iPhone's OS X Less than 500MB, Flash vs Hard Drive, iWork Integration?
Macworld.co.uk provides some quotes from Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of worldwide iPod marketing.
Joswiak provides some additional details about the version of OS X that runs on the Apple iPhone. He confirms that the operating system sits in the flash memory of the iPhone and takes up "considerably less" than half a gigabyte of storage.
OS updates will be provided regularly, much like iPod updates are provided.
Meanwhile, Joswiak also states that Flash memory was chosen for the iPhone over a hard drive due to the advantages of size and durability.
In another report Joswiak reports that Apple will be providing accessory makers more details about designing for the iPhone later this month:
He also confirms that the only other applications to be expected for the iPhone will be coming from Apple for the time being. Macworld.co.uk speculates that the next iWork update may integrate with the iPhone. Indeed, the buzz on the Macworld floor indicates that many believe that the iWork and iLife updates have been delayed due to tight integration with Leopard. iPhone integration could also certainly be possible, but no concrete evidence yet to support this.
Joswiak provides some additional details about the version of OS X that runs on the Apple iPhone. He confirms that the operating system sits in the flash memory of the iPhone and takes up "considerably less" than half a gigabyte of storage.
OS updates will be provided regularly, much like iPod updates are provided.
Meanwhile, Joswiak also states that Flash memory was chosen for the iPhone over a hard drive due to the advantages of size and durability.
In another report Joswiak reports that Apple will be providing accessory makers more details about designing for the iPhone later this month:
"We will be giving our developers technical information by the end of next month that will outline those extra requirements. Well work with our developers to make sure that the products are properly shielded."
He also confirms that the only other applications to be expected for the iPhone will be coming from Apple for the time being. Macworld.co.uk speculates that the next iWork update may integrate with the iPhone. Indeed, the buzz on the Macworld floor indicates that many believe that the iWork and iLife updates have been delayed due to tight integration with Leopard. iPhone integration could also certainly be possible, but no concrete evidence yet to support this.
Top Rated Comments
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66 months ago
The thing I want to know: Will there be a hard drive based iPod, like the iPhone without the phone bit...
66 months ago
The thing I want to know: Will there be a hard drive based iPod, like the iPhone without the phone bit...
That's what I want to know as well. :)
66 months ago
They must have left quite a bit out... the System folder on my iMac is nearly 2GB, the Library folder is another 600MB.
66 months ago
They must have left quite a bit out... the System folder on my iMac is nearly 2GB, the Library folder is another 600MB.
Yeah, now I'm starting to wonder what is taking up so much data in my System folder :)! Are the GUI elements on my Mac taking up that much?
Then again, they could probably get rid of a bunch of things that aren't necessary on the iPhone, like printer drivers, unused frameworks, and on the Darwin layer: All the command utilities that aren't used at user level anyway.
66 months ago
Would be nice for some tight integration with iWork and iLife.
I wonder what bits of OS X have been left out
I wonder what bits of OS X have been left out
66 months ago
The iPhone is an incredible product but I have a hard time plunking down $600 for just 8GB worth of storage. That gets me about 3 full length movies and 100 songs. Until the storage is upped to at least 16GB Flash or 30GB HDD I think I'm going to hold out.
66 months ago
I'm still not convinced that the iPhone is running anything but an OS X lookalike. I doubt it's so much a question of what's left out as what's included. And when you start to build up what you need rather than strip down what you don't, I have no trouble believing they could get it down to well under 500 MB.
66 months ago
16GB and 8GB versions on launch?
Also, cue torrent of iphone haters complaining too hard about how they're not gonna buy one and that Apple has another cube on it's hands :D
Also, cue torrent of iphone haters complaining too hard about how they're not gonna buy one and that Apple has another cube on it's hands :D
66 months ago
I'm getting a bit worried about Leopard. The features we saw at WWDC were pretty minor, only time machine and spaces could you say were 'real new features'.
Considering Vista is launched this month you'd have thought Apple would be showing the world just how cool Leopard is going to be. But they just aren't.
Considering Vista is launched this month you'd have thought Apple would be showing the world just how cool Leopard is going to be. But they just aren't.
66 months ago
I'm still not convinced that the iPhone is running anything but an OS X lookalike. I doubt it's so much a question of what's left out as what's included. And when you start to build up what you need rather than strip down what you don't, I have no trouble believing they could get it down to well under 500 MB.
We've now had several Apple execs, including Jobs himself state that the iPhone is running OS X. So why do you keep on doubting it is anything but a highly optimized version of OS X? Just because we've gotten used to software bloat?
Here's an anecdote from Andy Hertzfeld about the power of optimization:
http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Puzzle.txt&topic=Software%20Design&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium
Andy was one of the original Mac programmers and while the story is from a while back, the point remains valid. A talented programmer can take a program and with genius and creativity, significantly reduce the size of the program. In the story above, Andy took the original Puzzle desk accessory that was 6 KB in size and managed, in just a few hours of weekend work, reduce it to just 600 bytes.
Of course, he used assembly language to reduce the program to just 10% of its original size, but without resorting to assembly language, I would say it would be fairly easy for programmers to reduce the size of something by 2-4 times, especially if they leave unneeded libraries out.
Less than 500 MB for OS X is totally believable, especially since Apple tends to have more than its fair share of genius-level software engineers.
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