5 ms·
>Steve Jobs famously announced that the iPhone “ran OS X”. After a week’s work, we determined: that was a lie. He, uh, he died a decade ago, and said those wor
by TheRealPomax 5y ago
>Steve Jobs famously announced that the iPhone “ran OS X”. After a week’s work, we determined: that was a lie.
He, uh, he died a decade ago, and said those words in 2007... Did you try a 2007 first generation iPhone and a version of OSX from the first generation iPhone era, like Leopard? O_o
This is a weird thing to put in an otherwise pretty nice writeup.
- nexuist 5y agoIt's also not even true as the author admits: iOS 1.0 and OS X shared the same kernel, most libraries, and even many drivers. Does anyone think that a Linux distro without audio drivers is a completely different operating system from a Linux distro with audio drivers?
- boomboomsubban 5y agoMost people don't really consider Android "Linux" despite having the same kernel and many libraries in common.
- EvilEy3 5y agoBecause muh libc and it's not using some obscure barely working DE.
- edgyquant 5y agoI think it’s because to most people Linux = GNU/Linux
- dividedbyzero 5y agoI'd be surprised if there were more than a tiny tiny minority of people who even know what you're talking about
- opan 5y agoGNU/Linux as a term is often used for precisely these situations. It evokes the image of something like Debian or Arch on a desktop or server. Very distinct from Android. I can use a terminal on Android and use a few familiar tools, but the same is true of macOS.
- edgyquant 5y agoThe type of people who are likely to hold the opinion that Android isn’t a real Linux definitely do, which is what we’re discussing here.
- Cloudef 5y agoI actually have written bionic -> glibc compatibility layer. https://github.com/Cloudef/android2gnulinux https://github.com/Cloudef/android2gnulinux If it's a native binary, there's good chance you can run it with this. JNI/Java stuff is mostly unity and even that's very proof of concept.
- dvfjsdhgfv 5y agoThank you, it looks very interesting.
- otabdeveloper4 5y agoCall me back when you can compile a Linux program to run on Android. Shouldn't that be the deciding yardstick for OS compatibility?
- hiccuphippo 5y agoInstall one of those chroot apps that give you a distro's package manager on it and then you can. I once did to compile a Qt program on arm. Just install the gcc package and compile away. It was way easier than trying to set up cross-compilation in my Linux box at the time.
- otabdeveloper4 5y agoYou can also install a VM on MacOS and compile Linux apps, too. Does that make MacOS a Linux?
- simondotau 5y agoYes, but surely most people would see the family resemblance between the binary distributions of Mint and Raspbian, for example.
- 1cvmask 5y agoI always did. In fact there were other linux based distros for different form factors including mobile. One was the LiMo (linux mobile) foundation.
- pjmlp 5y agoWhat libraries? https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis Anything that isn't Android specific on that list, works in any OS with a ISO C or ISO C++ compiler. Then there is the Java/Kotlin userspace. Anything not part of those APIs is considered private API, and Android is free to just kill the application. https://developer.android.com/about/versions/nougat/android-7.0-changes#ndk https://developer.android.com/about/versions/nougat/android-... Then we have the regular Linux drivers that are considered legacy since Android 8. > HALs expressed in HAL interface definition language (HIDL) or Android interface definition language (AIDL). These HALs replace both conventional and legacy HALs used in earlier versions of Android. In a Binderized HAL, the Android framework and HALs communicate with each other using binder inter-process communication (IPC) calls. All devices launching with Android 8.0 or later must support binderized HALs only. https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/hal-types https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/hal-types Many like to think Android's usage of the Linux kernel matters, while the hard reality is that ART can be deployed on top of Fuchsia, and 99% of Android applications will keep on running without changes, probably recompiling might be required for the NDK parts, that is all.
- purplecats 5y ago"Whatever gets clicks" culture
- simondotau 5y agoAgreed. The claim that "the iPhone runs Mac OS X" was far more true than many marketing claims in the technology sector. In the context that the claim was made, it was certainly not a lie. At minimum it is accurate to describe iPhoneOS 1.0 as a fork of Mac OS X.
- simonh 5y agoNot only that, but Steve even clarified exactly what he meant by “runs OSX” in the presentation with a big list of features the iPhone got from it. Multitasking, networking, power management, etc, etc. Funnily enough binary compatible hardware drivers weren’t on the list.
- tinus_hn 5y agoEspecially when compared to the competition phones that ran kernels that were only used in the embedded world
- Grustaf 5y agoYeah whatever it was, it wasn't a lie. At most a simplification for marketing purposes. It's not like customers care if it's 100% OSX or 75%, the point is that iOS built on the security and experience of OSX.
- saagarjha 5y agoIt's a blog post lede meant to garner interest; I think you are treating it far more seriously than it should be.
- TheRealPomax 5y agoDon't make up lies about a dead man's claims from over a decade ago. Pretty basic rule. Unless you're writing clickbait, then by all means do whatever the hell you want. If you're going to call someone a liar, test their claim. Don't go "they were lying, because a decade after their death everything is different".