Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
half of the mobile operating-systems market—Apple's iOS and Google's
Android.
Basics of Apple's iOS
The iOS platform was the i rst to set the
standard as far as providing a viable and
stable solution for game developers.
Before iOS there was simply no single
organized way to both purchase digital
media and consume it in a high quality,
seamless manner. Apple took advantage
of the iTunes store-based culture they
had established, along with the wildly
successful iPod, to create a totally smooth
experience for users, who l ocked towards
the new devices in droves. As a result,
Apple's mobile iOS platform is still the
choice of most game developers because
of the simplicity and popularity of the App
Store for consumers. Apple's App Store
of ers more than 900,000 iOS applications, which had been collectively
downloaded more than 50 billion times as of June 2013, according to
Apple at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). It has also paid
out over $10 billion to developers, more than any other mobile platform
combined.
STRUCTURE OF IOS
iOS is derived from the Mac OS X operating system. The foundation of these systems is Darwin, a
UNIX-based core kernel and extension set that is present in every Apple computer. iOS contains four
abstraction layers:
•
The
Core OS
contains the Darwin kernel and vital system extensions.
•
Core Services
handles services such as in-App purchasing and XML support.
•
The
Media Layer
contains media-oriented frameworks such as Core Audio and Core Display.
•
Cocoa Touch
contains the key frameworks for building iOS applications. This layer dei nes support for
multitasking, touch-based input, and other high-level system services.
The latest version, iOS 7, uses approximately 2.5GB of a device's storage, although this use varies by
device.
