Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
iOS history
iOS, like any other operating system, has gone through multiple updates since its release.
Apple occasionally releases newer versions to enable new features, to support latest hard-
ware, and to fix bugs. The latest version of iOS at the time of this writing is iOS 7.0.3.
Though Apple sticks with a numeric approach for new iOS builds, all iOS versions have
code names that are private to Apple. The following sections describe the history of iOS
development.
1.x - the first iPhone
iPhone OS 1.x was the first release of Apple's touch-centric mobile operating system. On
its initial release, Apple stated that the iPhone uses a version of the desktop operating sys-
tem, OS X. Later it was named iPhone OS. The original build was known as
Alpine
, but
the final released version was
Heavenly
.
2.x - App Store and 3G
iPhone OS 2.0 (known as
BigBear
) was released along with iPhone 3G. Features required
for corporate needs such as VPN and Microsoft Exchange were introduced with this re-
lease. The big addition to the OS with this release was the
App Store
, a marketplace for the
third-party applications that could run on the iPhone. Apple also released the
iPhone Soft-
ware Development Kit
(
SDK
) to assist developers in creating applications on the App
Store for free or for purchase.
Global Positioning System
(
GPS
) was also added to the
iPhone with this release.
3.x - the first iPad
iPhone OS 3.0 (known as
Kirkwood
) became available with the release of iPhone 3GS.
The iOS release brought the copy/paste feature, spotlight searches, and push notifications
for third-party applications, and many other enhancements to the built-in applications.
Multitasking was introduced, but it was limited to a selection of the applications Apple in-
cluded on the device. The first iPad was introduced with iPhone OS 3.2 (known as
Wild-
cat
) and later updated to 3.2.2, a version specifically made for the iPad.
4.x - Game Center and multitasking
iOS 4.0 (known as
Apex
) was the first major release after renaming the iPhone OS to iOS.
This release brought over 100 new features, such as FaceTime, iBooks, voice control, and
