Talk about OS X little-known detail design Top 10

Editor's note: When it comes to OS X, the author's description is: In its delicate but unassuming UI, there are countless pursuits for detail. These details of the design will inadvertently let you experience the fruit for the perfect definition and the pursuit of the user experience. What are some of the most amazing and little-known details, where the authors have chosen 10 details designed to be considered "minority".

Before the OS X Yosemite is officially released, let's talk about the top ten details of OS X Mountain Lion, but before you start, say a digression.

In 1997, Volkswagen launched a project called D1 to build a high-end luxury sedan that could compete with Mercedes-Benz S-class and BMW's 7 Series. As we all know, this car is phaeton". Since it is a car with a VW label but the highest can buy 250+ million, the jokes about it are never short of material. One day, a FAI Teng owner to wash the car, next to a Jetta owner leisurely paced up, around the Hui Teng saw two laps, and then to Hui Teng owner said: "Man, you this Passat is not on the line?" Hui Teng owner a face helpless, Nod said a "well" word. Jetta owner again said: "Look still ok, about 300,000?" Hui Teng owner again helpless, again answer "Um ..."

See here you might wonder why an OS X article says an eight-pole car that can't be hit. Don't worry, the reason I mentioned phaeton is because in my opinion it and OS X have a common design concept, that is "strive for perfection, details win", so let me say a few more words.

Phaeton in the early stages of design, when Piëch, the VW president, gave his engineers a 10-item request for success and no failure. It is said that due to too harsh, but also led to the separation of some engineers. The legendary 10 requirements are also limited by trade secrets and are not too much known to the outside world, even top Gear in the test drive of its W12 model is only to get one of them, that the car at ambient temperature 50°c, to have a 300km/h all-weather cruise capability, and always keep the car inside 22°C The constant temperature.

In this kind of near challenge engineering technology limit high request, Phaeton in the detail pursue also reached the astonishing point. For example, its unique "No straight hair four air conditioning," not only in the direction of airflow can make the car staff feel more natural, and each seat independent temperature adjustment can reach 4 degrees of temperature difference effect. Again such as "alternating type headlight cleaner", can be in the car on the way to the headlights for alternating-type cleaning, that is, clean the side, and then clean the other side. The reason is that the light is not good in the road to clean the lights can still guarantee a certain lighting effect, to ensure traffic safety. Phaeton a total of more than 100 patents registered in the Dresden Glass factory through the semi-mechanical and half manual way to build. Although the Passat is always teased, but its shine low-key shape and the near-paranoid high standard process, so that in the field of luxury cars has always maintained a unique noble quality.

Back to OS X, in fact, it is not so. In its delicate but not publicity of the UI is a myriad of details of the pursuit. These details of the design will inadvertently let you experience the fruit for the perfect definition and the pursuit of the user experience. So I chose the 10 detail design that I thought was "minority" in OS X. Perhaps this may have been a long time for the veteran veteran, but I believe that for most of the MAC beginners there is still a lot to know. Of course, I know limited, if you have better, welcome to add.

　　Top 10

To get the MACBOOK/IMAC product serial number, the usual practice is to click on the Apple icon in the upper left corner of the screen, and then enter "about this Mac"–"more info...", but there is a more convenient way, but it is like an egg was cleverly hidden. Also click on the Apple icon in the upper left corner, then select "about this mac", where you will see a line of light gray system version numbers, move the mouse pointer up and down, and you will see that it can switch between three different messages, one of which is the serial number of the current product.

　　Top 9

Mention OS X "system prefernces" believe that the people who have used Macs are not unfamiliar, but to the upper right corner of the search function is not necessarily, after all, set items are lined up there, familiar with the use of the search after the probability is very low. I was also a chance to use this search, did not want this search to show the way is designed so cleverly. It uses a stage-like spotlight to identify search results one by one, and the brightness of the aperture is proportional to the match between the keyword and the result, that is, the higher the match, the brighter, and vice versa. The visual effect is great, have a Mac in hand can try.

　　Top 8

No matter what the system is, "help" is a necessary "important" feature. The reason for "important" quotes, because from the point of view of product design, whether simple or complex, a manual is still necessary, but from the point of view of user needs, " Help "It's best to have something that you don't need, and even if you do, it's as accurate and fast as a search engine to get the user to find what you need and then leave." Because OS X centralizes all of the applied menus at the top of the screen for unified management, there is a very special design in its help function. When you suddenly forget or want to know the location of a feature in the menu, as long as you search for the keyword in the application's help, and then move the mouse pointer over the corresponding search results, the relevant menu automatically expands and the target's location is accurately identified.

　　Top 7

Friends who have used Windows know that when multiple windows are running, the window that the user is working on is often called the "current window," which is highlighted in the form of the other "non-current Window", and the stacking position is the top. When a user needs to operate on a "non-current window," the window state must be toggled. In OS X, the concept of "current Window" and "Non Current Window" still exists, but in the "Non-current Window" operation, it can be done without window switching. As long as you move the mouse focus to the "non-current Window" to scroll, if you hold down the Command key, then the mouse has a penetrating function, no matter how many layers of windows on the screen, as long as you can see the operation, click, scroll, or even drag the window is not a problem.

　　Top 6

We all know that in Windows or OS X, the state of the mouse pointer changes to an arrow that indicates the direction of the window when it is resized. But if you look closely, you'll notice that OS X's pointer state will be different from Windows at some point. Now that you try to snap a window to the edge of the screen, and then move the mouse over the border near the edge of the screen, you'll notice that even if the border doesn't stretch to the edge of the screen, the mouse pointer in Windows still shows a double-headed arrow, while the OS X Only a one-way arrow pointing to the adjustable direction is displayed.

　　Top 5

The Finder can display more file properties in the "list" view mode, with a total of four properties for date, "date modified""date created""date last opened" and "dete added". When you change the property bar width of any of these items, you will see that the date displayed in it will change as the width changes. For example, when the property bar is narrowest, it only displays the date in a short format, and the date changes to the text format when the property bar is widest.

　　Top 4

The Dock Bar's iconic design for OS X combines the functions of both Start mene and taskbar in Windows. It also displays the application icon that is currently running, in addition to displaying the application icon that resides here. If you need to apply a resident Dock bar, the usual move is to drag it to the hand, or check the "keep in dock" the right menu in its running state. But the fruit here makes a intimate little design, if an application without a resident Dock bar is manually adjusted in the running state, the fruit will assume that the user is consciously resident in the dock bar, so it will "take the Liberty" to check the "keep in dock" option for you.

　　Top 3

I do not believe anyone who has ever used a MAC has any objection to the phrase "the use of a MacBook touchpad and the discovery of other touchpad is a battle of five slag." In fact, the fruit hardware and software in the hands of the policy, it is true that the touch board and the system in most of the scene to see the mouse as the realm of nothingness. So in the design of OS X, the window scroll bars are hidden by default and are only displayed when scrolling gestures are made on the touchpad. However, if the system detects an external mouse "Magic Mouse or Magic trackpad" Insert, the scroll bar status is automatically changed to always appear. "

　　Top 2

When you rename a file, files that are not available to prevent incorrect modification of the extension are automatically selected by default for Windows and OS X only the "File name" section. But in OS X the fruit is more extreme, and the file name section is selected by default only when the target file is a known type, and the file name and extension are selected by default when the target file is an unknown type.

　　Top 1

It is listed as top 1 because it is a highly concealed design, from which you can see a certain degree of paranoia about the fruit's pursuit of detail. And I believe that this design for most people, even senior veteran, also not necessarily have found. This is because the frequency of this feature is not high, and secondly, if the use of the environment is not quiet enough can easily be overlooked.

When you use dictation & Speech in OS X for voice input, the accuracy of its recognition rate is bound to be affected by ambient sound sources, even in a relatively quiet indoor environment, the sound of the notebook cooling fan is a moderate disturbance, especially the MacBook The metal fuselage and the hatred of Flash make its performance in summer unforgettable for those who have used it. But to say that the impact will be how big, it is really difficult to say, after all, people will improve the volume to deal with this situation, so not many people will care about this, but the fruit does not think so.

Now find a quiet environment, put a Flash video of the fan speed up, and then go to the preferences to open Dictation & Speech, in the place you can enter the two Fn button to open the listening function. What did you find out? Yes, the fan's TMD stopped!!! When the listening function is turned off, the fan is immediately restored to its previous speed. I don't know how you feel, but my little friends and I were stunned.