or cloud storage services. With iOS 11, Apple introduced the Files app and the File Provider extension, providing a central location for users to manage and organize their files. Apps can integrate with
5406-503: The Files app to make their documents accessible and editable directly from the Files app. The storage of iOS devices can be expanded through iCloud , the Apple's cloud-based storage solution that provides 5GB of storage for free to all users, while other plans require a paid subscription. iCloud Drive allows users to store various types of files, such as documents, presentations, and spreadsheets, in
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#17330845135675512-506: The GUIs advantages, many reviewers questioned the value of the entire concept, citing hardware limits, and problems in finding compatible software. In 1984, Apple released a television commercial which introduced the Apple Macintosh during the telecast of Super Bowl XVIII by CBS , with allusions to George Orwell 's noted novel Nineteen Eighty-Four . The goal of the commercial was to make people think about computers, identifying
5618-574: The Home screen is granted. In iPhone OS 3, Spotlight was introduced, allowing users to search media, apps, emails, contacts, messages, reminders, calendar events, and similar content. In iOS 7 and later, Spotlight is accessed by pulling down anywhere on the home screen (except for the top and bottom edges that open Notification Center and Control Center). In iOS 9, there are two ways to access Spotlight. As with iOS 7 and 8, pulling down on any homescreen will show Spotlight. However, it can also be accessed as it
5724-484: The Notification Center, and show for a set amount of time on the lock screen (unless the user has Notification Center allowed when locked). On iPhones with Touch ID, screenshots can be created with the simultaneous press of the home and power buttons. In comparison to Android , which requires the buttons to be held down, a short press does suffice on iOS. On iPhone with Face ID, screenshots are captured using
5830-452: The SDK for developers was announced, finally released on March 6, 2008. The SDK includes an inclusive set of development tools, including an audio mixer and an iPhone simulator. It is a free download for Mac users. It is not available for Microsoft Windows PCs. To test the application, get technical support, and distribute applications through App Store , developers are required to subscribe to
5936-529: The Settings. It is possible to manage brightness, volume, wireless connections, music player, etc. Scrolling from the top left to the bottom (or top to bottom on iPhones with Touch ID) will open the Notification Center , which in the latest versions of iOS is very similar to the lock screen. It displays notifications in chronological order and groups them by application. From the notifications of some apps it
6042-409: The ability to scale text or apply other forms of text accessibility changes through Settings. With iOS 9, Apple changed the font to San Francisco , an Apple-designed font aimed at maximum legibility and font consistency across its product lineup. iOS 4 introduced folders, which can be created by dragging an application on top of another, and from then on, more items can be added to the folder using
6148-451: The ability to use custom prompts for encouraging users to leave reviews for their apps. IOS applications can also be installed directly from an IPA file provided by the software distributor, via unofficial ways. They are written using iOS Software Development Kit (SDK) and, often, combined with Xcode , using officially supported programming languages, including Swift and Objective-C . Other companies have also created tools that allow for
6254-577: The app clears the badge. iOS devices come with preinstalled apps developed by Apple including Mail, Maps, TV, Music, FaceTime, Wallet, Health, and many more. Applications (" apps ") are the most general form of application software that can be installed on iOS. They are downloaded from the official catalog of the App Store digital store, where apps are subjected to security checks before being made available to users. In June 2017, Apple updated its guidelines to specify that app developers will no longer have
6360-401: The class of GUIs named post-WIMP. These support styles of interaction using more than one finger in contact with a display, which allows actions such as pinching and rotating, which are unsupported by one pointer and mouse. Human interface devices , for the efficient interaction with a GUI include a computer keyboard , especially used together with keyboard shortcuts , pointing devices for
6466-411: The cloud. These files can be accessed across multiple devices as long as the user is signed in with the same Apple ID. iOS offers various accessibility features to help users with vision and hearing disabilities. One major feature, VoiceOver , provides a voice reading information on the screen, including contextual buttons, icons, links and other user interface elements, and allows the user to navigate
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#17330845135676572-457: The command words may not be easily discoverable or mnemonic . Also, using the command line can become slow and error-prone when users must enter long commands comprising many parameters or several different filenames at once. However, windows, icons, menus, pointer ( WIMP ) interfaces present users with many widgets that represent and can trigger some of the system's available commands. GUIs can be made quite hard when dialogs are buried deep in
6678-413: The command-line, which requires commands to be typed on the keyboard . By starting a GUI wrapper, users can intuitively interact with, start, stop, and change its working parameters, through graphical icons and visual indicators of a desktop environment , for example. Applications may also provide both interfaces, and when they do the GUI is usually a WIMP wrapper around the command-line version. This
6784-571: The designer's work to change the interface as user needs evolve. Good GUI design relates to users more, and to system architecture less. Large widgets, such as windows , usually provide a frame or container for the main presentation content such as a web page, email message, or drawing. Smaller ones usually act as a user-input tool. A GUI may be designed for the requirements of a vertical market as application-specific GUIs. Examples include automated teller machines (ATM), point of sale (POS) touchscreens at restaurants, self-service checkouts used in
6890-485: The development of mobile devices . The GUIs familiar to most people as of the mid-late 2010s are Microsoft Windows , macOS , and the X Window System interfaces for desktop and laptop computers, and Android , Apple's iOS , Symbian , BlackBerry OS , Windows Phone / Windows 10 Mobile , Tizen , WebOS , and Firefox OS for handheld ( smartphone ) devices. Since the commands available in command line interfaces can be many, complex operations can be performed using
6996-496: The development of native iOS apps using their respective programming languages. Applications for iOS are mostly built using components of UIKit , a programming framework. It allows applications to have a consistent look and feel with the OS, nevertheless offering customization. Elements automatically update along with iOS updates, automatically including new interface rules. UIKit elements are very adaptable, this allows developers to design
7102-464: The device (one common result is the undo command) or rotating it in three dimensions (one common result is switching between portrait and landscape mode). Various accessibility described in § Accessibility functions enable users with vision and hearing disabilities to properly use iOS. iOS devices boot to the lock screen. The lock screen shows the time and a user's lock screen widgets, which display timely information from apps. Upon unlock,
7208-419: The device, creating a 3D effect and an illusion of floating icons. This effect is also visible in the tab view of Mail and Safari. Researchers found that users organize icons on their homescreens based on usage frequency and relatedness of the applications, as well as for reasons of usability and aesthetics. iOS originally used Helvetica as the system font. Apple switched to Helvetica Neue exclusively for
7314-435: The display represents a desktop, on which documents and folders of documents can be placed. Window managers and other software combine to simulate the desktop environment with varying degrees of realism. Entries may appear in a list to make space for text and details, or in a grid for compactness and larger icons with little space underneath for text. Variations in between exist, such as a list with multiple columns of items and
7420-890: The dock bring its functionality also close to that of Apple 's Newton OS Button Bar , as found in the MessagePad 2x00 series and the likes. Applications could be dragged in and out of the Extras Drawer, a Finder -like app, onto the bar. Also, when the screen was put into landscape mode, the user could choose to position the Button Bar at the right or left side of the screen, just like the Dock in macOS. The macOS Dock also has extended menus that control applications without making them visible on screen. On most applications it has simple options such as Quit, Keep In Dock, Remove From Dock, and other options, though some applications use these menus for other purposes, such as iTunes, which uses this menu as
7526-404: The fact that when icons are dragged out of the Dock, they vanish with no easy way to get them back; he called this behavior "object annihilation". John Siracusa, writing for Ars Technica , also pointed out some issues with the Dock around the releases of Mac OS X Public Beta in 2000. He noted that because the Dock is centered, adding and removing icons changes the location of the other icons. In
7632-500: The faint blue indicator for open applications, and less distinguishable files and folders. Thom Holwerda, a managing editor OSNews , stated some concerns with the Dock, including the facts that it grows in both directions, holds the Trash icon, and has no persistent labels. Holwerda also criticized the revised Dock appearance in Mac OS X v10.5 . Graphical user interface The actions in
7738-593: The first graphical computer-aided design program. It used a light pen to create and manipulate objects in engineering drawings in realtime with coordinated graphics. In the late 1960s, researchers at the Stanford Research Institute , led by Douglas Engelbart , developed the On-Line System (NLS), which used text-based hyperlinks manipulated with a then-new device: the mouse . (A 1968 demonstration of NLS became known as " The Mother of All Demos ".) In
7844-457: The folders with pages similar to the home screen layout, allowing for a significant expansion of folder functionality. Each page of a folder can contain up to nine apps, and there can be 15 pages in total, allowing for a total of 135 apps in a single folder. In iOS 9, Apple updated folder sizes for iPad hardware, allowing for 16 apps per page, still at 15 pages maximum, increasing the total to 240 apps. Before iOS 5, notifications were delivered in
7950-420: The home screen. Along the top of the screen is a status bar, showing information about the device and its connectivity. The Control Center can be "pulled" down from the top right of the notch or Dynamic Island (on iPhones with Face ID ) or can be "pulled" up from the bottom to top of the screen (on iPhones with Touch ID ), giving access to various toggles to manage the device more quickly without having to open
8056-439: The iPad, featuring a larger screen than the iPhone and iPod Touch, and designed for web browsing, media consumption, and reading, and offering multi-touch interaction with multimedia formats including newspapers, e-books, photos, videos, music, word processing documents, video games, and most existing iPhone apps using a 9.7-inch (25 cm) screen. It also includes a mobile version of Safari for web browsing, as well as access to
8162-550: The iPhone, and giving tutorials and guidelines for third-party developers to incorporate proper accessibility functions into their apps. In 2012, Liat Kornowski from The Atlantic wrote that "the iPhone has turned out to be one of the most revolutionary developments since the invention of Braille ", and in 2016, Steven Aquino of TechCrunch described Apple as "leading the way in assistive technology", with Sarah Herrlinger, Senior Manager for Global Accessibility Policy and Initiatives at Apple, stating that "We see accessibility as
8268-485: The interface found in current versions of Microsoft Windows, and in various desktop environments for Unix-like operating systems , such as macOS and Linux . Thus most current GUIs have largely common idioms. GUIs were a hot topic in the early 1980s. The Apple Lisa was released in 1983, and various windowing systems existed for DOS operating systems (including PC GEM and PC/GEOS ). Individual applications for many platforms presented their own GUI variants. Despite
8374-413: The kind of data they hold. The widgets of a well-designed interface are selected to support the actions necessary to achieve the goals of users. A model–view–controller allows flexible structures in which the interface is independent of and indirectly linked to application functions, so the GUI can be customized easily. This allows users to select or design a different skin or theme at will, and eases
8480-453: The latter. Multitasking for iOS was first released in June 2010 along with the release of iOS 4 . Only certain devices— iPhone 4 , iPhone 3GS , and iPod Touch 3rd generation—were able to multitask. The iPad did not get multitasking until iOS 4.2.1 in that November. The implementation of multitasking in iOS has been criticized for its approach, which limits the work that applications in
8586-528: The leftmost and rightmost items (or highest and lowest items if the Dock is vertically oriented), respectively. Part of the macOS Core Services , Dock.app is located at /System/Library/CoreServices/ . In NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP, the Dock is an application launcher that holds icons for frequently used programs . The icon for the Workspace Manager and the Recycler are always visible. The Dock indicates if
8692-635: The macOS Dock. Various docks are also used in Linux and BSD . Some examples are Window Maker (which emulates the look and feel of the NeXTstep GUI), Docky , and Avant Window Navigator , KXDocker (amongst others) for KDE and various other gdesklet / adesklets docks, AfterStep 's Wharf (a derivation from the NeXTstep UI), iTask NG (a module used with some Enlightenment -based Linux distributions such as gOS ) and Blackbox 's Slit. Bruce Tognazzini ,
8798-435: The methods of 3D graphics to project 3D GUI objects onto the screen. The use of 3D graphics has become increasingly common in mainstream operating systems (ex. Windows Aero , and Aqua (MacOS)) to create attractive interfaces, termed eye candy (which includes, for example, the use of drop shadows underneath windows and the cursor ), or for functional purposes only possible using three dimensions. For example, user switching
8904-448: The need to open Finder. In iOS , the dock is used to store applications and, since iOS 4 , folders containing applications. Unlike the macOS dock, a maximum of 4 icons can be placed in the dock on the iPhone and the iPod Touch . The maximum for the iPad however is 16 icons (13 apps and 3 recently opened apps). The size of the dock on iOS cannot be changed. When an application on the Dock is launched by clicking on it, it will jump until
9010-433: The notification will be opened. Users can also choose to view notifications in modal alert windows by adjusting the application's notification settings. Introduced with iOS 8, widgets are now accessible through the Notification Center, defined by 3rd parties. When an app sends a notification while closed, a red badge appears on its icon. This badge tells the user, at a glance, how many notifications that app has sent. Opening
9116-529: The operating system through gestures. Any apps with default controls and developed with a UIKit framework gets VoiceOver functionality built in. One example includes holding up the iPhone to take a photo, with VoiceOver describing the photo scenery. As part of a "Made for iPhone" program, introduced with the release of iOS 7 in 2013, Apple has developed technology to use Bluetooth and a special technology protocol to let compatible third-party equipment connect with iPhones and iPads for streaming audio directly to
9222-456: The physical "Home" button while in an app, or swipes up from the bottom of the screen using the home bar. The screen has a status bar across the top to display data, such as time, battery level, and signal strength. The rest of the screen is devoted to the current application. When a passcode is set and a user switches on the device, the passcode must be entered at the Lock Screen before access to
9328-403: The pointing device. A window manager facilitates the interactions between windows, applications , and the windowing system . The windowing system handles hardware devices such as pointing devices, graphics hardware, and positioning of the pointer. In personal computers , all these elements are modeled through a desktop metaphor to produce a simulation called a desktop environment in which
9434-515: The same procedure. A title for the folder is automatically selected by the category of applications inside, but the name can also be edited by the user. When apps inside folders receive notification badges, the individual numbers of notifications are added up and the total number is displayed as a notification badge on the folder itself. Originally, folders on an iPhone could include up to 12 apps, while folders on iPad could include 20. With increasing display sizes on newer iPhone hardware, iOS 7 updated
9540-617: The search bar at the top of the App Library. Users can choose to hide specific app pages from the home screen, making it easier to focus on the apps they use most frequently. iOS enforces strict sandboxing to maintain security and privacy. Apps are generally limited to accessing their own containers and specific system-provided directories, such as the Photos library. To access files outside of their sandbox, iOS uses mechanisms like document pickers, file providers, and app extensions. iOS 8 introduced
9646-464: The software is finished loading. Additionally, when an application requires attention from a user, it will jump even higher until its icon is clicked and the user attends to its demands. The original version of the dock, found in Mac OS X Public Beta to 10.0, presents a flat white translucent interface with the Aqua styled pinstripes. The dock found in Mac OS X 10.1 to 10.4 removes the pinstripes, but otherwise
9752-404: The success of the iPhone as a platform for third-party developers: using a well-known desktop operating system as its basis allowed the many third-party Mac developers to write software for the iPhone with minimal retraining. Forstall was also responsible for creating a software development kit for programmers to build iPhone apps, as well as an App Store within iTunes . The operating system
9858-509: The system never reached commercial production. The first commercially available computer with a GUI was the 1979 PERQ workstation , manufactured by Three Rivers Computer Corporation. Its design was heavily influenced by the work at Xerox PARC. In 1981, Xerox eventually commercialized the ideas from the Alto in the form of a new and enhanced system – the Xerox 8010 Information System – more commonly known as
9964-492: The term is restricted to the scope of 2D display screens able to describe generic information, in the tradition of the computer science research at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center . Designing the visual composition and temporal behavior of a GUI is an important part of software application programming in the area of human–computer interaction . Its goal is to enhance the efficiency and ease of use for
10070-430: The time either clicking and holding or control-click will bring the menu up. In Mac OS X Leopard , docklings were replaced by Stacks . Stacks "stack" files into a small organized folder on the Dock, and they can be opened by left-clicking. Stacks could be shown in three ways: a "fan", a "grid", or a "list", which is similar to docklings. In grid view, the folders in that stack can be opened directly in that stack without
10176-456: The underlying logical design of a stored program , a design discipline named usability . Methods of user-centered design are used to ensure that the visual language introduced in the design is well-tailored to the tasks. The visible graphical interface features of an application are sometimes referred to as chrome or GUI . Typically, users interact with information by manipulating visual widgets that allow for interactions appropriate to
10282-466: The user-friendly interface as a personal computer which departed from prior business-oriented systems, and becoming a signature representation of Apple products. In 1985, Commodore released the Amiga 1000 , along with Workbench and Kickstart 1.0 (which contained Intuition ). This interface ran as a separate task, meaning it was very responsive and, unlike other GUIs of the time, it didn't freeze up when
10388-558: The volume-up and power buttons instead. The camera application used a skeuomorphic closing camera shutter animation prior to iOS 7. Since then, it uses a simple short blackout effect. Notable additions over time include HDR photography and the option to save both normal and high dynamic range photographs simultaneously where the former prevents ghosting effects from moving objects (since iPhone 5 on iOS 6 ), automatic HDR adjustment (since iOS 7.1 ), "live photo" with short video bundled to each photo if enabled ( iPhone 6s , iOS 9 ), and
10494-417: Was in iOS versions 3 through 6. This endows Spotlight with Siri suggestions, which include app suggestions, contact suggestions and news. In iOS 10, Spotlight is at the top of the now-dedicated "Today" panel. With the release of iPhone OS 3.2 , users gained the ability to set a wallpaper for the Home Screen. The feature was initially only available on the iPad (1st generation) until the release of iOS 4
10600-515: Was introduced in 2019, and the iPod Touch line of devices until its discontinuation. iOS is the world's second most widely installed mobile operating system , after Android . As of December 2023, Apple's App Store contains more than 3.8 million iOS mobile apps . iOS is based on macOS . Like macOS, it includes components of the Mach microkernel and FreeBSD . It is a Unix-like operating system. Although some parts of iOS are open source under
10706-399: Was later introduced by David Canfield Smith , who had written a thesis on the subject under the guidance of Kay. The PARC GUI employs a pointing device along with a keyboard. These aspects can be emphasized by using the alternative term and acronym for windows, icons, menus, pointing device ( WIMP ). This effort culminated in the 1973 Xerox Alto , the first computer with a GUI, though
10812-574: Was never popular due to its high hardware demands. Nevertheless, it was a crucial influence on the contemporary development of Microsoft Windows . Apple, Digital Research, IBM and Microsoft used many of Xerox's ideas to develop products, and IBM's Common User Access specifications formed the basis of the GUIs used in Microsoft Windows, IBM OS/2 Presentation Manager , and the Unix Motif toolkit and window manager . These ideas evolved to create
10918-672: Was opened on July 10, 2008, with an initial 500 applications available. This quickly grew to 3,000 in September 2008, 15,000 in January 2009, 50,000 in June 2009, 100,000 in November 2009, 250,000 in August 2010, 650,000 in July 2012, 1 million in October 2013, 2 million in June 2016, and 2.2 million in January 2017. As of March 2016 , 1 million apps are natively compatible with
11024-503: Was that developers could build web applications through the Safari web browser that "would behave like native apps on the iPhone". In October 2007, Apple announced that a native software development kit (SDK) was under development and that they planned to put it "in developers' hands in February". On March 6, 2008, Apple held a press event, announcing the iPhone SDK. The iOS App Store
11130-481: Was unveiled in January 2007 for the first-generation iPhone , which launched in June 2007. Major versions of iOS are released annually; the current stable version, iOS 18 , was released to the public on September 16, 2024. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone , and is the basis for three other operating systems made by Apple : iPadOS , tvOS , and watchOS . iOS formerly also powered iPads until iPadOS
11236-475: Was unveiled with the iPhone at the Macworld Conference & Expo on January 9, 2007, and released in June of that year. At the time of its unveiling in January, Steve Jobs claimed: "iPhone runs OS X" and runs "desktop class applications", but at the time of the iPhone's release, the operating system was renamed "iPhone OS". Initially, third-party native applications were not supported. Jobs' reasoning
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