2007 · Apple Inc. · Christian

IOS

mobile operating system by Apple Inc.

Released: 29 June 2007
Platforms: IPod touch Apple TV HomePod Apple Watch
Genres: Christian
Developers: Apple Inc.
Publishers: —

About

iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple for its iPhone line of smartphones. It was originally unveiled in January 2007 alongside the first-generation iPhone and launched in June 2007. Major versions of iOS are released annually; the current stable version, iOS 27, was released to the public on September 14, 2026.

Besides powering iPhone, iOS is the basis for three other operating systems made by Apple: iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS. iOS formerly also powered iPads until iPadOS was introduced in 2019 and the iPod Touch line of devices until its discontinuation. Apple's HomePods formerly used a modified version of iOS until software update 13.4 (audioOS 13.4). iOS is the world's second most widely installed mobile operating system, after Android. As of December 2023, Apple's App Store contains more than 3.8 million iOS mobile apps.

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Development

In 2005, when Steve Jobs began planning the iPhone, he stated that he had a choice to either "shrink the Mac, which would be an epic feat of engineering, or enlarge the iPod". Jobs favored the former approach but pitted the Macintosh and iPod teams, led by Scott Forstall and Tony Fadell, respectively, against each other in an internal competition, with Forstall winning by creating iPhone OS. The decision enabled the success of the iPhone as a platform for third-party developers: using a well-known desktop operating system as its basis allowed the many third-party Mac developers to write software for the iPhone with minimal retraining. Forstall was also responsible for creating a software development kit for programmers to build iPhone apps, as well as an App Store within iTunes.

The operating system was unveiled with the iPhone at the Macworld Conference & Expo on January 9, 2007, and released in June of that year. At the time of its unveiling in January, Steve Jobs claimed: "iPhone runs OS X" and runs "desktop class applications", but at the time of the iPhone's release, the operating system was renamed "iPhone OS". Initially, third-party native applications were not supported. Jobs' reasoning was that developers could build web applications through the Safari web browser that "would behave like native apps on the iPhone".

Reception

iOS is the second most popular mobile operating system in the world, after Android. Sales of iPads in recent years are also behind Android, while, by web use (a proxy for all use), iPads (using iOS) are still the most popular.

At WWDC 2014, Tim Cook said 800 million devices had been sold by June 2014. During Apple's quarterly earnings call in January 2015, the company announced that they had sold over one billion iOS devices since 2007.