Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
iPhone operating system
iOS is Apple's most advanced and feature-rich proprietary mobile operating system. It was
released with the first generation of the iPhone. When introduced, it was named
iPhone
OS
, and later it was renamed to
iOS
to reflect the unified nature of the operating system
that powers all Apple iOS devices, such as the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Apple TV.
iOS is derived from core OS X technologies and streamlined to be compact and efficient
for mobile devices.
It utilizes a multitouch interface where simple gestures are used to operate and control the
device, such as swiping your finger across the screen to move to the successive page or
pinching your fingers to zoom. In simple terms, iOS assists with the general functioning of
the device. iOS is really Mac OS X with some significant differences:
• The architecture for which the kernel and binaries are compiled is ARM-based
rather than Intel x86_64
• The OS X kernel is open source, whereas the iOS kernel remains closed
• Memory management is much tighter
• The system is hardened and does not allow access to the underlying APIs
