OS X

I just issued a refund to a customer who bought SpamSieve under the assumption that it would run on his iPhone. This was not an unreasonable assumption. Apple has been advertising the fact that the iPhone runs OS X, and to the average user this is indistinguishable from “Mac OS X.” Plus, the iPhone runs “Safari,” which everyone knows is a Mac program, not to mention “Mail.” And while the iPhone was once derided as a closed platform, Steve Jobs made headlines for announcing at WWDC that Apple now had a way for developers to “create applications for mobile devices.” Microsoft is at least clear that its handheld OS is “Windows Mobile” and that it runs “Office Mobile.” Under the hood, the iPhone apps are called “MobileSafari” and “MobileMail,” but in its public copy Apple eschews the modifier. I don’t think Apple is trying to mislead, but the generic names coupled with the constant emphasis on how the iPhone contains “the full Safari engine” and lets you access “the real Internet” is confusing people.