iPhone Not Running OS X

rochlin writes "We know that Steve Jobs has said the iPhone won't accept third-party apps. The iPhone looks to be running on a Samsung provided ARM core processor. That means it's not running on an Intel (or PPC) core. That means it's not running OS X in any meaningful sense (Apple can brand toilet paper as running OS X if they like). Darwin, the BSD based operating system that underlies what Apple has previously been calling OS X, does not run on ARM processors. The Darwin / Apple Public Source licensing agreement says the source would have to be made available if it is modified and sold (paraphrased; read it yourself). A Cingular rep has said the iPhone version of the OS source will not be made available. It will be closed, like the iPod OS and not like Darwin. So if it ain't Darwin, it ain't OS X (in any meaningful way). An InfoWorld article on an FBR Research report breaks down iPhone component providers and lists Samsung as the chip maker for the main application / video cpu. So, that leaves the question... What OS is this phone really running? Not Linux or the source would need to be open."

Comments

I can exclusively reveal

[Timesprout]

Its running Vista. Thats why its not available for a few months, Apple are waiting for the first service pack to be released.

Re:I can exclusively reveal

[bonch]

That means it's not running OS X in any meaningful sense (Apple can brand toilet paper as running OS X if they like).

How does it mean it's not running OS X in any meaningful sense? I'd say having Cocoa/AppKit (and therefore an Objective-C runtime), Core Animation, and other OS X technologies constitutes being OS X.

So if it ain't Darwin, it ain't OS X (in any meaningful way)

Again, what is with this "meaningful" crap? Objective-C, Cocoa, AppKit, and the like are OS X. OS X is the NextStep-derived stuff running on top of Darwin. It can most certainly be OS X without Darwin. In fact, it might be Apple's first steps toward moving off of Mach sometime in the future.

Re:I can exclusively reveal

[Anonymous Coward]

Close but no cigar, it's iVista.

Re:I can exclusively reveal

[__aaclcg7560]

Yes, let the truth be known. Apple stole back from Microsoft what Mircosoft stole from Apple that Apple stole from Xerox PARC. What goes around comes around. Take a guess what's going to be in Zune OS 2.0?

Re:I can exclusively reveal

[galimore]

Agreed...

The keynote very specifically listed:

Syncing, Networking, Multi-tasking, Low power, Security, Video, Cocoa, Core Animation, Graphics, and Audio...

Some of the above is very "duh", but having Cocoa, and Core Animation are two things that I would consider to be part of OS X... so even if the thing doesn't run the Darwin kernel, if it's compatible at the application layer I'd consider it OS X enough. ;)

Seems like people are splitting hairs here...

Maybe Apple is misleading us, maybe not... Hard to say with a closed platform.

Re:I can exclusively reveal

[Millenniumman]

It could still be Darwin. Apple is the copyright holder, and can do whatever they want with their copyright (unless it conflicts with someone else's, but most of Darwin is BSD).

Re:I can exclusively reveal

[samkass]

I'm not sure why you bothered to reply to this article; it's so utterly wrong in so many ways. First of all, Apple holds the copyright to Darwin and can use it however they want. Just because they license it to YOU under a license that requires YOU to share code you modify, Apple is not bound by that license. Secondly, it would be silly for Apple NOT to leverage some of the Mac OS, but it would be just as silly for them to port the entire desktop OS. I think of this as about the same as saying the XBox OS is Windows 2000. It shares many APIs, it's branched from the same codebase, but it's targeted and maintained for a completely different goal.

Re:I can exclusively reveal

[TheUser0x58]

Apple holds the copyright to Darwin and can use it however they want.

Not quite. Darwin is hybrid between FreeBSD, Mach, and some extras that Apple developed, and Apple definitely does not hold the copyright for the first two. FreeBSD's license would allow a closed source derivative, but from what little Ive gleaned off of CMU's Mach webpage, CMU would not be happy about a completely closed source kernel derived from Mach.

Re:I can exclusively reveal

[TheRaven64]

Back when Darwin was part of OPENSTEP, it ran on:

1. i486
2. SPARC
3. Motorola 68K
4. PA-RISC

After Apple bought it, they ported it to PowerPC. It hardly seems a strech to expect that they could port it to a fifth platform, especially one they designed themselves. And, as you mentioned, they have no more obligation to release the source than they did for OPENSTEP; it's their code, they can do with it what they wish. The license agreement is a binding agreement between the copyright holders and people who want the code, not between the copyright holder and themselves.

Re:I can exclusively reveal

[TheRaven64]

from what little Ive gleaned off of CMU's Mach webpage, CMU would not be happy about a completely closed source kernel derived from Mach. Really? Because the old OPENSTEP kernel (which ran on i486, PA-RISC, SPARC and m68k), through which OS X inherits from Mach, was a closed source kernel derived from Mach. So, for that matter, was OSF/1.

Perhaps you are confusing CMU Mach with GNU Mach, which is licensed under the GPL.

Re:I can exclusively reveal

[that this is not und]

and other OS X technologies constitutes being OS X.

Okay. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that the iPhone 'runs OS X' in the same vein that Windows CE devices 'run Windows.'

Is that better?

Re:I can exclusively reveal

[mdwh2]

All good points - at the end of the day, it's just trademarks. There may be some parts in common, there may not, but the choice of name is decided by what brand name a company thinks is best, not what the technology is (it's not like there's going to be much if anything left over from "classic" Mac OS, as opposed to Mac OS X).

I remember when various new versions of AmigaOS were being proposed over the last decade - strangely in those situations, everyone on Slashdot was screaming about how "It's not an Amiga" - even in the cases where it certainly was a next version of the same OS, just because it had dropped some older things or wouldn't run on an Amiga 500. Yet on the Apple articles, it's accepted that all sorts of different systems are all "Macs" (and anyone even suggesting otherwise gets modded down, as you did...)

If Apple bought the trademark, they could just as easily say the iPhone ran BeOS - indeed, if history had gone different, BeOS would have been called "Mac OS X"...

Re:I can exclusively reveal

[HuguesT]

Check the Apple license agreement to Darwin, the APSL. I'm pretty sure that for any code to be checked back in to Apple's Darwin repository, copyright must be assigned to Apple.

Note that the FSF does the same thing with its various official GNU projects. If you want to contribute code to, say, GCC, you must give up your copyright to the FSF, together with a signed sheet of paper that says you do in fact own the copyright of the stuff you are contributing. This is non-negociable and meant to avoid SCO-like lawsuits associated to GNU projects. So far it has worked rather well from that point of view.

Doesn't Apple hold the copyright?

[xenocide2]

Surely Apple's free to do what they want with their source code, unless it OSX is substantially based on code from elsewhere.

Re:Doesn't Apple hold the copyright?

[BrainInAJar]

Apple's the copyright holder... APSL doesn't apply to them, it only applies to people who download XNU from their website Apple can do whatever they please with their code, it's their code

Re:Doesn't Apple hold the copyright?

[rvw]

Even if they would have to release it, the iPhone is not out yet, so why would they release any code now? I bet they are still working on it.

Non sequiturs abound.

[russotto]

Last things first: Apple doesn't have to abide by the APSL with respect to their own code.

Second, if it's "OS X" on PPC, and "OS X" on Intel, why wouldn't it be "OS X" on ARM? It could well come from the very same code base, simply an unreleased branch.

Re:Non sequiturs abound.

[Jonny Ringo]

Well, it just wouldn't be on ARM in a "meaningful way". :)

Re:Non sequiturs abound.

[mnmn]

OSX/Darwin are based on FreeBSD. Samsung does produce ARM9 chips which have an integrated MMU, which FreeBSD requires.

I really don't think its quite a stretch to have OSX on an ARM9 chip. GCC will compile BSD for ARM9.

What I wont buy is the full set of Cocoa, Aqua and other graphic-heavy API in its full glory on the iPhone. The device probably uses Darwin compiled for ARM9 with mobile-Cocoa and mobile-Aqua (and others).

Re:Non sequiturs abound.

[kripkenstein]

Last things first: Apple doesn't have to abide by the APSL with respect to their own code.

True. And whatever code in OS X that isn't theirs is, if I am not mistaken, BSD-licensed, so that is no problem either.

Why would Apple create a new OS from scratch? This is probably a port of OS X to ARM (or whatever processer is used), designed for a small memory footprint and so forth.

Re:Non sequiturs abound.

[Score Whore]

Darwin/OSX is based on the FreeBSD userland. The kernel is based on Mach. Regardless of whether either one requires an MMU or a nuclear reactor in order to run keep in mind that it's software. Which means that clever types and go in and make some changes and maybe take away a requirement or add a feature. Gosh kids these days.

Re:Non sequiturs abound.

[AKAImBatman]

Darwin/OSX is based on the FreeBSD userland. The kernel is based on Mach.

Mach is not a complete kernel. It's a superset of microkernel functions for the BSD 4 kernels. FreeBSD was used as the new base-kernel so that Apple wouldn't have to use the (rather ancient) BSD 4.3/4.4 code base.

Re:Non sequiturs abound.

[Overly Critical Guy]

Second, if it's "OS X" on PPC, and "OS X" on Intel, why wouldn't it be "OS X" on ARM?

Because that wouldn't jive with the competitor-funded Apple-haters desperately trying to tear down the iPhone in the last few days.

"source would have to be made available" ?

[defy god]

I think you are a bit confused. The license holders, in this case Apple, have the right to license out their works to people in an agreement that defines what the licensees can do with Apple's product. The "Darwin / Apple Public Source licensing agreement" you quote is just this, Apple's agreement with whoever wants to use it. Apple, being the owners of the Mac OS X, can do whatever they'd like with Mac OS X because they own the rights. We, on the other hand, are only licensing it.

so what?

[j00r0m4nc3r]

So it's not running OSX. Who cares? Why does it have to be running some variant of a desktop OS anyway? There are plenty of embedded OSes to choose from...

Re:so what?

[themonkman]

Just because it's not running Darwin does not mean that it's not based off of some of the similar if not directly linked technologies that OS X is built off of. Apple could've created their own proprietary "Darwin" for iPhone if they wanted, much how Linux was a clone of proprietary "Unix". Seeing as it's built for a small and limited device, you wouldn't have to clone all of the OS.

When Jobs refers to OS X, I assume he is talking about the system that they built on top of Darwin. To me, Darwin will be just that; Darwin. It's a BSD. There have been many interviews where Jobs has said that OS X was built on top of Darwin or Unix, so the only logical avenue of thought is that he's not stating that Darwin and the OS X are one in the same (since you CAN run a system off of Darwin alone without OS X), yet recognizes that they hold a symbiotic relationship in Apple's application of merging the two together.

Re:so what?

[Overly Critical Guy]

But it is running a variant of OS X. The very fact it has Cocoa and Core Animation means it has Objective-C and AppKit (and not only that, but a version derived from Leopard) and probably some stripped-down version of Darwin.

I've been seeing these kinds of comments a lot lately. Why is it hard for some people to accept that this is a mobile version of OS X?

Should be obvious it's not

[guanxi]

First, if it was really OSX, why would they need Google's help to implement Google Maps? It would just run.
Second, the interface is obviously significantly different.
Third, it's hard to believe a handheld would have the resources to run OSX.
Finally, if it was really OSX, then any OSX app would run on it (in theory).

I suspect it's "OS X" like my PDA runs "Windows".

Re:Should be obvious it's not

[nacturation]

First, if it was really OSX, why would they need Google's help to implement Google Maps? It's possible that the "Google helped with maps" line is more of a marketing move than any real technical requirement. It benefits Apple to say that Google backs their phone. It benefits Google to say that Apple chose them over any other map supplier. A good win/win even if it turns out to be a little white lie.

Re:Should be obvious it's not

[cuzco]

The Google map portion of the iPhone demo showed off the double-tap and "pinch zoom" if I recall correctly. These scaling methods may have required some tweaks on Google's end. One thing that was clear from the demo is that Google Maps had it's own button on the home screen so there could also be some handshaking/connection code specific to the iPhone.

Re:Should be obvious it's not

[Fred Ferrigno]

Where OSX Intel and OS PowerPC do have much (most things) in common. Linux in the OpenWRT project is just as much "Linux" as the Intel "Linux" in my server.

The analogy with Linux falls apart because we routinely use "Linux" to refer to both to the set of userland operating systems ("distros") and the Linux kernel itself. Such is not the case with OS X. The term "OS X" does not refer to the XNU kernel, which can be ported to different platforms and appear vastly different in different implementations as you suggest. OS X is instead a userland operating system with a certain interface and recognizable features. It's more of a marketing and branding issue; the deep-down guts aren't that important. In that sense, even if the iPhone does turn out to share code with the "real" OS X, I think the Windows : WinCE :: OS X : iPhone OS X comparison is pretty much accurate.

Re:Should be obvious it's not

[Overly Critical Guy]

Wow, there's nothing in your post that proves it's not OS X. A new interface and the fact Apple isn't letting third-parties run on it magically means it's not OS X? Just because you believe it doesn't have the resources to run an embedded version of OS X? And when did Steve Jobs ever say they needed Google's "help" to implement the maps feature? They simply worked with them, which is a market-speak way of saying they partnered up in the search features of the iPhone.

It's OS X. Deal with it, people.

Re:Should be obvious it's not

[rsargent]

I assume Apple worked with Google in order to integrate Google Maps with the phone more tightly than would be possible with a generic web application. If you watch Steve's demo, you'll see him do a Maps search for Starbucks and then click (actually I guess touch) the result to make a (prank) call to one nearby. Very cool!

Re:Should be obvious it's not

[guanxi]

the first release of NEXSTEP ran on 68030 workstations with just 8MB total RAM, I don't see the problem in running OSX on ARM pda with >32 MB system RAM.

Windows 3.1 ran in 4MB back then, so I guess I can run Vista in 16MB.

Well, considering...

[Bin_jammin]

it's a microkernel, why not just drop aqua onto whatever kernel they feel like? If it's not a gpl or other open licensed kernel, there's no requirement to publish code, and Apple still retains the right to call it OSX. Unless I am missing something, It's always been called OSX running on BSD, I'm assuming this means the look and feel of the GUI, the window manager, the kernel, and several other things are what make up an operating system. In the case of a kernel swap it might not be UNIX or BSD any longer, but won't it still be OSX?

Re:Well, considering...

[gillham]

Have you guys *READ* the BSD license? It has never forced source code to be published. In fact this is the fundamental issue between the BSD license and GPL camps. I am shocked and dismayed to see how many uneducated comments have been made in this thread about the BSD license requiring source code to be published.

Regarding the question of "Can it really be OSX running on the iPhone?", it seems pretty obvious to me. If the iPhone is indeed an ARM chip, then I would *assume* Apple has ported Darwin to this chip. Look at NetBSD for a second. It supports a ton of different ARM chips and platforms. It even supports a *26bit* ARM cpu. (NetBSD/acorn26)

Apple could very easily port Darwin to ARM. Let's assume they have. I still think of my MacBook Pro as running "Mac OSX" even when I have booted it *single user* to the point where I am running Darwin + init + shell and nothing else.

It is a bit of a stretch for Apple to call Darwin "OSX" if they only ported the kernel, but I would believe they have ported significant portions of the higher level OS functionality. E.g. graphics libraries, window server, etc. This is more than enough to call it OSX, even if it is not 100% source compatible with OSX on my Intel machine.

After all my latest and greatest MacOSX 10.4.8 application source code wouldn't work on 10.0 PPC, but 10.0 PPC is *still* OSX no matter what you might think.

What ??

[warrior_s]

The iPhone looks to be running on a Samsung provided ARM core processor

Well what makes you think that???? seriously just a job posting on apple.com is not enough to say that.

Re:FreeBSD?

[nurb432]

beacuse NetBSD already runs on ARM perhaps? They have their own coders to do what ever they need inhouse anyway.

OSX != Mac OSX

[robbieduncan]

I think you are confusing OSX with Mac OSX. Mac OSX is the OS that Apple sell and put on their computers. At no point in the Keynote or after has anyone said that the iPhone runs Mac OSX. They have simply said that it runs OSX. To my mind this means that it is running a subset of Mac OSX. At the very least the iPhone OSX appears to be missing Carbon (no loss to me), the Finder and other "built in" apps and quite possibly Quicktime. Whilst Steve said it had Cocoa that normally just refferrs to the main Kits: Foundation and the App Kit. This does not include PDFKit, QTKit and so on.

Whether is's based off Darwin or not is hard to say. At a certain level that does not matter. What would matter if Apple decide to open up to third part developers is the APIs that are available. There may be a small subset that want POSIX on their phone but for actual application development Cocoa with some custom PhoneKit is probably all that is important.

Huh?

[shawnce]

1) Apple isn't affected by the APSL in this way. The APSL affects 3rd parties that contribute, use or modify the source that Apple makes available. It doesn't require Apple to make source or changes to source available.

2) Mac OS X is portable. It already runs on x86, x86-64, ppc, and ppc64. It looks like Apple has it running on ARM ISA (not sure exactly which) given statements by Apple.

Exactly which aspects of XNU, IOKit, BSD layer, user-land frameworks, etc. that make up "OS X" are running on the iPhone is unknown (Cocoa has been stated to exist by Apple, which implies a handful of other frameworks also exist). It is also possible that something other then XNU is being used... but I doubt that... much more likely it is has been slimmed down to exactly what the iPhone needs.

Re:"source would have to be made available" ?

[pavon]

No the parent is right. There is very little GPL or otherwise copyleft code shipped with OS X, and what is there is all userland stuff that really doesn't need to be on a phone. The vast majority of the stuff that Apple/NeXT didn't write is licensed under BSD-like terms, and therefore allows them to do whatever they want with it.

The kernel is not the operating system...

[Goth Biker Babe]

Even if there isn't an ARM version of the kernel, and who's to say there isn't. Apple do not have to follow their own licence. That doesn't preclude the rest of the operating system being standard OS-X libraries compiled for ARM. The video iPod is also ARM and some time ago Apple were advertising for a quicktime expert with ARM experience which suggests that at least quicktime has been ported to ARM. If you can have Linux on an AMD-64 and an ARM 7 why not OS-X?

Re:"source would have to be made available" ?

[AKAImBatman]

The majority of OS X (including the kernel) is based on BSD, GNU and other Open Source code that never originated within Apple.

BSD does not require that modified source code be released. AFAIK, there is no GNU software in the mainline distribution of OS X. The only significant piece of GNU software that I'm aware of is the optional GCC compiler. Since Apple is unlikely to ship GCC on their iPhone, they're almost certainly free and clear.

It's PowerPC on a Samsung! Google it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously don't people use google anymore? It's a search engine one can use to verify things before postting their moronic assumptions on slashdot. Samsung licensed the PowerPC core from IBM and this is probably a use for that:

Google for: Samsung IBM PowerPC

Here:

http://www.pennwellblogs.com/sst/eds_threads/2006/ 10/061006-samsung-may-sneak-ibm-back-into.php

"Last year, Samsung announced that it had licensed the PowerPC-core IP from IBM for inclusion in SoC designs." (last year=2005)

Here is stuff showing that Samsung would have experience building it:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/11/07/ibm_outsou rces_powerpc_production/

Of course it is OS X

[NekoXP]

Apple own and hold copyright on Darwin, they released their own code under APSL for YOU to use and YOU to give modifications back (i.e. this is their license protection for you making a commercial OS X clone)

They can do whatever THEY like to it and never release the source, just like any GPL code author is free (under the terms of the GPL, even) to relicense their code for any party they see fit (BSD, APSL, whatever). It is up to the author and the copyright holder, if they are even in fact different people. Apple are both!

So OS X doesn't run on ARM? Why not? Because OpenDarwin doesn't? This whole article is horseshit speculation and a completely random nonsense of misunderstanding how software licensing works, who wrote and owns Darwin (Apple!) and the technical aspects involved (they've been working on the iPhone for the better part of a year and a half.. that's plenty of time to do a port to a new processor, especially given how abstracted the Darwin kernel is, XNU Apple additions and so on)

Re:"source would have to be made available" ?

[jlarocco]

I think you are a bit confused yourself. Apple only hold the rights to the small parts of OS X that they developed themselves. The majority of OS X (including the kernel) is based on BSD, GNU and other Open Source code that never originated within Apple. If they are to reuse any of that for the Apple iPhone, they would have to release the source code.

No, if I'm not mistaken, OSX is based largely on FreeBSD. The BSD license doesn't require the source code to be released. In fact, I could grab the FreeBSD source code, rebrand it as anything I want, and sell it without releasing a single line of code. Not smart, but allowed by the license, and 100% legal. The only caveat is that somewhere I would have to state that I'm using BSD copyrighted code.

Re:A magic compiler

[Kadin2048]

Exactly. Apple has shown in the past that they are capable of recompiling their OS for different architectures -- they did it from PPC and x86 -- why wouldn't they just have recompiled a stripped-down kernel for ARM? After all, they have all the source code, so if anyone could do it, it would be them.

This article just doesn't make any sense. I don't know if the Slashdot editors were looking for an anti-Apple article so as to appear to be giving "equal time," but this is pretty idiotic. There are better criticisms of Apple in general, and of the iPhone in particular, than this.

A little premature?

[P. Niss]

Any chance we could, like, wait for the iPhone to be, you know, actually released before we make definitive statements on what OS it is or isn't running? Right now, the only people who have any idea what OS is really running on the iPhone are the people who worked on it; I'm taking a wild guess here that you're not one of them.

Sure, I understand it's going to be a long six months with nothing but speculation to keep us warm at night. But let's keep in mind that, until we get our hands on the iPhone, it's speculation only, not knowledge.

Re:"source would have to be made available" ?

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

psssst! BSD isn't licenced under the GPL. The name of the license BSD is under escapes me right now, but I'm pretty sure it isn't GPL (or any other license you were thinking of which requires releasing source code). (end sarcasam).

It's Mac OS X: MACH - I/O Kit engeneers wanted

[Anonymous Coward]

Just search for "iPhone" in jobs.apple.com:

Bluetooth/Wifi SW Engineer - iPhone

[...]
        MacOS X / IOKit driver development experience
        Mach IPC and/or Mach Server design experience
[...]
        Solid understanding of embedded hardware platforms (ARM processors, SDIO, UARTs, etc

(http://jobs.apple.com/index.ajs?BID=1&method=mExt ernal.showJob&RID=4241&CurrentPage=1)

Stripped down OS X

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm friends with some of the people on the iPhone team. Before I knew about the iPhone, i constantly heard about radical ways to strip down OS X to make it run meaner and leaner and make sure it runs on "limited hardware". I assumed they were working on some sort of PVR or something, but clearly I was wrong. I'm fairly sure that lots of the code written is in CoreFoundation and they ARE using Mac OS X frameworks (stripped down to have only the functionality they need) - but the kernel may something completely new.

Re:Stripped down OS X

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they're still using Darwin/MACH/I/O Kit.

From http://jobs.apple.com/index.ajs?BID=1&method=mExt ernal.showJob&RID=4241&CurrentPage=1:

Bluetooth/Wifi SW Engineer - iPhone
[...]
- MacOS X / IOKit driver development experience
- Mach IPC and/or Mach Server design experience
[...]
- Solid understanding of embedded hardware platforms (ARM processors, SDIO, UARTs, etc)

Windows CE is not Windows

[Foerstner]

"The Darwin / Apple Public Source licensing agreement says the source would have to be made available if it is modified and sold (paraphrased; read it yourself). A Cingular rep has said the iPhone version of the OS source will not be made available. It will be closed, like the iPod OS and not like Darwin. So if it ain't Darwin, it ain't OS X (in any meaningful way). An InfoWorld article on an FBR Research report breaks down iPhone component providers and lists Samsung as the chip maker for the main application / video cpu. So, that leaves the question... What OS is this phone really running? Not Linux or the source would need to be open."

We know that Windows CE does not use the NT kernel. This means that it is not using the same kernel as Windows XP and Windows Server. That means that WIndows CE is not Windows in any any meaningful sense. (Microsoft could brand toilet paper as running Windows if they like.) The NT kernel, the Mach-like microkernel that underlies what Microsoft has been calling Windows since the end of DOS, does not run on mobile phones or PocketPCs. The Microsoft Windows EULA is totally proprietary, and its source is carefully controlled. A Verizon Wireless rep said he had no idea what I was talking about. The WinCE source code is closed, like that of the Zune or XBox, and not like Linux. Now, Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! So, obviously, the iPhone is not running Windows CE, and must therefore be running Mac OS X 10.7 "Sabretooth."

What Steve Jobs actually said about 3rd Party Apps

[planetfinder]

The following is taken verbatim from the NY Times interview article

"These are devices that need to work, and you can't do that if you load any software on them," he said. "That doesn't mean there's not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn't mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment."

So he's saying that Apple and possibly others might write software for the iPhone. From what Jobs said
you can see that the emphasis will be on control to ensure that all Apps are very robust so that the phone
works reliably.

At least parts of OS X

[brass1]

At it's lowest level, the Mac OS X kernel (XNU) is based on Mach 3.0 with a BSD "personality" to provide (mostly) POSIX kernel APIs and helpful functionality such as a network stack. The OS X userland is mostly ported from FreeBSD and NetBSD. On top of that is Cocoa, Carbon, Java and all of the other APIs normally used for application development.

As an interesting note is how Jobs described the OS the phone uses. He said "OS X." Normally Apple refers to their desktop operating system as "Mac OS X." That tells us a few things about what's really going on inside the phone.

My educated would be: the phone does run the Mach part of XNU, likely runs at least parts of the BSD subsystem and the I/O Kit device driver interface. Apple has also said that the iPhone supports PDF. This leads me to guess that parts of WindowServer and CoreGraphics are there. The references to Widgets support this as well. Widgets also tell us something else: WebKit is available. Calling the browser Safari supports this.

So, it's not the Mac OS X that runs on this laptop, but it would appear that enough of the existing OS X technology is there to call it OS X. Though, all of this is total speculation the product isn't on sale so it really can't be analyzed.

Finely, I'm still not entirely sure the no third-party apps bit is a forever thing. We don't know anything but what they've said, but I'll wait until Apple's World Wide Developer Conference (which interestingly is usually just about the time the iPhone ships) before I'll pass judgement on that.

Optimised OS X sits on 'versatile' flash

[smackenzie]

Looks like it really is a scaled-down version of Mac OS X. From Macworld Expo:

The iPhone is running an optimised but full version of OS X that weighs in at "considerably less" than half a GB, according to Apple vice president of worldwide iPod marketing Greg Joswiak.

Joswiak confirmed that the operating system sits in the flash memory of the device and that Apple will "provide updates to the operating system like we do today."

Joswiak claimed that the reduced size of the operating system was a result of expertise of the team at Apple, rather than cutting out functionality or removing core technologies. "Remember that OS X on a Mac features a lot of applications that we don't have to ship on the iPhone," he added.

http://www.macworld.co.uk/ipod-itunes/news/index.c fm?newsid=16927

Re:Optimised OS X sits on 'versatile' flash

[zephc]

It's pretty easy to figure out what they probably did: a port of XNU sitting under the most/all the higher level frameworks, and little of the BSD layer except the APIs. And like Joswiak said, thy can cut out a LOT of stuff without crippling the OS or APIs. A sizable chunk of /System and /System/Library can be cut out because it contains support for things not needed on a phone/ipod/internet device, then of course pretty much all of /Applications and that leaves you with a slim, but real, OS X.

Re:Optimised OS X sits on 'versatile' flash

[allanc]

Okay, look at it this way:

1. OSX is a derivative of NeXTstep, originally written for the Motorola 68000 line of processors. It was ported to the PowerPC architecture and the x86 architectures. Why's it so hard to believe they couldn't port it to ARM? Yeah, binaries from "real" OSX won't work, but since the plan is to only have Apple binaries running on the thing, they can just recompile for the new platform. Porting userland is trivial.

2. OSX is an operating system built on a microkernal derivative of UNIX. Unix--especially unix running on a uKernal--is pretty much the most modular thing out there. All they have to do is drop the stuff they don't need for a phone.

3. Again, maybe the full-on desktop version of OSX is power and graphics hungry, but there's nothing that says they can't scale that down.

I'm guessing that the iPhone OSX is very similar, especially in terms of high-level APIs (given that Steve mentioned a lot of OSX APIs by name during the keynote), to quote-unquote-real OSX.

Re:Optimised OS X sits on 'versatile' flash

[lordandrei]

I don't see why it's difficult for readers to perceive that parts of OSX could sit under 1/2 GB

The SDK module for 10.4u that ships with XCode clocks in at 317.2MB. And that's the entire public API suite.

The Public Frameworks for 10.4u Are just over 52MB
The unix standard /usr/ (include, lib, libexec, and X11R6) is a meaty 245.1 MB

Tiger's Extension folder is 129.9 MB, but that's assuming al the potential hardware (which could be greatly reduced)
Even the entirety of Core Services is only 163.5 MB.

So, the entire API set (with header), all the extension, and all of Core Services rounds out at 610.6 MB
That's without removing everything unnecessary for the phone (much of Core Services, Extensions, and all the header files.)

1/2 gig or smaller? Easily for a streamlined version of OSX that runs in a minimal footprint.

It's Darwin/MACH/I(O Kit

[Anonymous Coward]

From http://jobs.apple.com/index.ajs?BID=1&method=mExte rnal.showJob&RID=4241&CurrentPage=1

The iPhone team is seeking a highly motivated Embedded SW Engineer to develop
middleware and low-level drivers for Bluetooth and Wifi enabled products

• MacOS X / IOKit driver development experience
  
• Mach IPC and/or Mach Server design experience
  
• Solid understanding of embedded hardware platforms (ARM processors, SDIO, UARTs, etc)

Just funny

[edwardpickman]

A lot of people are claiming to know what an iPhone really is like inspite of not having seen one or even known of their existence before a couple of days ago.

It may be a striped version of OSX but it obviously is a version of OSX since it has some very OSX features like Core Animation which doesn't even show until Leopard. Even things like Widgets are OSX. They've been working on the phone for years so I'd assume they adapted the OS to the chip they are using. Using even a notebook processor would be silly. The power requirements would limit you to one five minute phone call per charge.

What really seems to be pissing everyone off is it's a computer under the hood and Apple isn't open sourcing it. Apple has always been big on protecting their hardware and I'm guessing that's why they aren't providing the code. It's meant to be a phone at this stage and they don't want to deal with all the hassles of people screwing up their phones trying to get Pong to run on it. Also that has to be the crown jewel for virus writers so why help them? I'm sure they'll open it up to development eventually but it's likely to be years and only when it starts crossing the line into becoming a full on portable computer. It's a staggering smart phone, deal with it.

OSX,doesnt matter.It is a black box, closed system

[GodWasAnAlien]

Even if they used a Linux kernel, then piled there own locked down apps on top,
what difference would that make? It is still a closed development model of a black box system.

They are trying to sell a very high end phone that is completely closed to add-on apps.
That worked for the mp3 player, but the functionality of an mp3 player is expected to be limited.

Apple has chosen to live and die with a closed box model.

This is news to people? Why would iPhone use OSX?

[axelbaker]

OSX is a very large OS. While it is modular, a small embedded OS highly optimized for ARM would be a much smarter choice. This is consumer electronics not computers. The standards are MUCH higher. They need zero latency execution, absolute stability, and above all low cost. Every cent saved adds up to millions over a manufacturing run of 100,000 units. I would hazard to guess Apple did the smart thing and bought an off the shelf OS, and wrote a few apps for it with a set of prebuilt development tools just like every other phone and embedded device maker out there. Asking what OS the iPhone is running is like asking what OS is my microwave is running (yes I know my microwave doesn't have an OS). For consumers it doesn't matter and for developers there is a development kit available. This article us not news.

All wrong...

[RossyB]

Is there anything in that post which is correct? So what is OS X doens't have a known ARM port, the BSDs run on ARM so porting it would be trivial. Also, Apple own the source so can do anything, including making a private branch. The iPhone could be using a low power PPC chip.

I've been waiting for clue to finally disappear from /., and it appears that 2007 is the year it happens.

That guys name does my head in

[dafing]

Jobs+Wozniak=Joswiak?

Re:That guys name does my head in

[dangitman]

Just wait until they announce the iClone mind-meld SDK at WWDC.

One more thing ... now you can store backups of your brain and personality on your iPod*, and share it with other users.

*Requires BrainSlug Express accessory.

Re:That guys name does my head in

[rbanffy]

Or perhaps a terrible mishap involving a time-machine and a teletransporter...

Why can't we mod down a story?

[Zaknafein500]

This should at least be marked as an editorial, and an extraordinarily poorly written one at that. Something so inflamatory and infantile shouldn't have made it to the front page in the first place.

I suppose that might be an argument IF...

[tgibbs]

Darwin, the BSD based operating system that underlies what Apple has previously been calling OS X, does not run on ARM processors. The Darwin / Apple Public Source licensing agreement says the source would have to be made available if it is modified and sold (paraphrased; read it yourself).

I suppose that might be an argument IF Apple were currently selling the iPhone. But they are not. So assuming that the iPhone runs a version of OS X as Apple has said (and there is no reason to doubt it), Apple still has several months to meet the terms of the agreement.

As with most embedded versions of standard OS's

[ClosedSource]

an embedded OSX isn't really OSX. Just as embedded Linux isn't really linux and Windows CE isn't really Windows. It's mostly a matter of branding.

Re:As with most embedded versions of standard OS's

[tigeba]

I suppose this depends on what you consider "embedded" and what you consider "real". I do development on an Intel xscale processor which is basically an arm9 on crack. It runs 2.6 kernel linux that is sucked right of kernel.org. Admittedly there are some patches that are added, but they mostly deal with hardware. This device is "embedded" to the degree that an iPhone is. It runs the linux kernel, I have a console with bash, it was built with gcc, runs gcc. Sounds like "real" linux to me!

I call Bullshit

[Lars T.]

rochlin seems to not have read the license in any meaningful sense. His argument seems to be based on (2.2c) of the APSL

2.2 Modified Code. You may modify Covered Code and use, reproduce, display, perform, internally distribute within Your organization, and Externally Deploy Your Modifications and Covered Code, for commercial or non-commercial purposes, provided that in each instance You also meet all of these conditions:

(a) You must satisfy all the conditions of Section 2.1 with respect to the Source Code of the Covered Code;

(b) You must duplicate, to the extent it does not already exist, the notice in Exhibit A in each file of the Source Code of all Your Modifications, and cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that You changed the files and the date of any change; and

(c) If You Externally Deploy Your Modifications, You must make Source Code of all Your Externally Deployed Modifications either available to those to whom You have Externally Deployed Your Modifications, or publicly available. Source Code of Your Externally Deployed Modifications must be released under the terms set forth in this License, including the license grants set forth in Section 3 below, for as long as you Externally Deploy the Covered Code or twelve (12) months from the date of initial External Deployment, whichever is longer. You should preferably distribute the Source Code of Your Externally Deployed Modifications electronically (e.g. download from a web site).

Where the hell does it say anybody (including Apple) has to release source code before "External Deployment"?

size is easy, but speed

[cheekyboy]

I can create a 600meg bootable cdr OSX today, theres a program that does it for you.

And after that its easy to trim things down.

Getting it fast is another story, though it was decent on 600mhz PPCs, being a smaller screen it should be easy, especially with 99% of
services not running/installed like printer/ samba / sshd etc.

FreeBSD, ARM and the rest of the components

[smackenzie]

1. Here are the iPhone components according to FRB Research via arstechnica:

- Samsung Electronics for the CPU/Video processing
- Marvell for the 802.11 chipset
- Infineon Technologies for baseband communications
- Broadcomm Corp. for the touch screen controllers
- Cambridge Silicon Radio for the Bluetooth chipset

2. Darwin is an open source core based on FreeBSD according to Apple, Inc..

3. Here is freebsd on ARM processors (intel-based). ARM FreeBSD.

4. Why is it tough to believe that Apple would simply recompile necessary components of Darwin on the ARM processors and then include and compile the necessary (and only the necessary!) mid level libraries? Many existing apps would work with only minor modifications (to take into account the new control scheme) and a recompile.

no, it's an ARM: Cortex-A8

[gradedcheese]

It's a Cortex-A8, check wikipedia. Those are new ARM cores that run in the 600-800MHz and possibly 1GHz range and are quiet capable.

sigh

[Gary W. Longsine]

What part of "Mac OS X is highly portable" is so hard for people to understand? From it's original NeXT roots m68k, x86, sparc, pa-risc, and powerpc were shipping platforms at one time or another. Yes, it takes work to port to another platform (which might be ARM this time), but every time they port it they get better at it. The MacWorld 2007 keynote presentation of the iPhone sure looked like Mac OS X to me. Would you rather believe they wrote an entire embedded operating system *from scratch*? It's clear that the bogon flux has increased.

APSL applies to everyone but Apple

[aristotle-dude]

1. Apple is the copyright holder and are not bound by the license.
2. Apple is free to modify their own code to run on ARM and not release the source.
3. You /.ers don't seem to grasp that these licenses apply to third-parties contributing changes to the project and not the copyright holders.

I was wrong! Maybe it does run OS X

[rochlin]

Several people posted good info that invalidates my original posting. 1. Samsung is a licensee/subcontractor to IBM for the production of PowerPC chips. (And IBM lists some versions that are low power and appear to be up to the task of running the iPhone). So there is no reason to suppose the iPhone is running ARM. It's a lot more common to run phones on ARM cores, but PPC can do it. A power PC core would make it much more likely that the iPhone is running on some variation of a Darwin based OS X. 2. Apple doesn't have to make any Darwin based operating system open if they don't want to. Their license restricts everyone else. So there was no material basis for my Suggestion that the iPhone isn't running OS X. It might not be, but my reasons were mostly wrong.

Re:Anybody NOT from Apple?

[jamar0303]

Well, there's mroe than that, though. The iPhone has no number pad, so how would existing applications be controlled? They would have to be rewritten to handle the iPhone's multi-touch. I was thinking that the fact that the iPhone ran a mobile version of OS X would mean that things like Widgets (if not full-on applications) could carry over between a Mac and an iPhone.