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Aren’t macOS and iOS Unix-based? Unix is one of the most widely used operating systems in the world right now.

• pjmlp 3y ago
  macOS yes, iOS not really, you won't go far using only UNIX for iOS apps. The actually reality is POSIX flavoured OSes are most widely used operating systems in the world, for various levels of what means to be POSIX, and to what level they expose it. "Transcending POSIX: The End of an Era?" https://www.usenix.org/publications/loginonline/transcending-posix-end-era https://www.usenix.org/publications/loginonline/transcending...
  • rcme 3y ago
    But Darwin, the iOS kernel, is Unix?
    • pjmlp 3y ago
      The iOS kernel isn't exactly Darwin. Additionly Darwin evolved from a mix of BSD and MACH. NeXTSTEP drivers were written in Objective-C, and a C++ subset on Darwin. In any case you won't be running CLI applications on iOS, rather applications that depend on a mix of Objective-C and nowadays also Swift, hardly UNIX. Using BSD sockets on iOS doesn't support all the iOS networking capabilities, for example. NeXT approach, later adopted by Apple, was similar to Windows NT POSIX in spirit. The UNIX compatibility is there to help bring applications into the platform, and take place in US government contracts, not to make it easier to port applications elsewhere. There are even some recordings from meetings at NeXT, with Steve Jobs discussing how NeXT should position itself on the workstation market.