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iPhone's OS X Less than 500MB, Flash vs Hard Drive
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Isn't iPhoto part of iLife? But, I get your point.
14. Automator
15. Stickies (though this would be handy, unless the new Notes is built into the Mail app)
And I pass...
Still pretty fat...
By comparison, Smartphone/PDAs like the Q or Qtopia have 128 MB flash - and that contains the OS, the apps, and the data.
By comparison, Smartphone/PDAs like the Q or Qtopia have 128 MB flash - and that contains the OS, the apps, and the data.
Ok, I'm convinced.
If he'd said "50M", I'd have thought "Ok, they've made an OS X clone", I mean, that's about as large as it would have needed to be.
500M however does sound like a stripped down OS X.
Remember, yes, your System folder may be 2G, however:
- That includes a suite of device drivers that are no longer relevent
- That includes frameworks that are no longer relevent
- That includes larger multimedia objects that can be stripped down
- That's for umpteen languages rather than one.
- That even includes C++/Objective C headers!
OS X used to, back when it was NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP, fit on a single CD, uncompressed (and that was including an encyclopedia), and run in 16Mb of RAM. What's happened since? Carbon, Quartz, Java, and Quicktime. How much of that is needed? What about the Unix back-end?
Taking a look at my System folder (admittedly Panther):
Total size is 1.38G
- The big ones are
CoreServices (143M) - that's things like Finder.app, LoginWindow, etc. Big ones in here are are entirely unnecessary include ClassicStartup (36M), Setup Assistant (40M), and Netwrok Setup Assistant (8.5M), and overall I'd say around 75% of the apps can be removed from here.
Fonts (127M)
Frameworks (600M) - including nearly 100M for Java, and 45M for Python. And this is assuming they haven't been radical and, say, removed Carbon.
Perl (28M) (Huh?)
Preference Panes (40M)
PrivateFrameworks (133M) - plenty of stuff you can see is no longer relevent, SetUpAssistant, various Java things, development tools cores, DVDs...
Screen Savers (26M)
Speech (38M) - I hope they keep this one in some form though, obviously...
Some of these, such as Perl, can go completely. Others can be stripped down to the bare minimum. The relatively bloated Finder can be replaced by the simpler UI of the device. Most of the resources used by all of the apps can be stripped down (no need for Dock.app happy 128x128 pixel icons any more.)
I don't see why it would be hard for Apple to strip 1.4G to .5G for a much simpler device with much lighter requirements and a closed design. I believe the iPhone probably does run Mac OS X. It's stripped down, but it's probably XNU, and it's almost certainly the major Leopard frameworks running on top, with a few compilation options to remove support for unneeded features.
If he'd said "50M", I'd have thought "Ok, they've made an OS X clone", I mean, that's about as large as it would have needed to be.
500M however does sound like a stripped down OS X.
Remember, yes, your System folder may be 2G, however:
- That includes a suite of device drivers that are no longer relevent
- That includes frameworks that are no longer relevent
- That includes larger multimedia objects that can be stripped down
- That's for umpteen languages rather than one.
- That even includes C++/Objective C headers!
OS X used to, back when it was NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP, fit on a single CD, uncompressed (and that was including an encyclopedia), and run in 16Mb of RAM. What's happened since? Carbon, Quartz, Java, and Quicktime. How much of that is needed? What about the Unix back-end?
Taking a look at my System folder (admittedly Panther):
Total size is 1.38G
- The big ones are
CoreServices (143M) - that's things like Finder.app, LoginWindow, etc. Big ones in here are are entirely unnecessary include ClassicStartup (36M), Setup Assistant (40M), and Netwrok Setup Assistant (8.5M), and overall I'd say around 75% of the apps can be removed from here.
Fonts (127M)
Frameworks (600M) - including nearly 100M for Java, and 45M for Python. And this is assuming they haven't been radical and, say, removed Carbon.
Perl (28M) (Huh?)
Preference Panes (40M)
PrivateFrameworks (133M) - plenty of stuff you can see is no longer relevent, SetUpAssistant, various Java things, development tools cores, DVDs...
Screen Savers (26M)
Speech (38M) - I hope they keep this one in some form though, obviously...
Some of these, such as Perl, can go completely. Others can be stripped down to the bare minimum. The relatively bloated Finder can be replaced by the simpler UI of the device. Most of the resources used by all of the apps can be stripped down (no need for Dock.app happy 128x128 pixel icons any more.)
I don't see why it would be hard for Apple to strip 1.4G to .5G for a much simpler device with much lighter requirements and a closed design. I believe the iPhone probably does run Mac OS X. It's stripped down, but it's probably XNU, and it's almost certainly the major Leopard frameworks running on top, with a few compilation options to remove support for unneeded features.
lol, smart phones don't claim they have OSX, apply are using the "OSX" vaguely in order to connect iPhone to the the "most advance" OS in the world-Mac OSX, its business tricks, implying, but not directly.
so when ppl are happy with 5MB palm OS 5.4, they might not happy with 500MB OSX Lite simply because their expectation is too high.
that's what i'm hoping for
i hope the delay of iwork and ilife is due to leopard.......and they're all coming out soon
Hmm...
Maybe that's the ticket. Maybe they'll have a special event right around the official release of Vista (which hasn't launched yet, but will in a couple of weeks) to show off Leopard and give a formal release date. That would get some of the media attention off of Vista and on to Leopard, just when people might be in a mode of thinking about upgrading their computers...
500 Mb Os
I guess if there is no support for 3rd party applications then it is easy to trim the fat from the OS. I have heard that the version of Safari included with the iPhone is more limited than the regular version. If all of the applications included are as limited, I wonder how good the iWork stuff could possibly be without a chunk of the functionality. I don't think it could be much better than the Docs-to-go that comes with the palm IMHO.
I guess if there is no support for 3rd party applications then it is easy to trim the fat from the OS
. I have heard that the version of Safari included with the iPhone is more limited than the regular version. If all of the applications included are as limited, I wonder how good the iWork stuff could possibly be without a chunk of the functionality. I don't think it could be much better than the Docs-to-go that comes with the palm IMHO.
You can definitely count me in this category as well. I have particular tastes when it comes to phones, and a block unit like this wouldn't do much for me. I'd rather have something like this as my iPod/PDA/portable email reader than as my phone.
Of course, that's all being said without having actually held one. I look forward to having that opportunity, though.
At least Microsoft has the honesty to call the light version of Windows by the name "Windows Mobile", and not stretch the truth to the breaking point by saying it's the "full OS".
I'll bet when all's said and done, people will realize that the Apple Phone runs a subset of OSX, similar to the Windows subset called Windows Mobile (Windows CE).
Which isn't a bad thing (except for the dishonesty^H^H^H^H^H^H^H marketing part) - once you start stripping down the O/S, you are changing the sum total of APIs available to the programmer.
Windows CE is very similar to Windows XP, except that some subsystems aren't available, and others may have minor differences in some of the APIs. Porting a Windows XP program (especially one using the modern managed code interfaces) to Windows Mobile is usually pretty simple.
It is a "port", however, since it has to be recompiled for a different processor type and OS subset.
Okay, I will post.
The release of Intel Macs went well AHEAD of schedule so when Macworld rolled around, they were all Mac-ed out!
The "iPhone" (Apple Tablet Nano) is actually a full-on computer with power comparable to, say, a Powermac G4-800 mhz. This is a handtop display centric computer. How much did you pay for your Mac Plus with a small fraction of the power and capacity of the ATN? $2700, and that was 1984-1986!
"iPhone" is literally MERELY ONE APPLICATION on this ATN! "iPod" is literally MERELY ONE APPLICATION on this ATN! "SMS" is literally MERELY ONE APPLICATION on this ATN!
This means something really interesting. More apps are trivial to add and the list of possibilities runs into the dozens at minimum.
Now some will fixate on the "mere 8gb" capacity. Remember this well. The ATN is an internet always-on appliance via cellular Edge and 802.11g now. Rev 2 or 3 will have 3G cellular and 802.11n, and even 802.16 wimax.
You only need local storage for apps and cache. The device can stream from the internet and download from the internet on a real-time or near real-time basis.
Is your music and movie collection on a computer which is on the internet? You can log onto your OWN computer with this device from ANYWHERE there is either cellular Edge or 802.11b/g access. There may be a very few places that does not apply, but not many.
As for flash, Samsung has announced 16gb flash now. I wonder how long it will take Apple to go to that in this device?
In the old days we used to have client-server, where you sat at a "dumb terminal" and talked to the mothership. Then we had "thin clients" which were real computers wired on where the dumb terminal used to be, and it could display graphics and do minimal local tasks. Then we had "thick clients" which were full-on local computers able to do main tasks as well as talk to several other motherships.
ATN is a "physically" thin, "virtually" thick client which is quite capable of talking to multiple motherships (multi-homing), and has MORE local compute capability than so-called thick clients of only 5-10 years ago. It does so WIRELESSLY FROM ANYWHERE, IN YOUR HAND!
For those of you interested only in Macs, Upon Leopard release, Intel will also be updating the chipsets behind the main processor. It will make practical 4-core chips in medium class computers like iMac, and 8-core chip-groups in higher class computers like MacPro, and many-core chip-groups in X-serves, and beyond.
Buckle up for safety and prepare for Warp drive folks.
Rocketman
The release of Intel Macs went well AHEAD of schedule so when Macworld rolled around, they were all Mac-ed out!
The "iPhone" (Apple Tablet Nano) is actually a full-on computer with power comparable to, say, a Powermac G4-800 mhz. This is a handtop display centric computer. How much did you pay for your Mac Plus with a small fraction of the power and capacity of the ATN? $2700, and that was 1984-1986!
"iPhone" is literally MERELY ONE APPLICATION on this ATN! "iPod" is literally MERELY ONE APPLICATION on this ATN! "SMS" is literally MERELY ONE APPLICATION on this ATN!
This means something really interesting. More apps are trivial to add and the list of possibilities runs into the dozens at minimum.
Now some will fixate on the "mere 8gb" capacity. Remember this well. The ATN is an internet always-on appliance via cellular Edge and 802.11g now. Rev 2 or 3 will have 3G cellular and 802.11n, and even 802.16 wimax.
You only need local storage for apps and cache. The device can stream from the internet and download from the internet on a real-time or near real-time basis.
Is your music and movie collection on a computer which is on the internet? You can log onto your OWN computer with this device from ANYWHERE there is either cellular Edge or 802.11b/g access. There may be a very few places that does not apply, but not many.
As for flash, Samsung has announced 16gb flash now. I wonder how long it will take Apple to go to that in this device?
In the old days we used to have client-server, where you sat at a "dumb terminal" and talked to the mothership. Then we had "thin clients" which were real computers wired on where the dumb terminal used to be, and it could display graphics and do minimal local tasks. Then we had "thick clients" which were full-on local computers able to do main tasks as well as talk to several other motherships.
ATN is a "physically" thin, "virtually" thick client which is quite capable of talking to multiple motherships (multi-homing), and has MORE local compute capability than so-called thick clients of only 5-10 years ago. It does so WIRELESSLY FROM ANYWHERE, IN YOUR HAND!
For those of you interested only in Macs, Upon Leopard release, Intel will also be updating the chipsets behind the main processor. It will make practical 4-core chips in medium class computers like iMac, and 8-core chip-groups in higher class computers like MacPro, and many-core chip-groups in X-serves, and beyond.
Buckle up for safety and prepare for Warp drive folks.
Rocketman
I and many other Treo owners are NOT happy with the 5MB Palm OS 5.4, especially given how little it has even changed over the past few years. And the worst thing of course is knowing it's a dead platform, but Palm won't even have anything to replace it with until Access finishes up Access Linux Platform (which will be the successor to Palm OS and run older Palm apps), and the only other option is their Windows Mobile Treos, which only are suitable if you like Windows Mobile.
Not exactly. While Mac OS X's and Windows XP's respective XNU and NT kernels all were born from the work of the Mach microkernel research team at Carnegie Mellon University and are modular, Windows Mobile's Kernel is totally different from Windows NT 5 (Win2000, XP, etc) and thus it is a different OS that had to be developed from scratch.
I think it's not far-fetched that Mac OS X and the iPhone's OSX share the same (optimized) XNU kernel, possibly with some useless subsystem parts tropped, with a Leopard framework library dropped on top of it. If you think about it, most of the bloat comes from the multiple windowing GUI system and networking and drivers. Carbon libraries are also not needed (and they weren't in the keynote slides). This way, they can have a supple but full OS X kernel with the core services built on top of it (Cocoa, Core Services, Animation, security, BSD networking etc). Maybe even quartz and quicktime, and InkWell.
Think about it, the graphics are too fast and smooth for a totally new OS and using OS X's rendering engine makes it easy to develop for (apparently, it also natively reads pdfs in email attachment). The new LG KE850 on Engadget, which uses a traditional touchscreen, has a choppy user interface that seems primitive compared to OS X's.
rocketman, your posts have been right on about this iphone. Hopefully you're also correct on this one. To be honest, I'll be buying it regardless of any updates come june. However, as other people have mentioned, it would be nice to see a storage update (since this is also an ipod, or has an "ipod application"). I had read in some article (maybe NY Times?) that a software update could make this phone 3G compatible. Does this sound right to anyone? I don't know much about ECE or the hardware of phones, but I would have assumed that you need some new hardware inside to pull that off. Unless apple incorporates the hardware (sneakily) for a later firmware update...
I remember running system 7 on my Macintosh LC and it being able to fit on a 1.4 MB floppy w/ room left over. I kinda miss the old days of system 7 where the only software you needed to boot up the computer was the Finder & System suitcase in a folder in the root directory of your hard drive. Now, as you said, OS X needs several gigabytes and files all over the place. I guess that's what we get for all the cool features of OS X.
This is a fantastic overview, thanks Rocketman.
Guess everyone has already thought of this, but why can't the following be a reality:
- When you buy music / TV shows / movies / etc., you buy the right to view them whenever you want, but they are actually accessed from Apple servers when you view them (rather than downloading).
- You can then access them on your iPhone wherever / whenever you want, just like your .Mac mail / shared calendars.
- The AppleTV is a set-top-box, which also accesses the remote server, thereby cutting out the PC altogether.
I'm actually asking, where are the flaws in this?
Apple, please, do not KILL the great iPhone potential, which relies on Mac OS X:
- Posibility to move files between the Mac/PC-Windows and the iPhone.
- Possibility to open native Keynote/PowerPoint presentation on the iPhone.
The above features will give us the ultimate wireless computerles presentation remote:
1. Make your Keynote/PowerPoint presentation on Mac/PC-Windows.
2. Save it to the iPhone.
3. Use the iPhone to give your presentation. No cables or computers involved.
Huge halo effect on the education, corporate and domestyic markets.
WE NEED TONS OF SUCH IPHONES!!!
Another possibility is to sell different iPhone models with different features. We just need the above features. We do not need the "phone" features!
OR CALL IT iPod INSTED OF iPhone, BUT WITH THE ABOVE FEATURES... THANKS.
- Posibility to move files between the Mac/PC-Windows and the iPhone.
- Possibility to open native Keynote/PowerPoint presentation on the iPhone.
The above features will give us the ultimate wireless computerles presentation remote:
1. Make your Keynote/PowerPoint presentation on Mac/PC-Windows.
2. Save it to the iPhone.
3. Use the iPhone to give your presentation. No cables or computers involved.
Huge halo effect on the education, corporate and domestyic markets.
WE NEED TONS OF SUCH IPHONES!!!
Another possibility is to sell different iPhone models with different features. We just need the above features. We do not need the "phone" features!
OR CALL IT iPod INSTED OF iPhone, BUT WITH THE ABOVE FEATURES... THANKS.
lol, ur opinion is not towards the functionality of the machine when you got it, all i was saying is about expectation before you buy it and reality when u actually have the machine in hand.
Is that clear for you?
Im not promoting Palm here, if thats what u think I was trying to say. Obviously u now sounds very excited about this iPhone, probably already begin to save money for it (if you do need to save for it). Im sure u have the expectations for iPhone, but you won't have in in hand and compare the reality with your expectation. So what YOU and OTHER future iPhone users will feel? lets wait and see.
Apple certainly knows -now- what hardware cellular 3G (or 4/5G) needs. We can presume that Apple/AT&T (Cingular will be announcing their own demise this week) have a plan going forward not only for (software) updates to THIS hardware but additional hardware in future devices. iPod updates seemed to happen less frequently than mac updates. About annually. I suspect ATN ("iPhone) updates will also be slower.
As such we can reasonably "presume" this V1.0 ATN ("iPhone") has a bit of future built-in. Steve himself said in the keynote he wants shipping devices to not suffer from "mechanical obsolesence". He was referring at the moment to buttons, but I wonder if they have given this issue ANY thought WRT other aspects of ATN? Hmmm.
Rocketman
It's a point-of-view thing
No debate there, but is "XP" the 2 MB kernel, or is "XP" the set of APIs and libraries and utilities that the user sees?
In my point of view, it's the latter. If the microkernel is adapted for the *very* different environment of a battery-powered handheld, that's a good thing.
It will be interesting to see what the battery life of the Apple Phone really is - and that might help tell if perhaps Apple shouldn't have copied Microsoft (and MontaVista et al) and created a better microkernel.
No debate there, but is "XP" the 2 MB kernel, or is "XP" the set of APIs and libraries and utilities that the user sees?
In my point of view, it's the latter. If the microkernel is adapted for the *very* different environment of a battery-powered handheld, that's a good thing.
It will be interesting to see what the battery life of the Apple Phone really is - and that might help tell if perhaps Apple shouldn't have copied Microsoft (and MontaVista et al) and created a better microkernel.
Random thoughts
Why not stream everything?
There are still bandwidth constraints and also serve-capacity limits. If you tried to view the streamed keynote address you noted issues with stoppages due to heavy traffic. You would not experience that when you as a single user download from your home server, but if everybody wants to view the Presidential address all at once or something, streaming has not fullay arrived yet. We need a cache or near-real-time thing for heavy multi-view over internet. The constraints seem to be both at the sending servers and the sending servers' pipes right now.
Why not a portable Powerpoint/Keynote device?
Sir. Intel literally ran a commercial about 2-4 months AGO showing exactly that. Now the ATN (iPhone) is released. Microsoft has no such thing. Please correct me if I am wrong. ATN will send the presentation via 802.11g to ATV (iTV) too! Or old school to a local computer to only be controlled by ATN by remote. But that would be old school.
What does Intel have on the immediate horizon?
http://www.intel.com/
Quad-core
ATV (iTV)
http://www.intel.com/homepage/index4.htm?iid=biztab+newsatinteltab
http://mysearch.intel.com/corporate...commercials&searchsubmit.x=0&searchsubmit.y=0
Rocketman
Why not stream everything?
There are still bandwidth constraints and also serve-capacity limits. If you tried to view the streamed keynote address you noted issues with stoppages due to heavy traffic. You would not experience that when you as a single user download from your home server, but if everybody wants to view the Presidential address all at once or something, streaming has not fullay arrived yet. We need a cache or near-real-time thing for heavy multi-view over internet. The constraints seem to be both at the sending servers and the sending servers' pipes right now.
Why not a portable Powerpoint/Keynote device?
Sir. Intel literally ran a commercial about 2-4 months AGO showing exactly that. Now the ATN (iPhone) is released. Microsoft has no such thing. Please correct me if I am wrong. ATN will send the presentation via 802.11g to ATV (iTV) too! Or old school to a local computer to only be controlled by ATN by remote. But that would be old school.
What does Intel have on the immediate horizon?
http://www.intel.com/
Quad-core
ATV (iTV)
http://www.intel.com/homepage/index4.htm?iid=biztab+newsatinteltab
http://mysearch.intel.com/corporate...commercials&searchsubmit.x=0&searchsubmit.y=0
Rocketman
i really wish it had a regular hard drive in it. Based on the current crop of ipod videos it wouldnt be that much of a space hog. As far as durability goes, u drop this thing, its done for anyway. I can't imagine that screen surviving a fall on pavement. And Either way i dropped my 60 gig iPod photo on the ground many a time and that hardrive has held up fine
