Whats In a Name?

Given the speed of technological innovation, it’s easy to forget sometimes that “iOS” is a relatively recent term. Until June 2010, Apple referred to its mobile operating system as “iPhone OS.”

In 2011, Apple sold more iOS devices (156 million) than all the Macs it had sold in 28 years (122 million).Â

According to mobile market analytics specialist Flurry, new application-development projects for iOS outnumber those for Android by approximately three-to-one.

Multitasking only became a major feature with iOS 4.

Apple’s App Store for iOS now features some 550,000 apps.

In order to use the name “iOS,” Apple had to reach an agreement with Cisco, which already owned the trademark. Apple and Cisco had also battled for the rights to the term “iPhone.”

By March 2012, Apple could boast that iOS users had downloaded some 25 billion apps from the App Store. Chunli Fu of Qingdao, China, downloaded that 25 billionth app, the free version of “Where’s My Water?”

Also by March 2012, developers had made some $4 billion from the App Store (according to Apple, at least).

Although Apple pushed back hard against people “jailbreaking” their iPhones, the U.S. Copyright Office and the Library of Congress decided in July 2010 that the practice was not prohibited by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

There are rumors that iOS 6 could appear this summer, ahead of the release of Apple’s next iPhone.