Bear in mind that the definition of "mode" includes a subjective part in its definition, i.e. an interface is in a mode if the user thinks of the input in a sta

Bear in mind that the definition of "mode" includes a subjective part in its definition, i.e. an interface is in a mode if the user thinks of the input in a state as the same action with different results than the same input on a different state. [1] For example, single click on a web link navigates to a new page, but single click on a desktop folder merely selects it. But this does not necessarily applies to content. If you have two different apps, with very different media and data (e.g. one is a spreadsheet, the other a slide presentation), they don't represent different modes if they respond the same to the same actions. You may have a zoom button in both which works the same, a similar color palette, similar scroll bars... This is the reason why GUIs are composed with a small set of widgets, and these represent standardised behaviours that work essentially the same across all applications that use them (and also, this is why it's such a terrible idea to build widgets that deviate from these expected behaviours). Tesla should know, he was there when they invented them. [2] You have a point that it's too easy to find applications that don't follow the standards and reinvent the wheel for no benefit, and also that the standards only extend to low-level interactions - before mobile OSs, there never was a unified metaphor for reading, storing and sharing information at the end-user space. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(user_interface)#Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(user_interface)#Definiti... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20040511051426/https://computerhistory.org/events/lectures/appleint_10281997/appleint_xscript.shtml https://web.archive.org/web/20040511051426/https://computerh...