iOS (previously iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system developed and distributed by Apple Inc. Originally released in 2007 for the iPhone and iPod Touch, it has been extended to support other Apple devices such as the iPad and Apple TV. Unlike Microsoft's Windows CE (Windows Phone) andGoogle's Android, Apple does not license iOS for installation on non-Apple hardware. As of June 12, 2012, Apple's App Store contained more than 650,000 iOS applications, which have collectively been downloaded more than 30 billion times.[3] It had a 16% share of the smartphone operating system units sold in the last quarter of 2010, behind both Google's Android and Nokia's Symbian.[4][dated info] In May 2010, in the United States, it accounted for 59% of mobile web data consumption (including use on both the iPod Touch and the iPad).[5][dated info]
The user interface of iOS is based on the concept of direct manipulation, using multi-touch gestures. Interface control elements consist of sliders, switches, and buttons. The response to user input is immediate and provides a fluid interface. Interaction with the OS includes gestures such asswipe, tap, pinch, and reverse pinch, all of which have specific definitions within the context of the iOS operating system and its multi-touch interface. Internal accelerometers are used by some applications to respond to shaking the device (one common result is the undo command) or rotating it in three dimensions (one common result is switching from portrait to landscape mode).
iOS is derived from OS X, with which it shares the Darwin foundation, and is therefore a Unix operating system.
In iOS, there are four abstraction layers: the Core OS layer, the Core Services layer, the Media layer, and the Cocoa Touch layer. The current version of the operating system (iOS 5.1.1) dedicates 1-1.5 GB of the device's flash memory for the system partition, using roughly 800 MB of that partition (varying by model) for iOS itself.[6]
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