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."

I can exclusively reveal

[Timesprout (579035)]

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 (38532)]

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

[galimore (461274)]

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 (924859)]

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

[TheRaven64 (641858)]

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

[samkass (174571)]

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.

Optimised OS X sits on 'versatile' flash

[smackenzie (912024)]

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 [macworld.co.uk]

That guys name does my head in

[dafing (753481)]

Jobs+Wozniak=Joswiak?

Re:That guys name does my head in

[rbanffy (584143)]

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

Re:Optimised OS X sits on 'versatile' flash

[zephc (225327)]

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.

FreeBSD, ARM and the rest of the components

[smackenzie (912024)]

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

- 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. [apple.com].

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

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.

Doesn't Apple hold the copyright?

[xenocide2 (231786)]

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 (584756)]

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 (755107)]

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 (537200)]

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 (444580)]

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

Re:Non sequiturs abound.

[mnmn (145599)]

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.

[Score Whore (32328)]

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 (238306)]

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.

[kripkenstein (913150)]

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.

[Overly Critical Guy (663429)]

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 (822637)]

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.

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

[pavon (30274)]

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.

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

[AKAImBatman (238306)]

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.

Re:

[jlarocco (851450)]

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 FreeB

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

[CaymanIslandCarpedie (868408)]

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).

so what?

[j00r0m4nc3r (959816)]

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?

[Overly Critical Guy (663429)]

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?

Re:

[themonkman (877464)]

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 j

Well, considering...

[Bin_jammin (684517)]

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?

OSX != Mac OSX

[robbieduncan (87240)]

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 (146129)]

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.

The kernel is not the operating system...

[Goth Biker Babe (311502)]

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?

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 [pennwellblogs.com]

"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/ [theregister.co.uk]

Of course it is OS X

[-Neko- (67564)]

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)

A little premature?

[P. Niss (635300)]

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.

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 [apple.com] 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 (931398)]

"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 (879742)]

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 (30288)]

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.

Just funny

[edwardpickman (965122)]

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.

Why can't we mod down a story?

[Zaknafein500 (303608)]

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.

Re:FreeBSD?

[nurb432 (527695)]

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

Re:Should be obvious it's not

[nacturation (646836)]

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

[Overly Critical Guy (663429)]

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

[Fred Ferrigno (122319)]

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

[guanxi (216397)]

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.

Re:A magic compiler

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

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.