iOS
| iOS | |
|---|---|
Home screen of iOS 26, the most recent version | |
| Developer | Apple |
| Written in | C, C++, Objective-C, Swift, assembly language |
| OS family | Unix-like, based on Darwin (BSD), macOS |
| Working state | Current |
| Source model | Closed, with open-source components |
| Initial release | June 29, 2007 |
| Latest release | 26.3.1 (a) (March 17, 2026) [±] |
| Latest preview | 26.4 beta 4 (23E5223f) (March 9, 2026) [±] |
| Marketing target |
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| Available in | 41 languages |
List of languages Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional (Hong Kong), Chinese Traditional (Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (Australia), English (United Kingdom), English (United States), Finnish, French (Canada), French (France), German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian (iOS 18), Spanish (Latin America), Spanish (Spain), Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese | |
| Update method |
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| Supported platforms |
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| Kernel type | Hybrid (XNU) |
| Default user interface | Multi-touch GUI |
| License | Proprietary software except for open-source components |
| Official website | www |
| Articles in the series | |
| iOS version history | |
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple for its iPhone line of smartphones. It was unveiled in January 2007 alongside the first-generation iPhone, and was released in June 2007. Major versions of iOS are released annually; the current stable version, iOS 26, was released to the public on September 15, 2025.
Besides powering iPhone, iOS is the basis for three other operating systems made by Apple: iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS. iOS formerly also powered iPads until iPadOS was introduced in 2019 and the iPod Touch line of devices until its discontinuation. iOS is the world's second most widely installed mobile operating system, after Android. As of December 2023, Apple's App Store contains more than 3.8 million iOS mobile apps.
iOS is based on macOS. Like macOS, it includes components of the Mach microkernel and FreeBSD. It is a Unix-like operating system. Although some parts of iOS are open source under the Apple Public Source License and other licenses, iOS is proprietary software.