Software

An optimized version of the OS X operating system (without unnecessary components) runs on the iPhone, although differences between the operating system running on Macs and the iPhone have not been officially explained in detail. The iPhone's version of OS X includes the software component "Core Animation" from Mac OS X v10.5 which is responsible for the smooth animations used in its user interface. The operating system takes up considerably less than half a GB of the device's total 8 GB storage.It will be capable of supporting bundled and future applications from Apple.

The iPhone is managed with iTunes version 7.3 or later, which is compatible with Mac OS X version 10.4.10 or later, and 32-bit Windows XP or Vista.

The iPhone's CPU is an ARM-based processor instead of the x86 and PowerPC processors used in Apple's computers. This means applications can not simply be copied from Mac OS X and have to be written and compiled specifically for the iPhone. Additionally, the Safari web browser supports web applications written with AJAX, which, by design, are platform agnostic applications.