You might assume that tapping it would display more information about the song, perhaps like what you can see in iTunes when you choose Edit > Song Info. While playing a song, you see yet another ellipsis button. Let’s say you then switch to the Music app to play some tunes. Perhaps the i was awkward when localizing the interface into other languages and script systems, but it is an ISO standard symbol. Interestingly, Wallet only recently switched to using the ellipsis button before that, it relied on a button that looked like the lowercase letter i. In this example, the ellipsis button is akin to choosing File > Get Info on the Mac to open the Get Info window, which displays metadata about the selected file. Apple’s Use and Abuse of the Ellipsisįirst, let’s return to the Wallet app, where you tap the ellipsis button to access information about a credit card and its settings. In technical writing, we drop the ellipsis when referring to menu items to avoid confusion with the more traditional uses of the ellipsis.īut in iOS-and even in some Mac apps-Apple has started using the ellipsis in random ways that muddy its meaning. Choosing File > Save saves the current document choosing File > Save As… displays a Save dialog where you can enter a new name and location for the file. An ellipsis following a menu item means that choosing that item will result in a dialog, rather than an action being performed immediately. ![]() In the Macintosh interface, the ellipsis has long had a specific meaning. … When placed at the beginning or end of a sentence, the ellipsis can also inspire a feeling of melancholy or longing.” If only our technology could be so subtle. But the ellipsis has also come to be used to indicate, as Wikipedia suggests, “an unfinished thought, a leading statement, a slight pause, an echoing voice, or a nervous or awkward silence. For instance, Apple inserts an ellipsis in a file name when it’s too long to display in the allocated space. ![]() The most formal usage is probably as an indication of the intentional omission of a word, sentence, or section from a larger body of text. Now, I don’t have a grudge against the ellipsis itself it’s a perfectly valid character that writers can use in interesting and flexible ways. buttons in iOS (technically, we generally render a user-interface ellipsis in running text as three bullets to make them more easily seen). ![]() That’s right, I’m talking about the increasingly ever-present ellipsis What finally pushed me over the edge into writing this article was documenting Apple Card’s user interface in Wallet (see “ How to Get the Most from Your Apple Card Benefits,” 14 August 2019), because I found myself typing the same character over and over and over…
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