In the four years since its launching , Apple ’s iOS has add up a farseeing elbow room . found as the on - board operating system for just one machine , it now powers three — the iPhone , the iPod touch , and the iPad . And while it started life in a pretty polished format — perhaps not surprising , given that it was establish in large part on OS X ’s underpinnings — Io continues to tot up worthwhile raw features , capped off byiOS 5 ’s arrivalearlier this month .
It ’s a design Mac exploiter have seen before — a X earlier to be precise , when Mac OS X was in its early stages . Given the parallels betwee the two operating systems , it ’s worth wonder : Should we bear iOS ’s evolution to mirror the path blazed by Mac OS X — several years of annual update , survey by a slower pace of releases ? Or will iOS ontogeny rather blaze a path all its own ?
Mac OS X: The early years
To answer that question , we take to hop into the Wayback Machine to Mac OS X ’s 2001 introduction . The March 2001 dismissal of Mac OS X 10.0 — codification - key out Cheetah , in fount you ’ve forgotten — was quickly replaced with the 10.1 update . Arriving a mere six months after Cheetah , Mac OS ecstasy Puma fasten bug and summate some features .
Less than a year after , Apple turn Mac OS X 10.2 ; the Jaguar update included the launching of iChat , the tax return of spring - loaded folders , and the debut of Bonjour ( née Rendezvous ) . October 2003 saw the release of Mac OS X 10.3 Panther , with Exposé , iChat AV , and the launching of Safari .
Released in 2005 , Tiger set the last of Apple ’s annual updates for Mac OS X.
Released in 2005, Tiger marked the last of Apple’s annual updates for Mac OS X.
Tiger ( Mac OS X 10.4 ) was next , released in April 2005 . That embodiment added Spotlight , Automator , VoiceOver , Dashboard , .Mac syncing , and a organization - wide dictionary . Tiger , released four class after the initial launch of OS X , was a significantly better operating system than its forerunner . It also marked the end of one-year updates for OS X. Prior to Tiger ’s release , Apple say it planned to slow down down the step of OS X development , as the operating system was becoming more mature .
iOS: Inception ‘til now
How did iOS come on in that same four - year time human body ? The original iPhone , released in 2007 , stigmatise the introduction of what was then called the iPhone OS . iPhone 1.0 introduced all of the core interface elements that characterize multitouch computing : pinch to zoom along , swiping , double - tap zooming , and all the rest . It ’s amazing to believe how unchanging a 1.0 projection the original iPhone ’s software program really was — especially when you commemorate that it ship with only a handful of apps — not even enough to fill up the base cover .
iPhone 1.0 was , in fact , a more polished release than the initial spill of Mac OS X. That ’s surprising , in part , because although Mac OS X was built from the earth up , it had nearly two decades of previous Macintosh operating systems to learn from .
The 2008 dismissal of iPhone 2.0 enter the virtual doors of the App Store .
The 2008 release of iPhone 2.0 opened the virtual doors of the App Store.
Just over a class after the original iPhone OS ’s release came version 2.0 , which introduce the App Store . The next yr saw the debut of iPhone OS 3 , which tot up long - awaited features like Cut , Copy and Paste and MMS livelihood ; it also introduced push notice . The last feature of speech was the most important of the release ; it mean that all the apps you installed could eventually alarm you to of import case ( new instant substance , your turn in a game ) even when they were n’t running . It was n’t multitasking in any sense of the word , but knowing that your apps could alert you when you were n’t using them was a significant improvement .
Io 4made legion change : The o ’s name change , multitasking arrive , and FaceTime was unveiled . Multitasking eliminate the feeling that sure iOS activities — copying text from Safari to paste into an electronic mail , for good example — were too much of a job . iOS 4 also meant leaflet , a unified inbox in Mail , iPod controls to the left field of the multitasking barroom and systemwide spellcheck . These are all features that active iOS users still use , every single twenty-four hours .
In some ways , iOS 4 mirrored elements of OS X ’s Jaguar and Panther releases . FaceTime on iOS intelligibly owe a debt of gratitude to iChat AV on the Mac . And Exposé — though clearly different — influence iOS 4 ’s multitasking bar .
While iOS updates have introduced plenty of new features—iMessage in this instance—the look of the OS hasn’t changed all that much since its 2007 debut.
iOS 5 , in this doctrine of analogy , is Tiger . Where Tiger offer .Mac syncing , iOS 5 introduces iCloud . Tiger introduced Dashboard , for well accessible doodad of up - to - date entropy ; iOS 5 has Notification Center . Both OS outlet add system - spacious dictionary lookup .
Tiger also included VoiceOver , which the iPhone inherit with the release of the iPhone 3GS . But both the Tiger release and the iOS 5 waiver — at least on the iPhone 4S with Siri — introduced Modern , useful ways that your Apple devices could speak to you .
Here ’s a fun thought experiment : Name the single most important passing of iOS . I depend you ca n’t do it . Obviously the original launching was of huge significance , but then , so was the App Store handout in iPhone oxygen 2.0 , and multitasking in iOS 4 , and so on .
Each release added unexampled delights . iOS ’s upgrade pace is more striking — and more pleasure - inducing — than iPhone hardware upgrades . With each subsequent incarnation of iOS , you ca n’t suppose proceed back to the one that preceded it ; the young stuff awes you , and quickly becomes second - nature and necessary to your iOS use . An iPhone 4S user would n’t need to give up that phone to go back to an iPhone 4 , but could make it happen . Put an iOS 5 drug user back on iOS 4 , however , and expect some rip .
So when you wonder at how far Io has come since 2007 , take a moment to take account not just the journeying , but the fact that each step along the mode has been insanely great .
The look, it’s not a-changing much
While iOS updates have introduced plenty of new features — iMessage in this instance — the looking of the OS has n’t change all that much since its 2007 unveiling .
Although numerous similarity exist , the first years of iOS ’s existence intelligibly have n’t matched OS X ’s on the nose . For exemplar , many fresh iterations of Apple ’s desktop operating system admit distinguishable visual style ; the Finder , Dock , window title bars , and more have all undergone dramatic redesigns over the year .
iOS has far fewer universal element to exchange , and thus has n’t seen about that amount of visual change at an OS grade . On / off toggles change slightly with iOS 5 , but the general look and sense of the iOS home screen and various interface elements is nigh unchanged .
To date , most of iOS ’s visual organic evolution has been limited to Apple ’s nonremittal apps ; Calendar , Address Book , and Safari ’s flavor have changed a piece over time , but you may count systemwide design changes on one script . Perhaps that will interchange over sentence .
What’s next
Io 5 proceed Apple ’s trend of taking iOS and making what was already awing even more so . Can Apple keep up the pace with its fluid OS ?
With Tiger , Apple clearly felt the pace of one-year updates could n’t be sustained . Its follow-up , Leopard ( 10.5 ) was n’t release for two - and - a - half years , affording Tiger by far the longest endure any looping of Mac OS X ever held . Will iOS 5 ’s successor not arrive until April 2014 ?
Fear not . Apple has n’t announced plans yet , but I would have a bun in the oven iOS 6 to arrive before the end of 2012 .
For all of iOS ’s shine , the fluid OS remains nascent . Multitouch is still a new fundamental interaction paradigm . Apple ’s accomplishments with iOS to particular date are telling , but you get the feel that the company has only scratched the surface of what iOS can do .
On the Mac OS X side , Apple face just one major rival — one it knew it could n’t unseat on the marketshare side . And Microsoft Windows rarely pushes desktop operating system instauration forward ; rather , it systematically plays catchup with the Mac feature .
On the iOS side , however , Apple dominates in profit share , and its marketplace part remain quite competitive with Android . Other touch operating organization , like Windows Phone and WebOS , have n’t yet achieved much market insight — but both have still succeeded in clever touch breakthroughs on their own . The point ? More competition ends up being a dear thing for Apple and iOS customers alike ; it propel ( and perhaps forces ) the company to continue improve and complicate its own pinch interface .
Sure , Android borrowed heavy from iOS , but with at least a petite handful of features , iOS has since returned the favor ; one need look no further than iOS 5 ’s Notification Center for a prime exemplar .
After about two geezerhood , Leopard begat Snow Leopard — an update that almost exclusively turn to under - the - hood improvements . And it was just under another two years before Lion first roared — bringing numerous iOS innovations back to the Mac .
With iOS , however , Apple ’s still just getting started .
[ Lex Friedmanis a Macworld staff author . ]
