Apple is becoming more and more secretive about its Mac operating system: an analysis of the system files of different versions of macOS released over the past five years shows a clear shift towards private frameworks. Their number has more than doubled to 245 percent, while the number of public infrastructure has also increased, but only by 147 percent.
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Apple blogger Howard Oakley It is for evaluation So-called bundles are counted in the /System/Library folder. Their views range from macOS 10.14 Mojave to the current version 15.2 (macOS Sequoia). Bundles are directories that look like a single file when viewed in the Finder. They contain help files for programs, but also images and icons, configuration and sound files.
What differentiates private from public infrastructure?
Public frameworks are also accessible to other developers in the form of official programming interfaces (APIs). These are usually announced by Apple when new operating system versions are presented at the WWDC developer conference. An example is the Accelerate Framework, which provides mathematical functions for media processing.
Private frameworks are only for internal use by Apple in its own apps. For example, anyone who still uses it as an external developer cannot submit their app to Apple’s App Store. In most cases, the exact functions of private frameworks are not publicly documented or are documented only to a limited extent. There are about 123 private frameworks for the voice assistant Siri, but there is only one public framework called SiriKit that other developers can use.
The cause remains unclear
According to Oakley’s analysis, the current macOS version has 400 public and 2,154 private frameworks. For comparison: macOS 10.14.5 had 273 public and 878 private frameworks. The largest increase in the ratio of private to public settings occurred with macOS Monterey (12.0.1).
It’s not clear why Apple is relying more and more on private frameworks. As Oakley notes, many of the features included are not necessarily of use or interest to third parties. Nevertheless, the evolution of operating systems may be related to other observations, such as the extent to which Apple publishes program code as open source. Oakley gives the example of the Apple file system APFS, which Mac makers still have difficulty documenting publicly.
Possible reasons for separation
The higher proportion of private frameworks indicates that Apple wants to keep more functionality under direct control. For example, this may be for security reasons to protect sensitive system functions from unsafe use. But it could also be Apple’s economic isolation to maintain control over its own platform.
Perhaps practical reasons also play a role in the decision to move more functions to private structures. Particularly in recent years, Apple has repeatedly faced criticism of its software quality, which observers of the company have linked to the many platforms for which Apple’s developers release new software. As a result, in many cases the code and functions cannot meet the high demands placed on the public framework. Furthermore, Apple doesn’t have to worry as much about backward compatibility issues with private frameworks.
(MKI)
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