iOS
More info
- Owner
- Apple
- Released
- Type
- Mobile operating system
- License
- Proprietary
Apple's mobile operating system — the same Unix kernel as macOS, but with a considerably tighter fence around it.
The system was called iPhone OS until 2010. Underneath sits Darwin with the XNU kernel, which it shares with macOS; the difference lies in the layers above and in what the user is permitted to do. Each app runs in a sandbox with its own file area and can reach anything else only through explicit permissions.
The technical decisions are consistently trade-offs against battery and security: background execution is heavily restricted, push goes only through APNs, and apps may only be installed from the App Store — the last of these now loosening within the EU. Interfaces are built in UIKit or the newer SwiftUI, in Swift or Objective-C.