Comments on: iPhone evolution and how to avoid the Android problem http://corethinking.com/2008/10/21/iphone-evolution-and-how-to-avoid-the-android-problem/ Thoughts on Apple, consumer electronics and how we use tech Fri, 09 Dec 2011 04:54:13 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: games http://corethinking.com/2008/10/21/iphone-evolution-and-how-to-avoid-the-android-problem/#comment-16 Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:11:13 +0000 http://corethinking.wordpress.com/?p=82#comment-16 games…

Honestly, it doesn’ t……

]]> By: Jorg http://corethinking.com/2008/10/21/iphone-evolution-and-how-to-avoid-the-android-problem/#comment-11 Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:08:09 +0000 http://corethinking.wordpress.com/?p=82#comment-11 Bas, some interesting points. It’s true that the UI is only part of the complete OS stack, but I also think it’s an understatement to think that Mac OS X is 75% kernel and related stuff, which I presume you are refering to by saying that 75% originated from open projects.

I think the key differentiators for Mac OS X compared to other Unixes are the APIs (Cocoa and Carbon) and the Media facilities (Core technologies, after which this blog was named), which allow developers to create programs that really take advantage of the OS and which will not run on other systems.

Have a look at http://developer.apple.com/macosx/architecture/index.html to see an overview of the OS architecture, or to http://developer.apple.com/referencelibrary/index.html for an extensive description of the componentens and a clarification between open and proprietary components

I think an iPhone or Mac OS X app is not that easy to port to other systems due to the usage of these APIs, and that it involves more than rewriting the UI.

To make myself clear regarding this article: Of course the iPhone and my imaginary “small iPhone” share these OS underpinnings, and hence they *can* benefit from easily porting a program from one to the other.

But I am not a programmer, so please clarify if I dont get this right.

]]> By: Bas Westerbaan http://corethinking.com/2008/10/21/iphone-evolution-and-how-to-avoid-the-android-problem/#comment-10 Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:30:36 +0000 http://corethinking.wordpress.com/?p=82#comment-10 I have to agree on your observation, when we’re concerned with the UI part of Android and iPhone’s OS X. However, the UI (really!) is only a small part of the stack. It’s the final step in which Apple has got the critical advantage of being closed. However, let us not forget that more than 75% (if it isn’t more) of Mac OS X’s codebase is taken from open projects, which weren’t designed with Mac OS X in mind. Mach for one wasn’t. Not even originally for the same hardware.

The key difference is that you have a lot more room when you are writing an interface for a programmer. There are so many different ways of doing things amidst the libraries used, but they all share proper design, programmaticly. Diversity for the UI, the top of the stack, might work adversely: it’s no problem for the rest.

I wouldn’t be suprised if Apple makes the iPhone Android compatible, except for the UI. Similarly, any program I write on Linux will work with little effort on Mac OS X, as long as I don’t do UI.

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