Why iOS Isn’t Open Source: The Secrets Behind Apple’s Walled Garden
Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, originally naming the OS iPhone OS and presenting it as OS X with desktop-class applications to emphasize hardware–software integration. The App Store launched in 2008, with every native app required to use Apple’s SDK and undergo Apple’s review and guidelines. Apple released the Darwin core under the Apple Public Source License, and in 2017 posted the ARM64 iOS kernel source publicly, while higher‑level iOS remains closed. In 2015 Apple open-sourced the Swift programming language under an Apache license. iOS is tightly integrated with Apple hardware, including the Neural Engine and Secure Enclave, enabling optimizations