Mac OS X and iOS Internals
by Jonathan Levin · first published 2013
7mentions
1recommended by
4HN commenters
2015–2025first – last mentioned
25% recommend75% neutral
An in-depth look into Mac OS X and iOS kernels Powering Macs, iPhones, iPads and more, OS X and iOS are becoming ubiquitous. When it comes to documentation, however, much of them are shrouded in mystery. Cocoa and Carbon, the application frameworks, are neatly described, but system programmers find the rest lacking. This indispensable guide illuminates the darkest corners of those systems, starting with an architectural overview, then drilling all the way to the core. - Provides you with a top down view of OS X and iOS - Walks you through the phases of system startup—both Mac (EFi)
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…been deprecated along the years, including POSIX features like networking stack, now replaced by Objective-C APIs. I would advise spending some time reading "Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach" and "Mac OS X and iOS Internals" books, to learn that having everything on kernel space alone, doesn't rewrite the original microkernel code into a huge monolith.
on “Mach kernel” ↗Says someone that never read Apple documentation or iDevice literature regarding system programming on Apple platforms. You can start by reading the Mac OS X Internals, followed by Mac OS X and iOS Internals: To the Apple's Core. Then hop over to Apple's archive, https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/navigation/
on “Krita, OpenGL and Qt” ↗No, because naturally it is different kind of requirements and space is at a price as well. Technically it is kind of the same, but with different set of configured features. Already a bit oldie, "Mac OS X and iOS Internals: To the Apple's Core" https://www.amazon.com/Mac-OS-iOS-Internals-Apples/dp/111805...
on “macOS Sonoma 14.4 might break Java on your machine” ↗Apple uses bits and pieces of BSD. macOS is not "FreeBSD". Quoting from Mac OS X and iOS Internals by Jonathan Levin: "On top of Mach, but still an inseparable part of XNU, is the BSD layer. This layer presents a solid and more modern API that provides the POSIX compatibility discussed earlier. The…
on “FreeBSD Journal – 2024/11-12 – Virtualization” ↗Unless you have mastered all editions of Windows Internals, MAC OS X Internals: A Systems Approach, MacOS and iOS Internals, Mac OS X and iOS Internals: To the Apple's Core books. Or having been a former Microsoft or Apple employee working on kernel stuff, then I could eventually value the opinion how fake they happen to be. Yet somehow I get the feeling,…
on “The Helios microkernel” ↗CR3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_register#CR3 Some relevant excerpts from Mac OS X and iOS Internals: To the Apple's Core by Jonathan Levi: From page 133: In 64-bit mode, there is such a huge amount of memory available anyway that it makes sense to follow the model used in other operating systems, namely…
on “OS X 10.10.5 kernel local privilege escalation” ↗http://newosxbook.com/home.html for the lazy :) They are an updated and much expanded version of "Mac OS X and iOS Internals: To the Apple′s Core" by the same author. Which in turn was an updated version of "MAC OS X Internals: A Systems Approach" by Amit Singh.
on “macOS Internals” ↗