Ease of use: save changes using the "Apply" button or after each change?

Question

I’m interested in hearing the opinions and experiences of other developers on the topic of user interface design, usability and ease of maintenance.

The general approach is to allow users to adjust the settings and after the form becomes "dirty", enable the "Apply" button, and the user has the opportunity to retreat by clicking "Cancel". This is the most common approach on the Windows platform (I believe that MS usability guidelines also talk about this).

Another way is to apply the changes after each parameter change. For example, a user checks a certain flag, and the change is applied. The user changes the value of a certain text field, and the change is applied after the window loses focus, etc. You get the point. This approach is most common on Mac OSX.

Regardless of my personal opinion (and this is what Apple is better for ease of use, but the software that I usually write for Windows users), what do you think?

Edit: I am fully aware that this is not a question, but rather discusses, and that this place may not be on SO, whose policy should consist only of answers and questions. But I believe that this can be useful for discussion, mainly because I could not find anything like this before asking.

Answer 1

Both have their places, and both are used on many platforms (they do not differ from each other between PC and Mac).

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Answer 5

+1 to save changes after filling out the entire form, and not for each field.

But it should have checks when the field loses focus, so you can give immediate feedback if something is wrong.