IOS review. What it is?

As the popularity of Apple products is growing every day, you can hear the question: "iOS - what is it?" In fact, this is the operating system originally released in 2007 for the iPhone and having settings for controlling the touch screen. Subsequently, it was expanded to support other devices and is used on the iPad and Apple TV. Unlike Windows Phone and Android, the manufacturer did not grant a license for its use on third-party devices. That's why you should take this circumstance into account when talking about iOS (how to install it on a smartphone or tablet).

The user interface of this OS is based on the concept of direct manipulation using multitouch. Elements of the control interface consist of a cursor, a switch and buttons. Answering the question "iOS - what it is", it should be noted that this platform is derived from OS X and is based on a similar basis. Thus, it is an operating system on the Unix kernel.

Apple provides important updates for the OS about once a year, which is possible to download using the Itunes service (starting with iOS Beta 2). The most recent version of the operating system is 6.0, released on September 19th, 2012. It has offered users more than 200 new features, including new Apple Passbook services, maps and full Facebook integration.

The screen interface (known as SpringBoard) displays icons and widgets at the bottom of the screen, where users can capture the most frequently used applications. At the top is a status bar that displays current data such as time, battery level and signal strength.

Starting with version 3.0, the Spotlight search function is available, located on the left side of the screen. It allows users to find music, applications, e-mail, contacts, messages, reminders, calendar of events and related files.

In iOS 4 or later, users were able to set the image as the background of the main screen. This feature is available only in the third generation of devices or newer - with the iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3. In the iPad, however, this feature was available from the time it was released with firmware 3.2.

When trying to explain in detail, iOS - what it is, you can not forget the application Siri. It is an intelligent personal assistant that responds to the user's voice commands. With its help you can perform various tasks, for example, dialing a number or text, launching applications, searching the Internet and so on.

Siri is currently only available on the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch of the fifth generation, iPad Mini, and iPad third and fourth generation.

Answering the question "iOS - what it is", one can not help recalling the phenomenon of jailbreaking Apple devices. Since the first release of the platform, it has become the subject of various hacks in order to add functionality that is not allowed by the manufacturer. Gradually, the general motives for jailbreaking have changed. Users resort to it for various reasons, including access to the file system, installing custom themes and modifying the SpringBoard device. On some devices, jailbreak also allows you to install alternative operating systems, such as Android and other Linux distributions.