Mac OS X and iOS Internals: To the Apple's Core

So I've got an entire bookshelf dedicated to lower level software books and this is by far the most versatile and most information packed. It is incredibly terse and comprehensive. I can see anyone from just an average user that wants to learn about macs to a senior developer who has much experience in c and even objective c but not necessarily the inner workings of Darwin find a lot of use from this book. I have not finished it yet (its almost 1000 pages) but I have already learned enough to fill 10 buckets. What I also love is how it refers to other books that go far more in depth on each topic. So yes in a sense this book is comprised of summaries but they still go in depth enough for one to understand the gist of whats going on. I can say from the start that the chapter on EFI is pretty phenomenal and that coupled with all the information on the mach architecture has taught me an incredible amount. Overall if you are interested in learning about macs and how they work, or are a programmer and want to learn how to take advantage of some lower level stuff or if you're more in the hacker field and enjoy seeing how things work under the hood and how you can manipulate them to your advantage (me) you will definitely enjoy this book.

Really well made book; started it now but it has ton of info about OSX and iOS. If you are a regular user, this book is a waste of time, but if you work on hardware, software or you want to learn the inner mechanics of this operating system, this book will guide you trough the ton of info that nobody tells you about. I have serious problems to understand the official docs from Apple; when I am able to find what I need of course...and this book resolve both issues. It will guide you trough the various applications running on the system, telling you what they do, then you will get your feet wet working on terminal, getting info about the kernel, Mach and the underlying structure of the OS, where each specific layer is explained. If you do kernel programming work, this book is a bible. IF you are a beginner, this book will tell you what is going on when you run your app on iOS or OSX, using Xcode, or how to manipulate some inner mechanism of the system. Do yourself a favor and read this book; it is for Mac/iOS developers, the equivalent of what the K&R book is, for C programmers.

One of the few books available on this subject. Well written but would have loved some more examples.

Doing iOS and Mac OSX security research becomes pretty hairy with the mountain of code and nature of objective-c and ARM. This book provides a reference that has just simply not been available in any other book. Our mobile penetration testers at Fortify are all reading this release right now and signing it's praises. We look forward to it aiding our automation efforts in identification of security vulnerabilities of iOS code. Also, the new command line tools and descriptions of them alone are worth the book cost.

This book assumes readers are experienced programmers and knowledge about operating systems. Almost terminologies and common modern OS's concepts are skipped, so fasten your seat belt. The book is a great reference and story teller. It did a good job to delivery the idea, concepts, standards and implementations of OS X and iOS (though can't be very detail, if every single detail is covered then each part, say file systems, already needs a book of that number of pages).

This book is a must have, if you want to get an inside look at OS X. I have been doing IT work professionally for ten years, and I learned a tremendous amount from reading this book. Apple doesn't always have the best documentation, and often you have to sift through mountains of developer docs–this book makes it easier to get into the details!

This book contains substantial information about Apple OS's but also has some problems that diminish its value. First, it has too many typographical, spelling, and grammatical errors. This is common to Wrox books and I have to assume that the publisher doesn't bother with using a copy editor. Second, it suffers from factual errors. This is also common with Wrox books. Technical books like this would be served by a technical editorial review. Finally, it often suffers from a lack of explanatory detail. The blame for this is largely Apple's with their secretive ways. I find long passages that are either line-by-line descriptions of source code or (worse) multi-page copies of the code itself. If I wanted that level of detail I could read the source myself. (The code in question is open source--something I learned to my amazement from reading this book.). What's missing is analysis of why the code is doing what it's doing. What's also missing of course is any description of the vast majority of the code that is closed source. For those portions of the system the author relies on hacking and reverse engineering. I'm not saying the book is worthless. I did learn from it. But I found it endlessly frustrating as well. Blame Apple for the secrecy of the technology, but the editorial sloppiness has no excuse. UPDATE: I've received multiple comments on this review on my personal blog. The comments center around (1) 2 stars in unfairly low and (2) I should give more concrete examples of the errors I criticize. I can see the merit of both arguments. As for point (1) I have changed the number of stars from 2 to 3. As for (2) I would have to go back and re-read significant portions of the book in order to locate such examples, which I just don't have the time to do right now.

Great source of information during IT Class. Quality, in-depth information...very helpful. Recommend to anyone who want to learn the ins & outs of OS X & iOS.

As the author states in the Introduction: “This book aims to do for XNU what Bovet & Cesati's Understanding the Linux Kernel does for Linux, and Russinovich's Windows Internals does for Windows.” Knowing only the latter book, I would say that authors intention have been perfectly fulfilled. For those, which also knows Russinovich's and Solomon's standard work enough said. For those others: The author understands his matter. He not only describes, but also make understand. To make a picture, the potentially reader should go to [...]. There he can read the Contents of the book and also download a full text of ( very important ) chapter 4. There are also some little tools ( with source code ) for delving deeper into OS X and iOS. Giving the tempo with which operating systems evolve, the book is pretty actual ( Lion ). You have not to read it from page first to page last, but you will be often happy to have it in the bookshelf. And you have not to be an expert in C or Assembler to profit from it ( although having some elementary knowledge of C would enlarge the pleasure ).

There was only one book which gave insight Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach , believe me its awesome, the only drawback, it was written at the time when Mac OS X was migrating from PPC to Intel. Fundamentally it was good but things have changed. After a very long gap Jonathan Levin came up with this marvel. Any one who is interested to know about Mac OS X under the hood should get a copy. Warning ---- this book in not for someone who started programming yesterday, neither its administrative guide nor for Application programmer. If you have an ITCH to KNOW the BUY IT, and please buy BOTH of them.

Required reading if you do any OSX kernel development.

Yes that is what you need to know about low level development on a C/C++ level of coding. Thats for me ... but maybe not for others. Apple want to hide this all under a swift layer. But this only works limited and if you never want to get cross platform.

solved the purpose.