Is iOS 15 just a better-looking Linux?

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Although iOS has reached its 15th version, it is obviously younger. In terms of seniority, Linux may call iOS the uncle.

Steve Jobs and NeXT

At the iPhone launch in 2007, when iOS was still called iPhone OS, Jobs said that iPhone OS was actually developed based on MacOS.

When talking about MacOS, we have to mention a company called NeXT.

The founder of this company was none other than Steve Jobs.

The NeXT logo was designed by Steve Jobs at a cost of $100,000. Note that this was $100,000 in 1986. You can see in the picture whether Jobs' $100,000 was worth it compared to Lei Jun's $2 million.

Some students asked, wait, isn’t Steve Jobs the founder of Apple?

It turned out that in 1985, Jobs was kicked out of Apple, the company he founded. However, the boss did not change his career to develop new energy vehicles in anger, but continued to do his old business of selling computers.

NeXTstep operating system

In this company, an operating system called NeXTstep was under intensive construction. Jobs hired a programmer named Avie Tevanian. There was a reason why Jobs found this guy. First, this guy was a PhD graduate from Carnegie Mellon University. Secondly, Tevanian was one of the main programmers of the BSD Mach kernel, which is a Unix-like kernel.

No boss is a fool. Since they paid a lot of money to hire you, you have to contribute. The boss wants this guy to develop a new multi-tasking operating system (imagine if your boss asked you to develop an operating system...). Of course, it is based on the previous work, that is, the BSD Mach kernel.

The boss is undoubtedly a first-rate product manager, but his judgment of people is not very stable, otherwise he would not have been kicked out of the company by the CEO he recruited. Fortunately, his performance this time was relatively normal.

The programmer Tevanian lived up to everyone's expectations. After a hard 996 research and development, NeXTstep was successfully developed. The ease of use of this operating system was indeed unique at the time. For example, the Dock on the modern MacOS actually comes from the NeXTstep operating system.

This picture shows the NeXTstep graphical interface, which is very advanced.

Let’s see how it compares with the latest MacOS Big Sur?

By mid-1986, NeXT computers powered by NeXTstep were on sale.

NeXT and the World Wide Web

Another legend of NeXT lies in its connection with the World Wide Web.

In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. Where? On a NeXT computer.

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It was on this NeXT computer that the World Wide Web was born, and this NeXT computer also had the honor of becoming the world's first server, and it also ran the world's first web browser. Front-end and back-end programmers, come and pay your respects, the ancestor is here.

Business

Although NeXT was avant-garde in design, it was not commercially successful. NeXT eventually had to stop selling hardware and instead license the NeXTSTEP operating system to other hardware manufacturers, just as Microsoft sells Windows today.

The year came to 1996. Apple, which was in trouble both internally and externally, failed in its plan to develop a new operating system, so they decided to buy an existing one. After much deliberation, they decided to acquire NeXT and also acquired Jobs as part of the package. In this way, Jobs returned to Apple and took power again. He subsequently released a series of epoch-making products such as iPod, MacBook Air, iPhone, iPad, etc., eventually pulling Apple out of bankruptcy. Under Cook's leadership, Apple has become the company with the highest market value in the world today.

And Tevanian, the main programmer who developed the NeXTSTEP operating system, also followed Steve Jobs to Apple (this reminds us that it is important to follow the right boss at the right time), and once again demonstrated his outstanding ability to build operating systems. He developed the modern MacOS based on NeXTSTEP, and Tevanian also became the boss of Apple's software development department as Chief Software Technology Officer (CSTO), which should be a top position that programmers dream of.

So iOS is based on modern MacOS, which in turn is based on NeXTSTEP, which in turn is based on the BSD Mach kernel.

Linux

What about Linux? You should know that Linux is an amateur operating system project started by Linus' students in 1991, while NeXTSTEP was already publicly sold in 1989.

Therefore, iOS is not a prettier Linux. iOS and Linux are two completely unrelated operating systems. In terms of age, the kernel of iOS is undoubtedly more advanced.

But no matter what, these two operating systems have changed the world on the server and mobile sides respectively.

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