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I'm a student, studying A level ICT.

Today we were revising computer interfaces for the upcoming exams, and my teacher was asked if iOS uses a GUI, but she said that iOS is a tricky one to classify, as it's actually menu-driven.

Is she correct?

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    Reason for the vote down?
    – AStopher
    May 1, 2014 at 17:08
  • It's neither - "iOS (previously iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc." - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS May 1, 2014 at 18:36
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    @techie007 Please read the question again... my ICT teacher and myself have a disagreement. I say that iOS is a GUI interface, she says it's an MDI; who's correct?
    – AStopher
    May 1, 2014 at 18:52
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    You could both be correct . . . GUI in some places, MDI in others (and CLI in others) . . . the UI is a layer on top of the OS itself . . . you can interact with it lots of different ways. I think @techie007's point is that your question is like asking is Linux a GUI or a CLI? Linux itself is neither - KDE/GNOME/etc provide GUIs, bash and other shells provide CLIs, etc. The OS is not a UI, but UI's run on top of the OS . . .
    – ernie
    May 1, 2014 at 18:56
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    Buzzing off, SIR! May 1, 2014 at 19:08

2 Answers 2

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iOS is an operating system. It has a graphical user interface (GUI), which is one of many kinds of user interfaces, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_user_interface

I suppose iOS has also some kind of command-line interface (CLI), but I wouldn't know.

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  • Well, her argument was that the Settings uses menus, so it must be menu driven. I'm not sure if her argument is valid or not, because if I program a Windows application that has just one menu, then according to her argument, it becomes a menu driven interface?
    – AStopher
    May 1, 2014 at 16:30
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    @zyboxenterprises - Her argument is wrong. The bads in the context of this class she is right. But iOS is a GUI based operating system. It it wasn't GUI it would only have a comamnd line because it wouldn't have a graphical user interface.
    – Ramhound
    May 1, 2014 at 16:56
  • @Ramhound: just nitpicking a little here: there are three paradigms of UI. Graphical, command-line and text-based. Many OS' of yore had command-line and text-based interfaces only, e. g. Netware. Granted, most text-based environments were shells running on top of the CLI, but that is true of many GUIs also, e. g. X.
    – bjanssen
    May 1, 2014 at 17:02
  • @bjanssen Very true, I also know that many modern Linux GUIs are based off CLI. Take Gnome for example.
    – AStopher
    May 1, 2014 at 17:10
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To expand on bjassen's answer, both iOS and Android are operating systems. An operating system is basically just a bunch of programs that allow you to run software without having to directly interact with the hardware it is running on. iOS and Android include a GUI as part of a way for the user to interact with the Apps that run on each platform, but they are much more than a just a GUI.

I would look at the definition of a GUI, because it basically means that you are using graphics as part of your user interface.

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  • Well, her argument was that the Settings uses menus, so it must be menu driven. I'm not sure if her argument is valid or not, because if I program a Windows application that has just one menu, then according to her argument, it becomes a menu driven interface?
    – AStopher
    May 1, 2014 at 16:29
  • A GUI and being menu driven are not mutually exclusive. You could have an App that is menu driven, but is also graphical, so it would be a GUI that is menu driven. Being menu driven just means that it uses menus to go from step to step (depending on your definition). A menu driven interface could run on both a command line interface, or a graphical user interface.
    – Adam
    May 1, 2014 at 16:32
  • I would argue that menu-driven would mean that the entire interface uses menus, not just a portion (for example, a bank machine). Windows would be a graphical user interface because it uses menus, but it is not driven by menus.
    – Adam
    May 1, 2014 at 16:34

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